The Pricing Change
Until now, Stedi required a $500 monthly minimum to access production-grade API and SFTP connectivity. For an early-stage RCM startup or a small group practice looking to integrate direct claims submission without going through a legacy clearinghouse wrapper, that floor made the math hard to justify until volume was already there.
The new pay-as-you-go plan removes that floor entirely. Every new Stedi account starts as a free sandbox — eligible for mock eligibility checks and test claims workflows with no credit card required. When you're ready to go live, you upgrade via self-service, add a credit card, and fund a starting balance of $100. From there, every transaction draws against that balance at the applicable volume tier. If you send zero transactions in a month, you pay nothing.
Balance rolls forward month to month. Auto-top-up triggers when balance drops below a user-set threshold. The tiered rate structure means per-transaction costs drop automatically as monthly volume grows — no renegotiation required.
Unlimited user seats · Unlimited providers · Transaction enrollment (including the Enrollment API) · 277CA claim acknowledgments · Payers API · Stedi MCP server for AI agents · Real-time support via Slack, Teams, or email (avg <10 min response during business hours)
Why the $500 Floor Mattered
Legacy clearinghouses have historically priced for enterprise volume — per-provider fees, per-location fees, monthly minimums, and annual contracts. That structure made sense when EDI was a batch-file operation run by a clearinghouse team. It doesn't map cleanly onto how modern RCM infrastructure is being built today: API-first, developer-owned, embedded in billing platforms and EHRs.
The $500/month floor was the version of that friction that Stedi carried into its otherwise developer-native model. A billing company processing 10,000 transactions a month could clear that floor easily. A startup building an RCM product at 500 transactions/month couldn't. The pay-as-you-go shift closes that gap.
Stedi processes eligibility checks (270/271), claims (837P/I), and remittances (835) through a real-time API instead of batch SFTP — the same transactions that go through legacy clearinghouses, but with developer tooling, instant error feedback, and programmatic payer enrollment. The vendor deep dive is here if you haven't read it.
Implications for RCM Teams
Small Practices and Independent Billers
If you've been using a clearinghouse that bundles EDI access with a PM system or billing platform — and you've looked at direct API connectivity but couldn't justify the fixed cost at your volume — this changes the calculus. A 3-provider practice submitting 200 claims a month pays only for those 200 claims. No minimum. The per-transaction cost is predictable and doesn't require an upfront commitment to a volume you haven't hit yet.
RCM Vendors and Billing Platform Builders
The more significant shift is for companies building RCM software. Legacy clearinghouse contracts have historically forced vendors to either eat the minimum cost during low-volume early customers or pass it along in their pricing. Pay-as-you-go removes that embedded fixed cost from your unit economics at early and mid-stage customer counts. You can now build on Stedi's infrastructure and price based on your actual transaction volume, not on covering a clearinghouse floor you're contractually obligated to regardless of activity.
EDI Developers and Integration Partners
The sandbox-to-production path is now self-serve and credit-card-only at entry. No sales call. No contract negotiation. No waiting on clearinghouse credentialing before you can test with real payers. For developers building healthcare integrations — whether it's a new billing module, an AI-driven claims scrubber, or a prior auth workflow — that matters for how fast you can ship.
How the Tiers Compare
| Plan | Monthly Minimum | Production Access | Enterprise Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sandbox (Free) | $0 | Test only | — |
| Pay As You Go | $0 | Full API + SFTP | — |
| Custom | Negotiated | Full API + SFTP | SSO, SCIM, consolidated billing |
Existing Stedi customers stay on their current plans by default. Migration to pay-as-you-go or custom is available at any time via Stedi support.
The Bottom Line
Clearinghouse pricing has been a quiet tax on smaller RCM operations and early-stage healthcare vendors for years. The minimum wasn't prohibitive for established players — but it was a real ceiling for anyone trying to build at the margins of scale. Stedi removing that floor doesn't change what the product does, but it changes who can afford to use it from day one.
If you've been tracking Stedi as a clearinghouse option and the $500 floor was the reason you hadn't moved forward, that objection is gone. The sandbox is free, the upgrade is self-serve, and the pricing now scales with actual usage.
Pay-as-you-go means costs scale with volume — which is exactly what you want when you're starting out, but requires budgeting discipline at high volume. The custom tier exists for enterprise-scale customers who want predictable, negotiated rates and SSO/SCIM. If you're moving meaningful monthly claim volume, get a custom quote before assuming pay-as-you-go is the long-term fit.