ShaneTheKing

[vital citrus]

Is there a reason they can't have new trials on their subscriptions? Are you getting an error that's blocking you? As far as I know you should be able up update the trial to a later date at any point up to the first charge

https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/update#update_subscription-trial_end

[left pumice]

I don't think I fully understand how subscriptions work, maybe. Some of these people may have been charged before also. We're trying to entice customers to come back and try again after they've already gone through a trial period once and no longer have the targeted subscription tier active

If they've already been on this subscription before, but they're on a new one, the subscription object from before will still exist, won't it?

If I just set the start/end dates to null, is that enough so that they start a trial? Or is starting a trial dependent on logic that's invoked on the API during sign up?

[vital citrus]

Are you creating new subscriptions for them when they come back? Or reusing the old subscription?

[left pumice]

We're updating the old subscription I'm pretty sure. So if that's the case, then if when they sign up again I just reset their trial_start/trial_end dates so that they're today/in {x} days respectively and that effectively resets their trial?

[vital citrus]

We're updating the old subscription I'm pretty sure
You should know the answer to this with certainty, as there are 2 completely different methods for creating a trial and they depend on whether or not you're making new subscriptions or reusing old ones.

So if that's the case, then if when they sign up again I just reset their trial_start/trial_end dates so that they're today/in {x} days respectively and that effectively resets their trial?
Correct. An invoice will immediately be charged for any remaining balance though, so you will need to make sure you update the trial_end before the first invoice is created. It would likely be better if you simply created a new Subscription for the customer though if they might come back at any future time.

[left pumice]

Haha you’d think so, but I’m working on a code base written in very old Python and it’s not super easy to find out what’s going on all of the time

[vital citrus]

Ahhh, yep. I can understand the difficulty then. Still, I would recommend finding out exactly how these are being created before asking question, as we may end up giving you the wrong answer and you'll have to come back and ask again anyway

[left pumice]

So it does use trial_period_days while creating a subscription to set the trial period for sure, it seems like we re-use subscriptions if the user already has a subscription id and they update it though

[vital citrus]

Ah, gotcha. I feel like you will also want to know what is happening to the subscriptions once the trial is over for these customers (e.g. are you cancelling it? charging them and then giving them another free trial afterward? etc.)

Knowing all of the above, are there any outstanding questions?

[left pumice]

No, I think I'm good for now. Thank you