10 ms·

GroupMe: Split the Bill

41 points by googletron 14y ago

anthonycerra 14y ago
Just a data point from one person's experiences: I feel like check splitting is always a bigger problem for the restaurant/server than it is for the people paying. All the customers need to do is pull out a credit card. It's the server that actually has to split the bill and you can always see the discomfort on his/her face when you ask them to split it AFTER they give you the check. Just let them know before ordering that you'll be needing separate checks. The example on the site seems like a better use case, but the marketing copy "split the bill" immediately makes me think of a restaurant or bar tab which I don't regard as a problem.
- LargeWu 14y ago
  If it's really a persistent problem for servers, maybe they should think about asking themselves in advance of taking the order.
  - OGinparadise 14y ago
    Doesn't work that way, the default method--by far--is one check. So they'd annoy and possibly offend, say, 98 people out of 100 when the 2 or so that are splitting the check can say so before ordering.
kin 14y ago
I eat in large groups often and we only split evenly on occasion. It almost always never happens. To charge per transaction makes this even less useful (to me in particular). I personally find something like Venmo much more practical where one person fronts the bill (and gets rewards/points) while the rest Venmo what they owe on the spot. It's never a fair even split.
bigdubs 14y ago
I love that they're trying this, and it seems to be executed well. My friends and I already use Venmo for bill splitting though, and it works pretty well. Generally I subscribe to the school of thought that each app should do one thing and do it well, and this is sort of unfortunately getting away from that.
mgkimsal 14y ago
Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worked in an office for a while, but cash used to work well (and didn't leave a digital trail of who you're giving money to). Maybe there's some bigger play going on in this market, but it's always felt to me like a solution looking for a problem. EDIT - on the few occasions where I've 'split a bill' with someone out at a bar/club/restaurant, I always feel I get stiffed, because I don't drink alcohol - so getting a $100 bill split 5 ways... well... I just had a $3 pepsi - why the hell do we "split" this equally?
- untog 14y ago
  I don't think anyone has an issue with actually having the money to contribute to the bill. And if everyone is paying by card it's pretty simple, but once you get cash involved giving everyone the right change can be a huge pain. I've had a lot of success using Venmo for this purpose.
  - danvideo 14y ago
    You guys are probably right about the value of this app in a restaurant especially vs. cash or asking servers to split the bill--- however, I think there's a less obvious value for this tool in offices, for example, where people split gifts or cakes or lottery ante-ups together... not everyone might be physically in the office on a given particular day, etc... uh, edit: haven't looked into Venmo, doing so now
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  I feel that. We can be old geezers together. We've had a solution to this "problem" for centuries: cash. If your group is too lazy to ask the server to split the tab 4 ways, what in the world makes you think they're all going to pull out their apps and pay this way? Then there's inevitably someone who doesn't have a smartphone, or doesn't have that app, or doesn't want to sign up for a new payment account, or doesn't like using credit cards online, or whatever. More than a couple times I've been sitting there with people trying to add up their totals, some taking out cash, some taking out cards, arguing over who pays what, and just paid the whole thing and asked them to buy me coffee or a meal or whatever when they can.
lcusack 14y ago
I think this functionality (mobile first, crowd funding / group payments) could quickly become a more important feature than the group texting. Great work.
- xradionut 14y ago
  Really? Is it too hard to ask for separate checks or figure out Basic Dining 101? Call me an old fart, but when I read about apps like this I want to do my Samuel L. Jackson imitation and say; "Arithmetic, m-----f-----, can you figure it?"
albiabia 14y ago
This seems unreasonably expensive. Each contributor gets charged 4% plus $0.99. This makes it very expensive to split a restaurant lunch bill. 8 people chipping in on a $100 check: Even split would be $12.50 per person. With this service it would be $14.00 per person. That's a 12% tax on lunch for everyone but the initiator. This might be useful for bigger purchases, but even then, charging 4% to give money to my friend seems a little ridiculous.
deleted 14y ago
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nayefc 14y ago
This will never work with a 4% fee. Never.
OGinparadise 14y ago
What's the problem that this is solving? Paying friends with credit cards isn't the way to go. Cash, if you don't have this week (it happens) I'll /you'll wait for a week or x weeks. People hang with people with similar values so it's extremely rare for friends to screw friends and when that happens, it happens once.
tiziano88 14y ago
Great functionality, but the 4% fee is way too high, considering we are talking about giving money to a friend.
secabeen 14y ago
The fee is the killer, especially when you're in competition with PayPal's ability to pay friends for no fee when funded through a bank account.
timjahn 14y ago
One of the biggest lessons I've learned building matchist so far (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) is that there is a delicate balance between when my opinion is king and when data is king. In my opinion, GroupMe isn't solving a problem with this feature (for many of the reasons others have commented on here). But I'm assuming GroupMe has a good amount of data proving that this problem exists. I sure hope they do, because in this case, data should absolutely trump their opinion of whether or not this is a problem to be solved.
jmtame 14y ago
Bill sharing has been a hassle for me since I have two roommates, but I've been using Splitwise without any complaints. From the looks of it, this is taking the group SMS approach, which I would find overwhelming. I get e-mails whenever bills are added and that's good enough for me. Nice work on the UI, that was the first thing I noticed.
deleted 14y ago
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davecyen 14y ago
"How much does it cost? Per transaction, contributors will be charged 3.5% on whatever they chip in for a Credit Card Processing Fee. GroupMe charges a .99 convenience fee." They also state that they are using Balanced Payments to process the payments, which charges 2.9% + 30c per payout (and additional 25c per deposit). I'm skeptical that users would even be willing to pay this rate...

