Payment Architecture
for Settle

Revenue Model

Settle operates on four distinct revenue streams, each suited to a different stage of growth and a different relationship with the people it serves. None require a subscription. None penalize the person who just lost someone.

Stream 1 — Direct Per-Estate Pricing

Users purchase access to a single estate. The price unlocks the full task sequence, document tools, and automated notifications for that estate. There is no recurring charge. When the estate is closed, the account moves to monitoring mode (no new charges) and eventually to archive.

This model reflects the reality of grief: people are not managing estates indefinitely. A subscription would feel exploitative. A one-time fee, clearly scoped to the task at hand, feels like paying a professional — fair exchange for genuine help.

Stream 2 — Insurance Partner Activation

Life insurance carriers offer Settle as a value-add benefit to beneficiaries. The carrier pays Settle $50–100 per estate activated through this channel. The beneficiary pays nothing. This is the highest-leverage distribution path: carriers reach people at exactly the right moment, with no acquisition cost to Settle.

Stream 3 — Benefit Recovery Commission

Settle's benefit discovery scan surfaces unclaimed benefits across pension funds, state unclaimed property registries, employer benefits, and other sources. When Settle helps a family claim benefits they would not have found alone, Settle earns 5–10% of the recovered amount. This stream is entirely success-based — Settle earns nothing unless the family receives money.

Stream 4 — Free Tier (Non-Revenue, Strategic)

The free tier earns no direct revenue. It exists because the right thing to do is to help everyone, regardless of ability to pay. Families with simple estates may need nothing more. Free users also represent the top of a trust funnel: if the free tier is genuinely useful, the decision to upgrade feels earned, not pressured.

Pricing Philosophy

Estate administration begins in the days after a death. The person using Settle is likely exhausted, grieving, possibly financially uncertain, and doing tasks they have never done before. Every pricing decision must be made with this person in mind.

Pricing Tiers

Four tiers, each with a clear value proposition. The tiers are designed to be honest about what they include and what they do not.

Feature Matrix

Benefit Recovery Commission

The most compelling revenue stream in Settle's model. Not because it is the largest — it may be — but because it perfectly aligns Settle's incentives with the user's outcome. Settle earns nothing unless the family receives money they would not have found alone.

How It Works

The benefit discovery scan, available in Complete and Insurance Partner tiers, searches for unclaimed or undiscovered financial assets on behalf of the estate. This includes: state unclaimed property databases, dormant pension funds, employer benefit balances, life insurance policies the family was unaware of, HSA and FSA balances, security deposits, and similar sources.

When Settle identifies a claimable benefit and the family successfully claims it through the Settle-guided process, Settle earns a commission of 5–10% of the recovered amount. The commission rate is disclosed transparently before the scan and confirmed before any claim assistance begins.

Commission Structure

Consent & Transparency Requirements

• Pre-scan disclosure Commission structure shown before scan initiates. No opt-in ambiguity.
• Per-claim confirmation User confirms commission amount in dollars (not just %) before Settle assists with each specific claim.
• No claim without consent Settle surfaces discoveries but takes no action until user explicitly approves.
• Commission timing Commission collected only after funds are confirmed received by the estate, not on discovery.
• Itemized receipt Every commission charge produces a line-item receipt showing the recovery amount, commission rate, and net benefit to the estate.

Insurance Partnership Model

The partnership channel inverts the acquisition problem. Instead of Settle finding bereaved families, life insurance carriers deliver Settle to their beneficiaries as a value-add benefit — at the moment of greatest need, with the carrier's trust already established.

Commercial Structure

Technical Integration Requirements

• SSO protocol OAuth 2.0 / OIDC. Carrier provides identity; Settle provisions account.
• Activation webhook POST /api/v1/partner/activate — receives carrier ID, policy reference (hashed), activation timestamp.
• Billing event Activation recorded in partner_activations table; billed via monthly carrier invoice (Stripe Invoicing or direct).
• Carrier dashboard Partner portal showing activation count, status summary (no PII). Self-serve invoice download.
• Feature flag estate.tier = 'partner' — maps to Complete feature set internally.

Payment Flows

Three distinct payment flows, each optimized for its context. Direct purchase uses Stripe Checkout. Partner activation uses webhook-triggered provisioning with monthly invoicing. Benefit recovery uses Stripe Connect or manual disbursement for commission collection.

Flow 1 — Direct Purchase (Essentials / Complete)

Idempotency & Error Handling

• Duplicate webhooks Idempotency key on session ID. Second delivery of same event is a no-op.
• Payment failure Stripe handles retry UI. Settle receives no event until payment succeeds. No partial access granted.
• Session expiry Checkout sessions expire after 24 hours. User re-initiates from pricing page.
• Webhook failure Stripe retries for 72 hours. payment_intents.succeeded is a backup signal. Alerting if estate not upgraded within 5 minutes of confirmed payment.

Flow 2 — Partner Activation

Flow 3 — Benefit Recovery Commission

Estate Billing Lifecycle

An estate is a finite process. The billing model mirrors that reality — a one-time purchase that covers the estate from opening through close, with no recurring charges.

Phase Definitions

Upgrade Path

Users can upgrade from Free to Essentials, or from Essentials to Complete, at any point during the Active phase. Upgrades are charged the full tier price (not a delta). This is simpler to explain and avoids proration confusion during an already complex time.

