#fractalskwish
severe ermine
neat vessel
Hey there
When you say "end a trial Sub" do you mean cancel the sub?
Or do something else?
brittle orchid
Yeah, I'm thinking cancel the subscription before it becomes "past due"
neat vessel
You can always cancel a Sub immediately using https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/cancel
brittle orchid
I basically don't want to attempt to charge them at the end of the trial if they still haven't added a payment method
yeah, i think I understand I can cancel them immediately, and I was thinking of doing this when I get the invoice.created event which happens right around when the trial subscription ends
neat vessel
Hmm you won't want to wait for that
brittle orchid
but then I'd also need to nullify that invoice before it's actually charged, I think
neat vessel
Are you using a send_invoice Sub or charge_automatically?
It sounds like charge_automatically, correct?
brittle orchid
yes, I think so, but not 100% if that's really what I want
neat vessel
Gotcha. So with charge_automatically the invoice is going to finalize immediately upon renewal
So you don't want to wait for the invoice.created
You likely want to just set cancel_at_period_end on your Subs
brittle orchid
ok, I think I need to read more before I can really understand what you're saying. fwiw, I do want other customer trials to be charged, but only if they have a payment method added by the time the trial ends
neat vessel
Right
So I think you create your Sub with cancel_at_period_end, then if PaymentMethod is collected you update the Sub to remove that
brittle orchid
cool, I'll ready more about cancel_at_period_end and test it out
brittle orchid
thank you!!
oh, just double checking the state of my subscription, it does say "'cancel_at_period_end': False"
but not sure if that changed at the trial period end, or was like that at the time of creation 👀
brittle orchid
oh, sorry, I misread, so you're saying I should set it, which you're right, I'm probably not currently
neat vessel
Yep exactly
brittle orchid
perfect, thanks again!
so I think I now understand what you're saying, but initially, I'm a bit hessitant with this approach. If for some reason I fail to act on whatever event that tells me the customer added a payment, I will end up losing the customer's business. If I understand this correctly.
neat vessel
Yes that's correct. But why would you fail to action it?
Also, you could always set up a "backup" of sorts and check if they have a set PaymentMethod ~1 hour before the trial ends
brittle orchid
I guess it's more of a personal problem, I'm new at this company, and their backend handlers for routing webhook events is in a language I don't know yet (Kotlin hosted on AWS lambda)
neat vessel
Ah well yes you are going to need to write backend code here to do any of this 😅
brittle orchid
I kinda like the idea of if we fail to act on an event, the worst that will happen is the customer will get a failed billing message (which is what currently happens)
neat vessel
I wouldn't implement cancel_at_period_end unless you are confident in writing the code to handle the webhook for when a PaymentMethod is added and then updating the Sub to remove that cancellation
brittle orchid
if this is the best way to do it, I will strive to become more confident! but I guess I'm still at the point of making sure this is best way
what do you think about my first suggestion of watching for the first non-free invoice.created event, checking if customer/subscription has no billing method, and ending the subscription at that point, before the 1-hour period when stripe will attempt to proceess/charge the invoice?
(oh, and nullify the invoice too)
I guess I'm just longing for a feature like: I wish there was a subscription.end_at_trial_end_when_no_billing_method
delicate loom
Hi there. bismarck had to step out, so I'm taking over. Give me a bit to catch up on context
Yeah I think that approach should work
It's up to you
brittle orchid
ok, thank you!
if you take feature requests, I'd like a subscription setting like "end_at_trial_end_if_no_payment_method = True" 🙂
delicate loom
We do take feature requests! No guarantees something like this would be implemented though
It would be up to the owning team (who'd have to prioritize, etc)
brittle orchid
of course, all I can do is ask 🙂 maybe someone else would be happy it's implemented, if you guys think it's a good idea
delicate loom
For sure. Thanks!
brittle orchid
before I dig in any further on other options, do you think a subscription tier setup might give us what we are looking for? or maybe it's called subscription "phases"?
delicate loom
Ah I think you're referring to subscription schedules?
You just want to know if cancellation if a payment method isn't provided would be achieved easier with sub schedules?
brittle orchid
yes, I think so
I guess I'm just searching for a method that doesn't require me to act on events, and more of a pre-defined configuration/option at the time we create a new trial subscription
delicate loom
Yeah unfortunately there's no way to define that logic
Without having you act on events
brittle orchid
ok, cool, thank you again. just to confirm, in the method I'm probably going to attempt, I will need to both cancel the subscription AND find/nullify the non-free invoice at the trial end date
at least, this is my current understanding, and makes sense to me
delicate loom
Yup. That invoice will be on the latest_invoice param: https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/object#subscription_object-latest_invoice
Then you can void it: https://stripe.com/docs/api/invoices/void
brittle orchid
awesome, thank you!