# πŸ€– Pricing bands β€” global pricing that subsidises, never interrogates Design doc, 2026-07-14. Status: **designed, not built.** Companion docs: `docs/free-pool.md` (what the Supporter band funds), `docs/demo-spaces.md`, `docs/tier-economics.md` (the cost-anchored base prices this doc multiplies). Decisions in this doc were made by Paul 2026-07-14; legal findings are research summaries, not legal advice β€” a human legal review gates Phase 1. ## The design in one sentence > **Location suggests, never decides.** Every buyer sees the same four > prices; the only thing geography ever does is choose which one is > *pre-selected* β€” and stepping to any other band is one tap, no questions > asked, in both directions, with a sentence explaining what the step means. This single choice is simultaneously the honor mechanism ("click a link, get the lower price, instantly"), what makes VPN games pointless without any policing, and the legal defence (Β§ Law). It is what separates this from personalised/surveillance pricing: the countryβ†’band table is public, the suggestion can be computed client-side, and no IP is ever stored. ## The bands Multipliers on the existing EUR base prices, charm-rounded: | Tier | Supporter Γ—1.4 | Base Γ—1.0 | Reduced Γ—0.5 | Solidarity Γ—0.25 | |---|---|---|---|---| | Family (annual) | €7.70/y | €5.50/y | €2.75/y | €1.40/y | | Community (annual, per member) | €0.15/member/y | €0.11/member/y | €0.055/member/y | €0.0275/member/y | | Business (annual, per seat) | €15/person/y | €11/person/y | €5.50/person/y | β€” | Community's €11 minimum needs no row (and no Stripe Price) of its own: the billed quantity floors at 100 members, so each band's minimum is just 100 Γ— its member rate β€” supporter €15, base €11, reduced €5.50, solidarity €2.75. - **Family and C&F prices are VAT-inclusive; Business prices are VAT-exclusive** (decided 2026-07-14) β€” the standard B2C/B2B split: a consumer's €5 means €5 with VAT inside; Business is quoted ex-VAT and tax is added at checkout (or reverse-charged) β€” Β§ VAT below. - **Solidarity is annual-only**: Stripe's fixed ~€0.25/charge makes €1/m fee-hostile (~26% of gross), and annual matches how those buyers think about €10. - **Business went per-seat 2026-07-22** (€11/person/year, annual only β€” `tier-economics.md Β§ Per-seat`): the band multipliers apply per seat, and Solidarity is dropped for Business β€” a solidarity price aimed at hardship-priced *businesses* never quite parsed, and Reduced at €5.50/person covers nonprofits/education cleanly. - **C&F went per-member 2026-07-27** (€0.11/member/year, €11 minimum with the first 100 members included β€” the elevens ladder): monthly billing is gone ladder-wide (the fixed fee would eat it), and the per-member bands ride Stripe's `unit_amount_decimal` β€” fractional cents are exactly what a €0.055/member Reduced rate needs. - **All bands are always visible and any is selectable** β€” adjacent-only stepping was considered and rejected; friction is the enemy of the story. - No band is structurally loss-making while hibernation holds (even Solidarity Family nets ~€1 against a mostly-asleep space's ~€0.2/y storage+noise); the real exposure remains media hoarding, already bounded by tier storage caps. - Validation against revealed practice: Switzerland at 1.4Γ— the euro base is *conservative* (Netflix/Spotify charge CH β‰ˆ1.5–1.65Γ— their German price); Solidarity Γ—0.25 matches Steam's post-2022 India/CIS recommendations and goes a step past the parity movement's 50–60%-off norm β€” because the free pool, not the price, is the real floor here. ## The index and the countryβ†’band table **Primary index: the World Bank price level ratio** (`PA.NUS.PPPC.RF` β€” PPP conversion factor Γ· market exchange rate; ~200 economies, annual, free bulk data). Not an income index: the number needed is *"what multiplier makes €5 feel like €5 there"*, which is literally what a price index measures. The two diverge where it matters β€” the Gulf states and Singapore are rich by income but mid-priced by price level; a price index honestly puts them at Base. - Published vs US = 1.00; **rebased to a GDP-weighted euro-area anchor (~0.73)** so everything reads as a multiplier on the EUR base. - Band edges: β‰₯1.15 β†’ Supporter Β· 0.75–1.15 β†’ Base Β· 0.45–0.75 β†’ Reduced Β· <0.45 β†’ Solidarity. - **Fallback** for countries with no price-level datum (Taiwan, Cuba; stale series): World Bank income classification β€” high β†’ Base, upper-middle β†’ Reduced, low/lower-middle β†’ Solidarity; neither datum β†’ Base. The honor picker bounds the harm of any wrong default. - **Decided placements (2026-07-14):** **United States β†’ Supporter Γ—1.4** (the index says 1.37; the one-tap step down is the escape hatch β€” this is the boldest call in the scheme and the band-mix telemetry below is how we check it). Band-edge UK (~1.16) and Canada (~1.15) β†’ **Base**; revisit at the annual table regeneration. EU/EEA β†’ Base *by law*, Switzerland β†’ suggestion-only Supporter (Β§ Law). **The index never touches runtime code.