‘All-in pricing’ laws are regulations requiring businesses to display the total, final price of goods and services to consumers upfront. This approach combats the practice of showing a low base price and then adding mandatory ‘junk fees’—like service fees, processing fees, or resort fees—late in the buying process.

The core principle is transparency. If a fee is required to purchase a product or service, it must be included in the advertised price from the very first time a customer sees it.

These laws distinguish between:

• Mandatory fees: Any charge a business requires a customer to pay. These must be included in the initial price.
• Optional charges: Fees for add-ons or upgrades that a customer can choose to accept or decline. These do not need to be in the base price.
• Government taxes: Legitimate taxes like sales tax or VAT can typically still be added at checkout, separate from the advertised price.

This legal shift from drip pricing (revealing fees over time) to all-in pricing has significant implications for SaaS companies, even those operating on a B2B model. The line between a consumer and a small business owner is often blurry, and regulators are increasingly applying consumer protection laws more broadly.

For software businesses, this affects how you display prices on your marketing site, in renewal notices, and on invoices. Common SaaS charges like “platform fees,” “service charges,” or “billing administration fees” are now under scrutiny. If these fees are mandatory, they must be baked into your core subscription price.

Ignoring these laws can lead to significant legal risk, financial penalties, and loss of customer trust.

While the push for price transparency is happening nationwide, several key state laws are leading the charge.

Effective July 1, 2024, California’s Senate Bill 478 is one of the most comprehensive all-in pricing laws in the US. It prohibits businesses of nearly all kinds from advertising or listing a price for a good or service that does not include all mandatory fees and charges.

For a SaaS company with customers in California, this means the price on your pricing page must be the actual price those customers will pay before any government taxes.

Starting January 1, 2025, Minnesota will enforce a similar law. It mandates that the price listed for a product must be the total price, including all fees or surcharges that will be added. This applies to any business selling to Minnesota residents.

Many other states are considering similar legislation, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed its own rule targeting deceptive or unfair fee practices. This is not a passing trend; it’s a fundamental shift in how pricing must be presented.

Adapting your pricing displays and billing logic is the key to compliance. The goal is to eliminate surprises for your users.

Here’s how to think about applying these rules to your pricing pages, checkouts, and invoices.

Your public-facing pricing page is the first and most important place to implement all-in pricing.

Before (Non-compliant): A plan is advertised at a low base price, with fees mentioned separately or in fine print.

• Pro Plan: $49 / month
• * A 5% service fee will be added at checkout.

After (Compliant): The fee is incorporated directly into the primary price displayed.

• Pro Plan: $51.45 / month
• Includes all applicable service fees. Taxes calculated at checkout.

The price a user sees on your pricing page should be the same price they see when they land on the checkout page. The only new items added here should be government-imposed taxes and any optional add-ons the user explicitly selects.

This ensures there are no surprises right before the user clicks “confirm purchase.”

Transparency doesn’t end after the sale.

• Invoices: Your invoices should clearly itemize the charges, but the core subscription line item should match the all-in price you advertised.
• Renewal Notices: Any email or notification about an upcoming subscription renewal must state the full, all-in price that will be charged.

Building and maintaining a billing system that can adapt to evolving legal requirements like all-in pricing is a significant engineering challenge. A dedicated billing platform can provide the infrastructure needed to manage pricing, subscriptions, and invoicing with clarity and control.

Kinde’s billing engine is designed to give you a clear source of truth for your pricing. When you create a plan in Kinde, you set a single, definitive price. This price is what gets used across the board—from the checkout page to renewal events and invoices. This centralized approach helps prevent inconsistencies and ensures the price you set is the price your customers are billed.

By using a structured system to manage your subscription plans and pricing, you can more easily ensure compliance with transparency laws. You define the all-in price for each plan, and the system handles the recurring billing, invoicing, and subscription management based on that clear figure.

For more information on setting up and managing your pricing, explore the Kinde documentation.

• The Kinde billing model
• Top questions about Kinde billing