eleven / messenger Public

docs+bot: record the no-IAP decision for space plans + Eleven's no-payment-links rule (#845)

Space plans (Family/Community/Business) are Stripe-only via home — no IAP.
The de facto decision from the billing rails now written down with its why
(identity spine is the home account not an Apple ID; one source of billing
truth; the fee scales with price; post-May-2025 link-outs removed IAP's
upside), plus the steering posture: per-client UI gates by storefront
(US allowlist to start; EU deliberately off it — no fee terms, no monthly
reporting), chat content cannot gate, so first-party bots never post
checkout links and never proactively upsell.

Eleven's knowledge file gets the matching conduct rule before anyone
teaches it billing: describe the path (the home page), never paste a
payment link, never upsell unprompted.

Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Paul Campbell 3 months ago ca2b3909085bb6d4570a3a63d43a5b078dd72eb9 parent 69e9b47

2 files changed, +47 −0

docs/community-and-tiers.md +38 −0
internal/bot/knowledge.md +9 −0

diff --git a/docs/community-and-tiers.md b/docs/community-and-tiers.md

index bec7388..623f963 100644

--- a/docs/community-and-tiers.md

+++ b/docs/community-and-tiers.md

@@ -149,6 +149,44 @@ entitlement lives on the instance, not the device.

- **Webhooks** land at one platform-level Connect endpoint on the broker and

are relayed to the instance as minimal entitlement changes.

+### Our own space plans: Stripe-only, no IAP (decided 2026-07-13)

+The section above is about *creator* tiers — members paying a space's admin.

+For **Eleven's own space plans** (Family/Community/Business, sold by us) the

+decision is simpler and firmer: **Stripe Checkout from the home page is the

+only purchase path; we do not offer IAP for space plans.** Why:

+- **Wrong identity spine.** The buyer is a home account (passkey) upgrading a

+ *space* whose benefits reach every member on every platform. IAP binds the

+ entitlement to an Apple ID — reconciling that back into the cloud ledger

+ means receipt validation, App Store Server Notifications, and refund sync: a

+ second source of billing truth beside the one Stripe webhook we have.

+- **The fee scales with price.** Apple's 15% is €0.75 on a €5/y Family space

+ but ~€150 on a €999/y Business space; Stripe is ~€0.33 and ~€15.

+- **The link-out era removed the main upside.** Since the May 2025 US ruling,

+ the iOS app can link to web checkout in the US storefront with no fee and no

+ entitlement; the EU allows it under fee-and-reporting terms we deliberately

+ don't take (below); other storefronts stay quiet.

+**Steering posture** (what renders where — this is the part that keeps us

+clean under App Store rule 3.1.1 and the EU DMA fee terms):

+- **Per-client UI can gate by platform/storefront**, and does: the space

+ menu's Upgrade entry shows on the web, and on iOS only where a storefront

+ is in the allowlist (US to start — the clean no-fee, no-reporting regime;

+ the EU stays off it so we owe Apple neither commission nor monthly

+ transaction reporting).

+- **Chat content cannot gate** — a message renders on every device the member

+ owns, so a payment link posted in chat reaches storefronts where steering

+ is still restricted. Therefore **Eleven and the other first-party bots

+ never post checkout/payment links in chat, and never proactively upsell**.

+ A bot we ship is *our* content — "a bot said it" is still the app steering,

+ and E2EE hiding the message from Apple is not a compliance posture (our

+ prompts and Eleven's knowledge file are published). When a member asks how

+ to upgrade, Eleven describes the path — the home page — without a link.

+- **Proactive upsell belongs to channels Apple has no claim on**: the home

+ page, the web shell, email.

### App-store billing (optional, beside Stripe — never instead)

IAP products belong to *our* bundle ID, so this path is inherently central

diff --git a/internal/bot/knowledge.md b/internal/bot/knowledge.md

index 68f992f..20f9733 100644

--- a/internal/bot/knowledge.md

+++ b/internal/bot/knowledge.md

@@ -772,3 +772,12 @@ question, not a shipped feature.

general questions, while you're the specialist on the app itself.

- And when the name confusion comes up: yes, you're Eleven and the app is Eleven.

Lean into it.

+- **Upgrading a space / paid plans:** describe the path, never post a link.

+ When someone asks how to upgrade (or about plans and pricing), tell them it

+ happens from their **home page** — the same place they saved their passkey

+ and see their list of spaces — and that the space's menu (⋮) has an Upgrade

+ entry on some platforms. Do **not** paste a checkout, payment, or

+ pricing-page URL into chat, and never bring up upgrading unprompted. (Why:

+ chat messages render inside the iOS app too, and app-store rules restrict

+ in-app links to outside payment in many countries — a message from you is

+ the app speaking. Describing where to go is fine; linking is not.)