** A small committed tool (`tools/pricing-bands.mjs`, human-legible) reads a vendored CSV of the index and emits a committed, reviewable countryβ†’band JSON table with the index name and vintage in a header (`"index": "wb-pli-2024"`). Swapping the index = regenerate from a different CSV, read the diff, commit. Regenerate annually; band *reassignments* reach existing subscribers only through the annual review (Β§ The 15% cap), which >15% jumps turn into hold+invite by construction. The table is public information β€” serve it on the pricing page; publishing it *is* the transparency story. ## Law (the part that shaped the design) - **EU Geo-blocking Regulation 2018/302** (electronically supplied services β€” hosting is squarely in scope): a trader may not *apply* different prices by reason of the customer's residence, but is free to *offer* different country price lists that anyone can access. Therefore: **one uniform EU/EEA default (Base)** β€” Denmark/Luxembourg/Norway/Iceland forgo their index-justified premium; the voluntary step-up remains available to them. - **Switzerland** has its own geo-price-discrimination ban (UCA Art. 3a, in force 2022, from the Fair Price Initiative; civil enforcement only). A *hard* Swiss surcharge would sit inside its text; a pre-selected suggestion any Swiss customer can decline in one tap for the same product arguably discriminates against no one. The Swiss premium ships **suggestion-only** (as everywhere). - The open-band design is the belt *and* braces: inside the EU/EEA the question never arises (uniform default); everywhere else, every price being openly offered to every customer with no eligibility test is the defence. - Consumer transparency: EU rules require the total, VAT-inclusive price before purchase β€” Β§ VAT below β€” and the one-line band explanations double as the required transparency. **Sub-national pricing ("wealthier part of a country") β€” never as detection** (decided): no precedent exists for residence-based sub-national digital pricing; region-level IP geolocation is 55–80% accurate and exactly the interrogation this product refuses. The honor picker already solves it per-person, more accurately than any geo-database could β€” say so on the pricing page. ## The picker (the honor mechanism, concretely) 1. The plan picker shows the tier as today, with a **band row** beneath: four prices, one pre-selected. Pre-selection: geo-suggestion (Phase 1, CDN country header, evaluated in the page, never stored) for non-EU/EEA visitors; otherwise Base. 2. One quiet line under the selection: *"Prices are suggested by country. Pick the one that's right for you β€” no questions asked."* 3. **Deep links** (`…/upgrade?tier=family&band=reduced`) pre-select a band β€” Paul's "click a link, get the lower price, instantly": newsletters, NGO wikis, a friend's message. The server honours whatever band arrives. No check, ever. 4. **Not Stripe promotion codes** (considered, rejected): percent-off coupons persist across Billing Portal plan switches, hide the band from `tierByPrice()` and the ledger, and frame Reduced as a deal off *your* price when it is simply *the* price for that band. **Separate Price IDs per band** are architecturally native β€” the price book already maps priceβ†’tier; it grows one dimension. ### Local-currency display before checkout (added 2026-07-14) Show every picker price with an approximate local figure β€” *"€7/year (β‰ˆ $8.20)"* β€” **before** the buyer reaches Stripe: - **Display-only conversion.** Billing stays EUR (the tier-economics EUR-settlement stance). The local figure is an estimate and is labelled: *"billed in euros β€” β‰ˆ shown in your currency at today's rate."