Article 15 — How does Alice price? No-hidden-fees explainer
Destination: MKT-ER Theme: Pricing Footnote stack: Savings estimates; Plan details; IRS limits Target keywords (SEO): how does Alice price, Alice commuter benefits pricing, no hidden fees commuter benefits, Alice fee structure, commuter benefits pricing model Internal links to add: /cheapest-commuter-benefits-platform, /how-fast-can-i-roll-alice-out, /switching-to-alice
Draft body
How does Alice price? No-hidden-fees explainer
Alice charges the employer a fee that is capped at the payroll tax savings the employer earns from running commuter spend pretax. If employees do not spend, the employer does not pay. There is no up-front employer cost, no per-employee monthly seat fee, and no employee fees.
The principle, in one sentence
The employer's cost is bounded above by the employer's own FICA savings on pretax commuter spend, so Alice cannot cost the employer more than the benefit returns.
What you pay
- A program fee tied to actual pretax commuter spending each pay period
- A small reserve deposit at setup (there is no employee pre-funding required and only a small reserve deposit from the employer)
What you do not pay
- No up-front employer cost
- No per-employee per-month seat fee whether or not the seat uses the benefit
- No implementation fee
- No annual contract minimum that the employer carries if employees do not participate
- No employee-side fees, ever
Why this pricing exists
Traditional office-worker pretax benefit companies where you pay up front and manually manage enrollment and payroll on your own bill in PEPM (per-employee per-month). PEPM means the employer pays whether or not employees use the benefit. For frontline employers, where participation builds over weeks and months, PEPM pricing usually means the platform earns more than the employer saves. Alice flipped that.
How employer FICA savings work
Every dollar an employee runs pretax through Alice is a dollar that is not part of FICA-taxable wages. The employer's share of FICA (7.65%) and federal unemployment taxes drops by that amount. Across a team, employer FICA savings typically run a few percentage points of total commuter spend.
Worked example (illustrative)
A 100-person frontline employer where 60 people use Alice and average $150 per month in commuter spend would have about $108,000 in annual pretax commuter spending. The employer's FICA savings on that spend would be in the ballpark of $8,000 a year. Alice's fee is capped at that savings figure. Numbers are illustrative; actual savings depend on the wage mix and actual usage.
What employees see
Employees pay nothing. They get the Alice Card (a Visa commercial credit card issued by Celtic Bank, powered by Stripe, with program funds at Fifth Third Bank, N.A., Member FDIC). They keep more of what they make on every eligible swipe.