I read 20 SaaS terms pages. 12 of 16 have non-refundable fees.

I've been building a tool that pulls the expensive clauses out of software contracts, and to test it I pointed it at the public terms pages of 20 widely-used products — Stripe, Slack, Atlassian, Datadog, Zapier, Figma and others.

16 were readable. 4 weren't (three 404s and a 403), and I've excluded those from every number rather than counting them as clean.

What was in the 16:

- Non-refundable fees: 12

- Automatic renewal: 8

- Cancellation notice window: 8

- Price increase on renewal: 6

- Binding arbitration / class waiver: 6

- Liability capped at fees paid: 3

None of that is unusual or unfair — most of these clauses are entirely ordinary. The point isn't which vendor to be annoyed at. It's that a clause you signed knowingly costs you nothing, and the same clause unread costs you a renewal term.

The one that surprised me: auto-renewal and the notice window appear at the same rate. The notice deadline almost always closes before the renewal date is visible on your calendar.

Method and full numbers: https://kema.knightbyrd.com/study/software-agreement-clauses

Curious whether anyone here has been caught by the notice window specifically — I suspect it's the most common expensive surprise in SaaS and I've only got 16 data points.