My husband and I often speak in movie quotes to emphasize a point during a conversation. Right now, a movie quote from “The Princess Bride” (1987) comes to mind. Westley says to Buttercup, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” I thought of this quote as I reviewed some pain points courtesy of Melio’s recent announcement that they will begin charging monthly fees for their bill payment service, which used to be free.
I already took a hit when Intuit announced last year that they were severing ties with the in-app QuickBooks Online (QBO) bill payment feature, BillPay powered by Bill.com. Intuit did this in order to launch their own in-app bill payment feature. I felt that the Intuit app presented many painful hurdles, so I looked for an alternative.
I selected Melio as the replacement. Even though my preference is to stay inside of QBO to pay vendor bills, Melio has a sync which I find works well. My workflow is:
If the vendor is new, and they don’t already exist in Melio, you can have Melio send them an invite to get paid via ACH or paper check. If vendor selects the ACH option, Melio collects and stores the ACH info—I never see it, nor do I have to securely store it. (Note: The Intuit Bill Pay app now does this too.)
Melio has historically charged no monthly subscription fee for this service. Although ACH payments take 3 to 5 business days to arrive, they are free. Mailed paper checks are $1.50 each.
On Sept 23, 2024, Melio announced their service will no longer be free. They are introducing a monthly subscription fee, and users must select one of the new plans by Oct. 27. In conjunction with the new pricing, Melio is rolling out a raft of new features, including:
Click here to read more about Melio’s features.
There is still a free Melio plan: the Go plan. But it’s very limited. It allows only one user, 5 ACH transfers per month, and a maximum of 10 synced payments for the life of the account.
On to the plans that require payment, we’ll start with Core, which includes 20 free ACH per month, chat support, standard approval workflows, combined payments to one vendor, 3-5 day ACH payment, a Fast ACH payment option (for a fee), and more.
The Boost Plan is an upgrade of the Core plan, with 50 free ACH per month, phone support, 2-day ACH payment, advanced approval workflows, and more.
Melio offers accountant partner pricing with a 40% discount on Melio plans for all clients subscribed before Jan 1, 2025. I understand that the discount goes down to 30% after the first year.
For now, the Core plan with accountant discount is $21.25 per month, which is the same pricing as QuickBooks Bill Pay. (The Boost plan is $46.75 per month.)
For me, this transition presented several new pain points:
Change and new pricing is never easy, and not everyone experiences change in the same ways. That being said, here are some Feature Requests I have for Melio:
Feature Request #1: On the Accountant Dashboard, My Clients page, offer a way to sort the client list. An option to sort by client name, or by plan, would be delightful.
Feature Request #2: Re-order the links on the “Pay” page so Bills is first, then Vendors.
Feature Request #3: Add an ACH counter on the “Pay” page, so users can see how many of their free ACH payments they have used and/or how many remain to be used.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Woodard Report, Woodard Events, LLC, or its affiliates.