* - **Rates:** ECB daily reference rates (~30 currencies, free, no key). The home service fetches once daily and serves a tiny cached JSON alongside the price book, with the last-good snapshot as fallback β€” the client never talks to a third party (CSP stays pinned). - **Currency choice comes from the browser locale** (`Intl.NumberFormat` / `navigator.language`), not IP β€” privacy-consistent, works offline-ish, and a small currency override sits next to the figure. Nothing is stored. - **Later, optional (Phase 3):** true multi-currency *charging* via Stripe `currency_options` (one amount per currency, charm-rounded, curated annually) β€” only if EUR-billing measurably hurts non-EU conversion. Note `currency_options` cannot express bands *inside* a currency β€” one amount per currency per Price β€” which is exactly why bands are separate Prices and currency presentment is an independent layer on top. Stripe's Adaptive Pricing was evaluated and rejected: it is FX localisation with a 2–4% customer-paid conversion fee, not PPP adjustment, and the hidden fee is off-brand. ## The +15% annual review cap (Paul's pricing promise) **The rule:** every live price β€” monthly or annual billing alike β€” is reviewed once a year (anchored to the subscription anniversary, so reviews stagger naturally); silent renewal can carry at most **+15%**; anything larger requires an explicit opt-in to a new subscription. The cap is **the sole propagation channel**: index updates, band reassignments, FX drift, and base-price changes reach existing subscribers only through reviews. New customers always pay the current table. Stripe grandfathers by default (a subscription renews on *its* Price until updated), so "current table" (the env price book) and "your price" (the subscription's Price id) separate cleanly; the ledger gains a pending-review notice (space id, from-price, to-price, effective date, consent-required flag). The review sweep, per subscription: - **Current ≀ subscribed** β†’ schedule the decrease at next renewal. Unconditional, no ceremony, message it proudly. (The asymmetry β€” decreases automatic, increases capped/consented β€” is deliberately public: German and Italian courts voided Netflix's and Spotify's adjustment clauses partly for being increase-only. Symmetry is the cure.) - **Gap ≀ 15%** β†’ schedule the increase at next renewal with in-product notice and an easy cancel/step-down path. - **Gap > 15%** β†’ **hold + invite** (decided): no silent change, no compounding 15-15-15 ladder; the subscriber stays on the old price until they affirmatively opt in to the current table (or a lower band). - Discipline: the silent path only ever moves a subscription onto an *existing catalog Price* (current or `"retired": true` vintages kept in the price book) β€” never bespoke per-cohort amounts chasing "exactly +15%", which would explode the book and break `tierByPrice()` legibility. **Honor-band subscribers track their own band's price** β€” Reduced is band C's real price, not a discount off band A β€” so there is no mechanism by which an honor price silently walks back up: a band reassignment is >15% by construction, hence always hold+invite. The invite surface may gently show the suggested band ("You're welcome on the reduced price as long as you need it β€” the suggested price for your country is €5"), keeping the social contract visible without enforcing it. **Notice without email** (accounts are anonymous passkeys; Checkout collects no email β€” verify nothing downstream assumes one): notices land in-product β€” (1) an inline row on the home page where Upgrade/Manage live ("Renews 12 Aug at €5.75 β€” review / change / cancel"), (2) the space's Admin-app update stream + admin push (the announce.go channel), (3) Eleven can explain any price from the public band table. "Explicit opt-in" = an authenticated affirmative act on the home page (same ownership gate as checkout), recorded in the ledger, then executed as a Stripe subscription update (never cancel+recreate β€” preserves the customer object, anniversary, and ledger row). Mechanics: plain subscription update with `proration_behavior=none` near renewal; `invoice.upcoming` webhook as the notice trigger. Regulatory shape-check: Ofcom's 2025 rule (in-contract rises must be disclosed in pounds-and-pence at point of sale) says state the cap **in euros on the picker** β€” "Family: never more than €0.75/yr more at renewal without your say-so" β€” not as a bare percentage. The terms need a transparent variation clause encoding cap + cadence + index reference + symmetric downside + cancel-anytime, drafted by a human lawyer before Phase 2 ships. ## Stripe implementation **11 Prices** (nominally 3 tiers Γ— 4 bands, minus Business's solidarity β€” the elevens ladder, annual-only