Surprise! Pay $1000

A user testing the Forestwalk AI SaaS product without a credit card was invoiced $1,000 upon hitting the free tier limit, with the payment immediately overdue, instead of experiencing a service disruption. The practice raises questions about billing transparency in AI tools.

My turn writing for the Forestwalk blog https://forestwalk.ai/blog/surprise-blacksmith-costs/ : Now typically, when you try a SaaS product for free without a credit card, and you hit the limit, you get cut off. Also known as “disruption to your service”. Instead, we were invoiced $1000, which was immediately overdue. Genuinely curious how common this practice is. Just because I was surprised by it, doesn’t mean it’s unheard of.