Challenge

AI-generated text is everywhere now, making its way into commercial websites, corporate reports, SEO articles, and even personal messages. But as powerful as the technology is, the text it creates can sometimes give away its nonhuman origin. Readers may notice an impersonal tone, and digital tools can often identify the use of AI even when humans can’t. Search engines and social media websites can use these tools to crack down on AI content, limiting the usefulness of available generative-AI tools.

Undetectable AI was founded to address these AI growing pains. The company created a tool that organizations and individuals could use to see whether AI-generated text is likely to be flagged and then humanize that writing as needed. By imbuing the writing with more personality, it becomes more appealing to readers and is more likely to pass muster with AI content detectors.

From the start, Undetectable wanted to monetize its platform through subscriptions, which would provide recurring revenue to support the development of new features and products. But the wide range of potential customers complicated Undetectable’s pricing structure: anyone—from an individual drafting a heartfelt email to a corporation improving enterprisewide communications—could use Undetectable to bring a personalized, human voice to AI-generated content. Serving them all would require a range of subscription plans at incremental price points that matched the volume of text each user ran through the platform.

“We had a product that virtually anybody could benefit from, and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t exclude any customer segments, so we needed sophisticated pricing,” said Christian Perry, Undetectable’s CEO and cofounder. “At the same time, we’re a very lean team, so we needed to achieve that with a single developer.”

Undetectable AI needed a payment and billing partner that supported the range of subscription tiers it envisioned, while also providing tools to enable easy upgrades. It also wanted to offer custom pricing for large business users and a range of payment method options. Finally, to serve a global user base, that billing and payment partner also needed to support multiple currencies and simplify tax management.

Solution

Undetectable AI launched with Stripe Billing to manage its subscriptions. Perry had a high opinion of Stripe after partnering with the company for a previous business, and Billing had the flexibility that Undetectable AI needed.

With Billing, Undetectable developed subscription pricing that increased based on the volume of words customers were allowed to run through the platform each month. The company ultimately settled on 10 different tiers that allowed users to humanize between 15,000 and 380,000 words every month, with prices ranging from $14.99 to $209.00 monthly.

Knowing that some customers would use up their word limits before the end of each month, Undetectable wanted to use those instances as subscription-upgrade opportunities. Billing allowed the company to create an early activation program, which gives users the ability to begin a paid subscription with a single click if they run out of credits before the free trial period has ended. And when paid users run out of credits in a given month, they receive an on-screen prompt to upgrade their plan to the next tier. Similarly, customers receive a prompt to activate a paid subscription to continue using Undetectable AI after they’ve run through their free trial credits. “That’s something that just can’t be done with other providers. For our business model, it’s a must-have,” said Perry.

For custom pricing, Undetectable added Stripe Invoicing to offer large business users bulk credits that don’t expire at the end of each month and to charge companies to incorporate Undetectable’s AI-humanizing tool into their own offerings.

In creating the checkout experience for its customers, the Optimized Checkout Suite gave Undetectable access to Stripe Checkout, a prebuilt payment form embedded directly into its site, and allowed the company to accept a range of payment methods and currencies with no coding required. To tailor the payment experience to each of Undetectable’s customers, AI models built into the Optimized Checkout Suite determine which payment methods to display, and in what order, for each individual checkout.

In addition to credit cards, Undetectable activated eight payment methods, including Apple Pay and Google Pay; two globally popular digital wallets; and Link, a wallet by Stripe, for a quick, easy experience. With Link, Undetectable’s customers can use Instant Bank Payments to pay directly from a bank account with instant confirmation and quicker settlement than ACH Direct Debit offers.

To further support Undetectable’s global operations, the company implemented Stripe Tax, which calculates, collects, and reports tax on transactions from Undetectable users anywhere in the world.

Results

Most invoices are paid within two days

Since implementing Stripe Invoicing, Undetectable has been receiving payments more quickly, improving cash flow. Invoices to large business users are usually paid within two days.

One developer and one finance team member manage billing for 18 million users

With Stripe’s ease of integration, streamlined products, automation options, and no-code Dashboard, Undetectable has grown the company’s user base to more than 18 million with just one developer and one finance team member handling billing.

Perry estimates that without Stripe, Undetectable would need four times the workforce to manage its billing and finance operations. That represents a savings of more than $20,000 a month.

Optimizing with Stripe contributes to a 48% increase in gross profits

Stripe’s wide range of accepted payment methods and free trial functionality have helped Undetectable increase conversion. Automatic retries of failed payments have improved revenue recovery. The ability to offer granular subscription tiers and prompt users to upgrade their subscriptions as needed ensures that Undetectable is seizing as many conversion and upsell opportunities as possible. Activating more than 100 local currencies at once has allowed the company to grow its customer base organically as demand arose from users paying in new currencies—such as Philippine pesos and Indian rupees—contributing to a 48% growth in gross profits and a 210% growth in gross volume over the last 12 months.

48% percent of purchases go through Link

Nearly half of Undetectable’s customers make their purchases with Link, a wallet built by Stripe that enables customers to check out faster with their preferred payment method. With Link, Undetectable users have the option to pay with their saved card or US bank account. Link is very popular among customers, with 48% of their payments volume coming from Link.

Tax helps Undetectable avoid surprise liabilities and maintain compliance

When Undetectable reaches the sales volume threshold that creates a tax liability in a given market, Stripe Tax notifies the team through the Dashboard. This allows Undetectable to only register with the states and countries it needs to, which saves time and money.

“With Stripe Tax there are no big surprises. At any given time, we know how much we owe Texas, Australia, the EU, anywhere. When we reach a VAT registration threshold somewhere, Tax tells us,” said Perry.