[kmoser]

> I want to say upfront - we've never pursued these invoices.

At first glance that sounds admirable, but the flipside is that it implies Blacksmith knows they're being shady: if you know you're not going to pursue it, why did you invoice the customer in the first place? This sounds less like you're forgiving a charity case and more like you're waiving an invoice because the customer identified it as unethical to begin with.

[greg-m]

Hey there -

I partially disagree! We issue an invoice because the customer did consume the services - a lot of folks appreciate that, since it gives their AP team a real cost to work from instead of a ballpark of us vs. GitHub.

My "we never pursue these" comment wasn't about us knowing the charge was shady - it was to clarify we have no strategy of chasing people/litigating over invoices they weren't aware of, which came up a bunch in the thread.

I do agree that pushing surprised customers through a support ticket is wrong, and that our in-product language compounded that issue. Controlling this belongs in the product so we can hit the mark on trust - we're building that now.

This isn't shady for most folks, since they're typically comparing us to known, expensive alternative. For those who are surprised by their spend (which given GHA's upper-bound pricing has been a minority) our reconciliation flow was for them to contact support, and my comment was to clarify that we don't have an intentional strategy to pursue folks for invoices they weren't aware of. It's clear to me that controlling this behavior belongs in the product so we can hit the mark on trust - we're working on adding that now.

[watermelon0]

Do you plan to refund all previous free trial customers, who didn't contact the support, and actually paid unexpected overage fees?

Invoices are legally binding documents in many countries, and even if that might not be the case in your country, not everyone might be aware of that fact.

> since it gives their AP team a real cost to work from instead of a ballpark of us vs. GitHub

Same could be achieved by showing the real cost in the web app and/or sending a report via email, without scaring them away, and possibly _extorting_ them.

[gblargg]

The terms state

> Alternatively, for larger contracts, You may request to be billed via invoice.

> By providing payment information, You authorize us to charge Your credit card for usage fees or, in the case of invoice-based contracts, agree to make timely payments as specified in the invoicing terms.

And at the top there's a Try For Free button that says no credit card is required. This strongly communicates that this free trial won't incur any costs until you add a card or agree to be billed via invoice.

A simple change of the text would make people a lot less surprised. Warn them that if they go over they will be billed. In the bill clarify at the top that they don't actually have to pay if they don't want to.

[greg-m]

Agreed - we've made this copy change to the free usage email now, and the change to add a toggle for preventing runs when you run out of credits is going through CI.