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36 Comments

SAAS Multi-Tenant Stripe Subscriptions + Tenants Stripe Subscriptions Addon

Hello, I am planning a Saas Multi-Tenant system to offer software I have developed.

I am thinking of using laravel to build the system due to the incredible wealth of information already out there on such a system.

I want to create subscription packages to allow tenants tiered access to specific portions of the software.

This is the sticking point.....

Due to the nature of my software 'member based' I want my users to be able to also create their own subscriptions for their members (using stripe).

So top level my saas service I would subscribe customers to use my software, They become a member and access the 'member based software' and manage their own members, and create their own subscription packages that their members can subscribe to.

I have searched for days trying to find some sort of way to do this and not 100% sure of the complexity or if it is possible or if it is too far stretched to achieve.

Any advice, suggestions, comments or guidance would be deeply appreciated. Even if it is negative and showing me that I need to re-think. I just do not have a starting point on where to go.

I feel confident in achieving my part of the system, and my own subscriptions, it is the part of the system where my customers can create their own subscriptions for their own customers that I am confused over.

I hope this makes sense and please feel free to ask me to explain further if needed.

Many thanks for reading.

  1. 4

    I really would love to just take a moment and thank every person who contributed with such wonderful feedback, advice, suggestions and support. You have all really been so helpful and given me real motivation to push on and explore other avenues thanks to your kind words.

    So thank you @nphaskins, @BigHireio, @Fkrauss, @IndieHackerJ, @rab, @HunterCarter, @adamquaile

    This was my first ever post on IH and Im so impressed with the kindness and thoughtfulness of this community. My first port of call is usually StackOverflow, Such a wonderful company but such a brutal community lol

    Thanks again, stay safe and look forward to meeting you around the IH community :)

    1. 1

      Glad to have helped a little. Welcome!

  2. 1

    Hey there.

    I am building a booking system where my users will have properties with accommodations. The guests will be charged when making a booking. I will implement stripe connect in order to charge the guests the booking price and then send the money to the users.

    I see in the stripe docs there are 2 ways of doing so:

    In case someone has experience in this or a similar situation

    • Which one is the best for my use case?
    • What are the main things the connected account can do in each case?
    • What should I take into account if I choose one or the other?
    • Can I move from one to another later?
  3. 3

    I built and manage an app that does just this. https://mavenseed.com

    It's built on Ruby on Rails, ActsAsTenant, and Stripe Connect ( I wrote a book on how this stuff is done). Pretty sure we've processed $100k through Connect already. Happy to answer any questions.

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      wow Mavenseed seems to be almost 80% of what I need my project to be! You have built an incredible piece of software. Ruby has somehow always scared me, ive somehow felt it has always been a superior language, all that judgement and ive never even tried it lol

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        I came from PHP, and for me Ruby was a breath of fresh air. It's easy to learn.

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          Thank you, I am certainly not going to rule it out and will be checking out some Youtube Videos to get a good understanding of the language. Can you recommend any good playlists or beneficial videos that have helped you in the past?

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            I was completely self-taught as we migrated from WordPress and MySQL to Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL. Learned by doing!

            If I were just starting, try here: https://www.theodinproject.com/tracks/1

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              Oooohhh! I am super excited!! My Night is Sorted!! Thank you for this kind share!! I am certainly going to give this a try. At least to be able to rule it out or not. Thank you kindly for your support!

    2. 1

      Do you have a link to the book? Although I am working on a completely different framework, appreciate studying system design stuff.

  4. 2

    I have built a similar application using Laravel and Stripe Connect. Members subscribe to my software via standard Stripe and then they can connect their own Stripe accounts via Stripe Connect and we can create subscriptions and payments on their behalf in their account. Rolling your own code for this is definitely the way to go. Its not too complex. I actually read through the Laravel Cashier source code to get an idea of how to structure interactions with stripe and then I was off to the races. Good luck sir!

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      Wonderful, thank you for the positive vibes, That sounds just about right for what I hope to achieve, do you have any links/resources to your application or other materials for reference?

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        I am keeping my project on the down-lo at the moment. The best thing to do would be to give the Stripe Connect documentation and Laravel Cashier Billable.php & SubscriptionBuilder.php source code a thorough read. Those have been the most helpful for me 👍

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          Understood :) and thank you so much for the heads up regarding the other resources! really appreciated!!

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            Good luck! Also a word of advice. Stripe Connect has 3 different account types. Standard, Custom & Express. I build a lot of my integration for use with Custom initially but then found out there was extra charges that you will have to pay when using Custom. However Standard has no charges. So make sure you read up on that and choose the correct type for your needs. I went with Standard in the end as there is no charges and stripe will take care of alot of things for you such as getting company information, gathering identity documents etc..

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              Totally agree and thanks for the insight! I already confirmed with myself that it would be the standard option based off my own research. but very helpful information indeed!!

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    This will require Stripe Connect. If you go the laravel route, don't use Spark.

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      Thank you I will research into Stripe Connect, thank you for your valuable contribution. I have heard similar comments regarding the overheads of Spark.

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        It's more trouble than it's worth. Represents a lot of technical debt. Better to roll your own solution, as it doesn't actually save you much dev time in the long run.

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          Agreed. We built our own Laravel SaaS package that integrates with Stripe to get around Spark’s limitations.

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          Thanks for elaborating.

  6. 1

    Not sure if it will help you but KillBill.io seems to be pretty good for that. Downside is that it is in Java. But all Open Source and self hosted.

    It was developed by Groupon and Opensourced about 7 years ago. That's what they use to process a ton of money :)

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      Fantastic resource! I have never heard of Killbill and I have never used Java, but certainly worth a look! Thank you!

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        And it's super active! Groupon still uses it and employs two of the main developers.
        I was researching this for the company I work for recently (just a couple of weeks back). I wish we'd use KB too but management wants us to develop it from scratch in PHP ¯\(ツ)/¯ Do you know any PHP opensource systems like that?

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          Just think of the extra control and power you have using pure PHP, I guess that is a good thing, but still, KB Does look awesome and with a name like that, it's pretty hard to NOT want to use it lol :) Good luck with your project buddy :)

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    Am doing this but with Django. It's all a bit Russian Dolls. Are you fixed on Laravel?

    1. 1

      Hi Rab and Russian Dolls is a perfect explanation lol and not fixed on Laravel, what would you suggest?

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        If you're in a hurry then best go mavenseed or similar. If you're looking to develop then happy to discuss further. My current platform multi-tenanted where clients sign-up and create apps, users authenticate against those apps and client admins manage their users.

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    I've not used these myself so not really a recommendation but have you looked at Laravel Spark and related packages like Cashier?

    Maybe as a starting point at least?

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      Hey @adamquaile thank you for your kind suggestion, I have looked into them, I just felt i would have greater control if I did this without these frameworks, perhaps I will review them again and see if they handle my needs.

      Hope you are safe and well also :)

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        Yeah, that makes sense and you could be right. Personally I'd be looking at Symfony but that's just my skillset so doesn't really help you much.

        All the best. Good luck :)

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