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As someone who's been involved in both building and integrating billing systems, I can say you speak from a position of blissful ignorance. Building the system

As someone who's been involved in both building and integrating billing systems, I can say you speak from a position of blissful ignorance. Building the system always looks easy, and on day 1, it really is. It also guarantees you'll spend many hours with your Finance Director explaining why the reports you send them are complete garbage; many hours with your Support team explaining why your invoicing failed, why you charged incorrect subscription prices, any many more fun edge cases you never knew existed. Next up, regulations change that you need to adapt to, or maybe your chosen gateway doesn't support a growing region. And before you say "just build it better," remember: that's also time. Time not spent on your product, improving your pricing model (oh, you need to build that yourself, too, of course), or any number of things you want to do that actually grow your business instead of standing still.

regularfry 3y ago
> As someone who's been involved in both building and integrating billing systems, I can say you speak from a position of blissful ignorance. As someone who has worked on exactly the same billing code and running system as the GP, I can say that you have dramatically underestimated their experience in this area.
- scott_w 3y ago
  >>> Sure after the first year you will probably have a bunch of manual work to do and your accountants will tell you the dumb stuff you've done, and you'll learn a lot about accounting :) > I can say that you have dramatically underestimated their experience in this area. No, I really haven't.
  - mattbee 3y ago
    I'm not going to join the willy-waving but I truly did spend a lot of time building a completely custom billing system! Lots of monthly subscriptions, per-unit billing, pricing changes, tax changes. We added complexity as the business grew, and it was an integrated part of the hosting service that we sold. I'm not saying it's for every company and every product, but for a bootstrapped British company in 2004 it wasn't even a question, there was nothing to buy. That experience might colour my opinion that it's easier than it appears, or that you can get away with a lot less than SaaS billing solutions provide.
    - scott_w 3y ago
      > for a bootstrapped British company in 2004 it wasn't even a question, there was nothing to buy. So that's context I didn't have and it makes a lot of sense for 2004. I wouldn't apply this to 2024 any more than I'd apply my old boss's lessons about dBase to modern database design. > I truly did spend a lot of time This is the core of the issue. If I were starting a business in 2024, I'd say "stick Stripe Billing on it" and "spend a lot of time" on things my customers care about instead. The reality of building your own billing system is that you have to learn about all the things we both mentioned above and, as your business grows, start praying that the team you have working on it also learn those things. Otherwise you end up with the problems I mentioned (and I know this because I inherited these problems from my predecessors).
fatnoah 3y ago
My very first startup (early 2000's) was a SaaS billing platform. It was acquired long ago, but I've yet to work on any system that approached that level of complexity. Ignoring all of the challenges of taxes and such, things rapidly scale in complexity as soon as one needs some level of flexibility. For simple cases where entitlements are limited and the billing is generic, I think it's fine to built it yourself as long as you're aware of the time and cost of doing so vs. buying it. As others have said, time spent on building billing is time NOT spent on building products.

regularfry 3y ago

> As someone who's been involved in both building and integrating billing systems, I can say you speak from a position of blissful ignorance. As someone who has worked on exactly the same billing code and running system as the GP, I can say that you have dramatically underestimated their experience in this area.

scott_w 3y ago
>>> Sure after the first year you will probably have a bunch of manual work to do and your accountants will tell you the dumb stuff you've done, and you'll learn a lot about accounting :) > I can say that you have dramatically underestimated their experience in this area. No, I really haven't.
- mattbee 3y ago
  I'm not going to join the willy-waving but I truly did spend a lot of time building a completely custom billing system! Lots of monthly subscriptions, per-unit billing, pricing changes, tax changes. We added complexity as the business grew, and it was an integrated part of the hosting service that we sold. I'm not saying it's for every company and every product, but for a bootstrapped British company in 2004 it wasn't even a question, there was nothing to buy. That experience might colour my opinion that it's easier than it appears, or that you can get away with a lot less than SaaS billing solutions provide.
  - scott_w 3y ago
    > for a bootstrapped British company in 2004 it wasn't even a question, there was nothing to buy. So that's context I didn't have and it makes a lot of sense for 2004. I wouldn't apply this to 2024 any more than I'd apply my old boss's lessons about dBase to modern database design. > I truly did spend a lot of time This is the core of the issue. If I were starting a business in 2024, I'd say "stick Stripe Billing on it" and "spend a lot of time" on things my customers care about instead. The reality of building your own billing system is that you have to learn about all the things we both mentioned above and, as your business grows, start praying that the team you have working on it also learn those things. Otherwise you end up with the problems I mentioned (and I know this because I inherited these problems from my predecessors).

fatnoah 3y ago

My very first startup (early 2000's) was a SaaS billing platform. It was acquired long ago, but I've yet to work on any system that approached that level of complexity. Ignoring all of the challenges of taxes and such, things rapidly scale in complexity as soon as one needs some level of flexibility. For simple cases where entitlements are limited and the billing is generic, I think it's fine to built it yourself as long as you're aware of the time and cost of doing so vs. buying it. As others have said, time spent on building billing is time NOT spent on building products.