throughout), minted by the committed tool `tools/stripe-band-prices.mjs` β€” its `BAND_TABLE` is this doc's matrix as code, reviewed like any diff. The operator runs it from their own terminal (sandbox key first, then live; the key never transits a session): ```sh STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_… node tools/stripe-band-prices.mjs --book current.json # dry-run STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_… node tools/stripe-band-prices.mjs --book current.json --apply ``` It reuses each tier's existing Stripe product where the current book has one (subscriber history stays put), creates every missing ladder Price β€” base and bands β€” idempotently (lookup keys `eleven11--`; re-runs create nothing; the old `eleven-*` prices stay untouched for lapsing subscribers), and prints the complete new price book β€” sealed into `/data/cloud.env` via the operator env flow. Per-unit tiers ride `unit_amount_decimal`, and the book carries the flags the cloud already understands (`per_seat`, `min_seats`, `business`): ```json [{"key":"family","name":"Family", "label":"€5.50/year","price":"price_baseFam", "eur":5.5,"net_eur_year":5.168, "bands":{ "supporter":{"label":"€7.70/year","price":"price_supFam","eur":7.7,"net_eur_year":7.335}, "reduced":{"label":"€2.75/year","price":"price_redFam","eur":2.75,"net_eur_year":2.459}, "solidarity":{"label":"€1.40/year","price":"price_solFam","eur":1.4,"net_eur_year":1.129}}}, {"key":"community","name":"Community & Friends", "label":"€0.11/member/year","price":"price_baseCom", "eur":0.11,"net_eur_year":0.108,"per_seat":true,"min_seats":100, "bands":{"…":"…"}}] ``` (`net_eur_year` is the free pool's revenue input β€” see `docs/free-pool.md`.) Touch points: - `checkoutHandler`: optional `band` param (default `base`), resolve `tier.bands[band].price`, stamp `metadata[band]`. Ownership gates, no-customer-identity, webhook routing: unchanged. - Webhook: `tierByPrice` β†’ `tierBandByPrice` (still a flat scan over a few dozen rows); the ledger records the band. - Billing Portal: four per-band portal configurations (portals are minted per-session, so the cloud picks the customer's band's config); band *changes* go through the home surface, which can message them β€” never the portal. - Telemetry that respects the ethos: band mix by month from the ledger β€” no per-user tracking β€” is how the US-at-Γ—1.4 call gets checked. ### VAT β€” Stripe Tax (decided: enable; consumer-inclusive, Business-exclusive) Today nothing sets `automatic_tax`; the EUR figure is charged as-is and VAT is implicit. With bands multiplying the price book, this gets fixed properly. **The split (decided 2026-07-14): Family and C&F prices are VAT-inclusive; Business prices are VAT-exclusive** β€” the standard B2C/B2B convention. - **Code (this repo):** set `automatic_tax[enabled]=true` on Checkout Sessions. **Family/C&F Prices** are created with `tax_behavior=inclusive` β€” labels stay the total price (€5 means €5, VAT inside, satisfying EU price-indication rules) and net revenue varies by buyer country (VAT 17–27% comes out of the sticker). **Business Prices** are created with `tax_behavior=exclusive` β€” the sticker is ex-VAT, tax is added at checkout, and Business checkout enables `tax_id_collection` so an EU business with a valid VAT ID gets the **reverse charge** (no VAT collected, they self-account). Picker labels for Business carry "excl. VAT" wherever the price appears. Portal configs follow the same behaviors. - **Bookkeeping:** consumer-tier `net_eur_year` figures become net-of-VAT approximations across buyer countries (the free pool tolerates that comfortably); Business `net_eur_year` is *more* stable than today β€” €11/seat is €11/seat regardless of buyer country (per-seat since 2026-07-22, so the pool input scales it by the billed seats). - **Caveat:** ex-VAT display is standard for business-directed offers (Slack/Notion-style), but EU price-indication rules technically demand consumer-facing totals be inclusive β€” so the Business tier should present as business-directed (it already does), show "excl. VAT" adjacent to every price, and Checkout shows the final total before payment. Include in the Phase 1 legal review. - **Dashboard (operator β€” Paul):** two places. *Settings β†’ Tax* (dashboard.stripe.com/settings/tax): origin address + defaults β€” note the "Include tax in prices" default (Automatic/Yes/No) is **superseded by our explicit per-Price `tax_behavior`**, so its value doesn't matter once the 