41 points by googletron 14y ago

Just a data point from one person's experiences: I feel like check splitting is always a bigger problem for the restaurant/server than it is for the people paying. All the customers need to do is pull out a credit card. It's the server that actually has to split the bill and you can always see the discomfort on his/her face when you ask them to split it AFTER they give you the check. Just let them know before ordering that you'll be needing separate checks. The example on the site seems like a better use case, but the marketing copy "split the bill" immediately makes me think of a restaurant or bar tab which I don't regard as a problem.

LargeWu 14y ago
If it's really a persistent problem for servers, maybe they should think about asking themselves in advance of taking the order.
- OGinparadise 14y ago
  Doesn't work that way, the default method--by far--is one check. So they'd annoy and possibly offend, say, 98 people out of 100 when the 2 or so that are splitting the check can say so before ordering.

kin 14y ago

I eat in large groups often and we only split evenly on occasion. It almost always never happens. To charge per transaction makes this even less useful (to me in particular). I personally find something like Venmo much more practical where one person fronts the bill (and gets rewards/points) while the rest Venmo what they owe on the spot. It's never a fair even split.

bigdubs 14y ago

I love that they're trying this, and it seems to be executed well. My friends and I already use Venmo for bill splitting though, and it works pretty well. Generally I subscribe to the school of thought that each app should do one thing and do it well, and this is sort of unfortunately getting away from that.

mgkimsal 14y ago

Maybe I'm just not as social as other people, but bill splitting and chipping in has never been a problem for me. Ever. On a handful of occasions I've had someone in a group I was in say they were strapped, and I've covered their portion of something. Others have done the same for me. Someone buys lunch for me if I have no cash, I get their lunch next week. Buying a gift in an office for someone? Well, I've not worked in an office for a while, but cash used to work well (and didn't leave a digital trail of who you're giving money to). Maybe there's some bigger play going on in this market, but it's always felt to me like a solution looking for a problem. EDIT - on the few occasions where I've 'split a bill' with someone out at a bar/club/restaurant, I always feel I get stiffed, because I don't drink alcohol - so getting a $100 bill split 5 ways... well... I just had a $3 pepsi - why the hell do we "split" this equally?

untog 14y ago
I don't think anyone has an issue with actually having the money to contribute to the bill. And if everyone is paying by card it's pretty simple, but once you get cash involved giving everyone the right change can be a huge pain. I've had a lot of success using Venmo for this purpose.
- danvideo 14y ago
  You guys are probably right about the value of this app in a restaurant especially vs. cash or asking servers to split the bill--- however, I think there's a less obvious value for this tool in offices, for example, where people split gifts or cakes or lottery ante-ups together... not everyone might be physically in the office on a given particular day, etc... uh, edit: haven't looked into Venmo, doing so now
Domenic_S 14y ago
I feel that. We can be old geezers together. We've had a solution to this "problem" for centuries: cash. If your group is too lazy to ask the server to split the tab 4 ways, what in the world makes you think they're all going to pull out their apps and pay this way? Then there's inevitably someone who doesn't have a smartphone, or doesn't have that app, or doesn't want to sign up for a new payment account, or doesn't like using credit cards online, or whatever. More than a couple times I've been sitting there with people trying to add up their totals, some taking out cash, some taking out cards, arguing over who pays what, and just paid the whole thing and asked them to buy me coffee or a meal or whatever when they can.

lcusack 14y ago

I think this functionality (mobile first, crowd funding / group payments) could quickly become a more important feature than the group texting. Great work.

xradionut 14y ago
Really? Is it too hard to ask for separate checks or figure out Basic Dining 101? Call me an old fart, but when I read about apps like this I want to do my Samuel L. Jackson imitation and say; "Arithmetic, m-----f-----, can you figure it?"

albiabia 14y ago

This seems unreasonably expensive. Each contributor gets charged 4% plus $0.99. This makes it very expensive to split a restaurant lunch bill. 8 people chipping in on a $100 check: Even split would be $12.50 per person. With this service it would be $14.00 per person. That's a 12% tax on lunch for everyone but the initiator. This might be useful for bigger purchases, but even then, charging 4% to give money to my friend seems a little ridiculous.

deleted 14y ago

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nayefc 14y ago

This will never work with a 4% fee. Never.

OGinparadise 14y ago

What's the problem that this is solving? Paying friends with credit cards isn't the way to go. Cash, if you don't have this week (it happens) I'll /you'll wait for a week or x weeks. People hang with people with similar values so it's extremely rare for friends to screw friends and when that happens, it happens once.

tiziano88 14y ago

Great functionality, but the 4% fee is way too high, considering we are talking about giving money to a friend.

secabeen 14y ago

The fee is the killer, especially when you're in competition with PayPal's ability to pay friends for no fee when funded through a bank account.

timjahn 14y ago

One of the biggest lessons I've learned building matchist so far (http://matchist.com/talent http://matchist.com/talent) is that there is a delicate balance between when my opinion is king and when data is king. In my opinion, GroupMe isn't solving a problem with this feature (for many of the reasons others have commented on here). But I'm assuming GroupMe has a good amount of data proving that this problem exists. I sure hope they do, because in this case, data should absolutely trump their opinion of whether or not this is a problem to be solved.

jmtame 14y ago

Bill sharing has been a hassle for me since I have two roommates, but I've been using Splitwise without any complaints. From the looks of it, this is taking the group SMS approach, which I would find overwhelming. I get e-mails whenever bills are added and that's good enough for me. Nice work on the UI, that was the first thing I noticed.

deleted 14y ago

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davecyen 14y ago

"How much does it cost? Per transaction, contributors will be charged 3.5% on whatever they chip in for a Credit Card Processing Fee. GroupMe charges a .99 convenience fee." They also state that they are using Balanced Payments to process the payments, which charges 2.9% + 30c per payout (and additional 25c per deposit). I'm skeptical that users would even be willing to pay this rate...