A future consideration is a delta-priced upgrade ($399 - $199 = $200 to upgrade). This is more financially fair but adds explanation complexity. Revisit when there is data on how often users upgrade mid-estate.

Checkout Specification

The checkout experience must be the quietest moment in the product. No animations. No testimonials. No "most popular" banners. Just clarity about what is being purchased, what it costs, and that it can be refunded.

Checkout Session Parameters

// Stripe Checkout Session — Essentials example
{
  "mode": "payment",
  "line_items": [{
    "price_data": {
      "currency": "usd",
      "unit_amount": 19900,
      "product_data": {
        "name": "Settle Essentials",
        "description": "Full task sequence, phone scripts, document inbox, and progress tracking for one estate."
      }
    },
    "quantity": 1
  }],
  "metadata": {
    "estate_id": "est_xxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "user_id": "usr_xxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "tier": "essentials"
  },
  "payment_intent_data": {
    "description": "Settle Essentials — one estate",
    "metadata": { /* same as session */ }
  },
  "success_url": "https://settle.com/app/estate/{estate_id}?upgraded=true",
  "cancel_url": "https://settle.com/pricing?cancelled=true",
  "customer_email": "user@example.com",
  "allow_promotion_codes": false,
  "billing_address_collection": "auto",
  "locale": "auto"
}

Checkout Page Wireframe

The page shown immediately before Stripe Checkout (the "confirm your selection" page within the Settle app):

Checkout Copy Guidelines

Post-Purchase Confirmation

The success redirect lands on the estate dashboard with a single, quiet confirmation message: a small banner reading "Essentials access is now active." No confetti. No upsell modal. No invitation to share on social media. The user came here to administer an estate — let them get back to it.

The confirmation email is plain text in style (HTML but minimal). It contains: the product name, the price paid, the refund policy reminder, and a direct email address for support. Nothing else.

Refund Policy

Standard Refund Policy

• Refund window 30 days from purchase date
• Conditions None. No questions asked. No usage threshold. No document-upload check.
• Process User navigates to Settings → Billing → Request Refund. Or emails support. Refund processed within 1 business day.
• Refund amount 100% of purchase price. No processing fee retention.
• Access after refund Estate reverts to Free tier. User's data and documents are retained for 30 days, then subject to standard deletion schedule.
• Benefit recovery commissions Not refunded. If the commission was charged, benefits were received. Commission refund requests evaluated case-by-case.

Edge Cases

Tax & Compliance

Sales Tax Treatment

Settle is a SaaS product. In the United States, SaaS taxability varies by state. Stripe Tax handles automatic tax calculation, collection, and remittance where enabled. The recommendation is to enable Stripe Tax from launch to avoid retroactive liability.

1099 Obligations

Benefit recovery commissions paid to Settle may create a 1099-MISC obligation in the inverse: if Settle collects commissions totaling more than $600 from a single user in a calendar year, that user does not receive a 1099 (they are paying Settle, not receiving income). However, the commissions constitute taxable income for Settle and are tracked accordingly.

Insurance carrier payments to Settle are B2B payments. Carriers issue 1099s to Settle if annual payments exceed $600. Settle should provide W-9 to carrier partners at contract signing.

Record Retention

• Transaction records 7 years minimum (IRS requirement)
• Estate data 7 years from estate close date (probate record alignment)
• Refund records 7 years (dispute window + buffer)
• Commission records 7 years, with per-claim itemization

Financial Reporting

Key Metrics to Track

Revenue Attribution by Stream

Dashboard Requirements

An internal revenue dashboard should surface, at minimum:

• MRR by streamDirect (Essentials / Complete), Partner, Recovery Commission
• Active estates by tierFree, Essentials, Complete, Partner — with trend line
• Conversion rateFree → Essentials, Free → Complete, Essentials → Complete
• Avg recovery per estateTotal benefits recovered / estates with completed recovery scans
• Refund rateRefunds issued / total purchases (30-day and 90-day windows)
• Partner activation countBy carrier, month-over-month

Implementation Plan

Phased implementation prioritizing the direct purchase flow in Phase 1, partner infrastructure in Phase 2, and benefit recovery commission in Phase 3.

Dependencies & Prerequisites

• Phase 1Requires: estate data model, user auth system, basic frontend. No external dependencies beyond Stripe account.
• Phase 2Requires: Phase 1 complete. Requires: at least one carrier partner agreement in place or in late-stage negotiation.
• Phase 3Requires: Phase 1 complete (saved payment method). Requires: benefit data source integrations or manual research workflow. Most complex phase.

Pricing Page Specification

The pricing page is the most sensitive screen in the product. It is seen by people who just lost someone, who do not know what they need, and who are deciding whether to trust Settle with part of their hardest process. It must earn that trust quietly.

Page Structure

Visual Tone Constraints

• Color temperature Warm. Sage and stone. Not the blues of financial tech. Not the grays of enterprise software.
• Animation None on the pricing page. No entrance animations, no hover scale effects. Stillness is appropriate here.
• Typography Merriweather for the opening statement and tier names. Inter for feature lists and detail text. The serif carries warmth.
• Spacing Generous. The page should not feel crowded. Grief does not need visual noise.
• Iconography Minimal. Simple checkmarks. No trophy icons, no lightning bolts for "premium" features.
• CTAs Sage-colored buttons. Single CTA per tier. "Get started" (Free), "Choose Essentials" (Essentials), "Choose Complete" (Complete). Descriptive, not urgent.

Copy Anti-Patterns (Full List)