#arggh
round topaz
daring matrix
Hi 👋
What do you mean by a "paused" state?
viscid nebula
pause_collection: {
behavior: 'mark_uncollectible',
}
aka, pausing payment collection.
Sorry for bad wording.
Love your avatar, just watched some Moomin animation yesterday.
daring matrix
I haven't caught the animated shows, I just always loved the outdoor anarchist Snufkin from the books. Okay, let me take a look
Is there a reason setting the payment_behavior to default_incomplete and just deferring payment method collection will not work here? What is the process you are seeking to enable?
viscid nebula
I will always already have a payment method collected from the customer, and I'd prefer not to defer the collection because I worry I'm not going to get it later and will potentially lose a customer. So the subscription will always have a payment method, inherited from the Customer.
We're launching a new product and want to allow customers to "pre-register", meaning they can set up their account beforehand, but billing will start only later once the service will actually bring them value in return.
daring matrix
Okay, that makes sense. At the time the customer pre-registers do you know the date the subscription will actually begin?
viscid nebula
Yes, though to make things more complicated, we will offer them a 3 months free trial after the launch date, except for specific products.
- Customers can register beginning 10th Dec '22
- Service opens 1st Jan '23, free 3 month trial begins for users who pre-registered
- 1 month trial for everyone else, registering in '23
viscid nebula
Oh it definitely works, it just feels hacky & brittle, having to set a trial for few minutes to start a paused subscription.
daring matrix
Wait, I'm confused
Oh
I think I get it. You have a trial in addition to the pause
viscid nebula
Yes.
Some products are not included in the trial, but have to available to subscribe to even before '23.
...but not billed before '23.
daring matrix
So in that case can you use a timestamp for billing_cycle_anchor to set the start of the Subscription in the future (by a few minutes, days, weeks)?
https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/create#create_subscription-billing_cycle_anchor
viscid nebula
Ah! Perfect.
Somehow missed that as an option entirely.
So, if I create a subscription with billing_cycle_anchor in the future, it will not immediately charge and I will have time to do whatever, like pause payments?
This might make everything easier.
daring matrix
Yes, we have a doc on how it behaves here: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/billing-cycle
And the Subscriptions section of our docs is so large with so many nested pages, I can understand missing it