It's surprising that the invoice as a document has yet to get significant design love despite it being one of the most consistent product marketing and value communication channels.
When every other invoice looks like it was spat out by the Stripe invoice generator, owning your invoice presentation layer can be a competitive advantage. Your billing provider has thousands of customers so its aim is to provide a standardized experience. You, however understand your business best and have the strongest capacity for value communication.
This is still a hard problem. Ensuring a consistent layout for invoice shapes as pricing and packaging complexity increases is a task that drives eng teams mad. It is also one of those things that feel like a vanity ask until renewal time comes and your customers have sticker shock because you've failed to maintain the value anchor.
It's surprising that the invoice as a document has yet to get significant design love despite it being one of the most consistent product marketing and value communication channels.
When every other invoice looks like it was spat out by the Stripe invoice generator, owning your invoice presentation layer can be a competitive advantage. Your billing provider has thousands of customers so its aim is to provide a standardized experience. You, however understand your business best and have the strongest capacity for value communication.
This is still a hard problem. Ensuring a consistent layout for invoice shapes as pricing and packaging complexity increases is a task that drives eng teams mad. It is also one of those things that feel like a vanity ask until renewal time comes and your customers have sticker shock because you've failed to maintain the value anchor.