20 Prices exist; its Automatic mode (currency-based: USD/CAD exclusive, EUR inclusive) is *not* our inclusive/exclusive split, which is per-tier, not per-currency. *Tax β†’ Registrations* (dashboard.stripe.com/tax/registrations): **the load-bearing step** β€” Stripe Tax only calculates where a registration is added and merely monitors thresholds elsewhere. Needed eventually: the home-country VAT registration + the **EU OSS (Union scheme)**, plus others as the monitoring tab flags obligations. These are account-level actions the code cannot and should not do β€” and until the code opts in (`automatic_tax[enabled]=true` per session), a configured dashboard still changes nothing at checkout. **Registrations are deferred (Paul, 2026-07-14).** Phase 0 ships without them and behaves gracefully: with zero registrations Stripe Tax calculates €0 everywhere, so inclusive prices are unchanged for the buyer and Business checkouts add nothing yet β€” the plumbing (per-Price `tax_behavior`, `automatic_tax`, `tax_id_collection`) is all in place, and adding a registration later activates it with no code change. Stripe Tax's threshold-monitoring tab is the revisit trigger (note: monitoring tracks configuration, not obligation β€” whether an obligation already exists today is an accountant question, not a dashboard one). - Existing subscriptions keep their current Prices; the new tax behaviors apply as new Prices roll through checkout and reviews. ## Messaging (drafts, not final copy β€” lock-and-key voice) The canonical cross-subsidy line (decided, aggregate form only): > **"Paying supports free spaces for those who can't."** - **Supporter:** "This is the supporter price for Switzerland. Paying supports free spaces for those who can't β€” the difference doesn't go to us, it goes to the free pool. If it's not right for you, pick the standard price β€” no questions asked." - **Base:** "The standard price. It covers your space's costs with margin for resilience β€” the books are public." - **Reduced / Solidarity:** "You're on the reduced price, carried by supporters. It's yours as long as you need it." Never "discount", never "eligible", never a country name on this side. - **The cap, everywhere prices appear:** "Reviewed once a year. Never up more than 15% β€” for Family, at most €0.75 β€” never onto a new plan without your explicit yes. Down happens by itself." - Never a per-space "your €7 funds N spaces" claim (decided): the aggregate pool gauge ("paid spaces fund the free pool MΓ— over") is the verifiable form. Precedent says transparent cross-subsidy works with an anchor, a chosen default, and visible reciprocity (Guardian, solidarity tickets) and backfires when hidden or anchorless (Amazon 2000, Panera) β€” this design keeps the standard-price tap in the same glance as the supporter ask. ## Phasing - **Phase 0 β€” bands, pure honor, no geolocation.** The 19 Prices; price-book `bands` + `net_eur_year`; `tierBandByPrice`; checkout `band` param; picker with all four bands, Base pre-selected for everyone; deep-link band param; local-currency β‰ˆ display (ECB rates via home); Stripe Tax (code + dashboard runbook above). Legally inert everywhere β€” it's four prices β€” and already delivers "anyone, anywhere, one click to the lower price" plus the supporter story. Measure band mix. *Built (code side): the cloud rails (book/checkout/ledger/tax knob), the home picker + deep links + β‰ˆ display, and the minting tool. What remains is operational: run the tool (sandbox, then live), seal the new book into the vault, and flip `LCHAT_STRIPE_AUTOMATIC_TAX=1` with it β€” everything renders as today until the book carries bands.* - **Phase 1 β€” geo-suggested defaults.** Commit `tools/pricing-bands.mjs` + the countryβ†’band table; pre-select by CDN country header (client-side, never stored); EU/EEA pinned to Base; publish the table on the pricing page. **Human legal review gates this phase.** - **Phase 2 β€” the annual review machinery.** Ledger review/consent fields; the sweep; home inline notices + admin announce; decreases automatic, ≀15% with notice, >15% hold+invite; terms variation clause (lawyer). - **Phase 3 β€” optional refinements:** true multi-currency charging via `currency_options` (only if EUR-billing measurably hurts conversion); annual index refresh cadence (Phase 2 already absorbs band moves); free-pool gauge coupling on the pricing page. - **Never:** sub-national pricing as detection; promotion-code discounts; Adaptive Pricing's customer-paid FX fee.