novakinn | Stripe Developers | Page 1

worldly thicketBOT Dec 9, 2022, 7:08 PM

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lean kindle Dec 9, 2022, 7:08 PM

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Hello

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Ask your question here!

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 7:08 PM

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Hello!

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Yes so i have a subscription that is being created by a user but it can be downgraded or upgraded

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and the thing is that when the client creates the subscription it bills them immediately and i set up a trial period so it bills every Wednesday of the week no matter when you created the subscription

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but i am having problems whenever the client upgrades his/her subscription because since they are on a trial period they are not being charged instantly

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and i want to charge them instantly

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did I explain myself?

lean kindle Dec 9, 2022, 7:13 PM

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So you want to wait to perform an upgrade/downgrade until the end of the trial period (Wednesday)?

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 7:19 PM

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No, like if the client creates a subscription on tuesday then he will be billed inmediately but a trial period will start so he is billed on the next week on wednesday

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but if that same tuesday the client decides to upgrade i want him to be charged immediately but that doesnt happen because he is on a trial

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should i use the billing_cycle_anchor instead of the trial? what should i do with the prorations? or do they not affect anything?

lean kindle Dec 9, 2022, 7:22 PM

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How are you setting the trial? When you update the Sub the trial should be removed and then they would be billed immediately for the new Price

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Do you have an example I can look at?

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 7:26 PM

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i run that function after i create the subscription

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does the billing_cycle_anchor work the same way as a trial?

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what would be the easiest way for me to do that? with the trial or the billing_cycle_anchor?

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This is me creating the subscription

lean kindle Dec 9, 2022, 7:31 PM

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When you are updating the Sub you are still setting a trial_end

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If you don't want a trial at that point you shouldn't be passing that

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 7:38 PM

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so this is my update function

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the first two pictures happen when you create the subscription for the first time

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the third picture is when i update it.

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When i am updating is when i want them to be charged immediately if the upgraded their subscription

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but since i set a trial before that is not happening

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should i end the trial period and start it again? so they are still billed on every wednesday?

lean kindle Dec 9, 2022, 7:43 PM

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Can you give me a Sub ID that you tested with so I can look at exactly what hapepned?

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Sorry, having a hard time grasping from just looking at pictures of code

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 7:47 PM

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yes of course

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sub_1MCw74H5gOJwaKAPTJPzTBCg

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 7:53 PM

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Hi there. Taking over for bismarck as they have to step out. Give me a few to catch up here

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 7:54 PM

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Yes of course

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thank you

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:02 PM

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Ok I think I understand what you're trying to do. Let me recap to see if I got it. So you want to charge the customer immediately when they subscribe. However, you want to bill them every single wednesday after they subscribe, so you use a trial to make sure that happens. However, if a customer upgrades their subscription in that trial period, you still want to bill them upon upgrading. Do I have that correct?

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:15 PM

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YES 🙌

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you explained it way better than i did jajaja

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:16 PM

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Ah ok I see. So when the customer upgrades in the trial period, do you want to charge them the full amount, or a prorated amount for the upgrade?

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:17 PM

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I want to charge them the difference

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so if they paid 100 and they upgrade to one of 120

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i want to charge them 20

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Sorry i have trouble understanding the word "prorated"

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:18 PM

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No worries. What you described is the prorated amount

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:19 PM

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alright so yes!

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the prorated amount

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:20 PM

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Gotcha. This might be tricky to do with just subscriptions. Have you looked into subscription schedules at all? This might be what you're after: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules

Subscription Schedules API

Learn about the Subscription Schedules object and how to use it.

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:22 PM

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Okay i will look into it

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just one question

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what is the billing_cycle_anchor?

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is that another way to move the billing date?

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:25 PM

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Yeah that's exactly it. It's the day that the subscription is billed on. I'll let you read through the subscription schedule docs so you can fully understand how they work, but what I'd recommend with a subscription schedule is to start the schedule and first phase immediately when you create the sub schedule for the full price, then you would have a second phase that starts on the upcoming wednesday so that your customer will be billed on that cadence going forward. If the customer decides to upgrade their subscription, you'd just upgrade the price on the current, active phase. I think that should achieve what you need.

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:28 PM

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Alright i briefed through the documentation

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So i understand what you are saying

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but will the second phase keep the same price of the first phase?

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:29 PM

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It will be whatever price you tell it to bill

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You can update it too in the update request

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:35 PM

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Okay so i am reading more. So it says that when one phase ends "based on the attributes of the next phase" it starts automatically. Does this mean it inherits the previous attributes or do i, admin, have to set the price it takes.

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I want it to just inherit the price the last phase had, since it will be what the client upgraded or downgraded to

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I just want to verify i understand before testing

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:36 PM

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No it doesn't inherit anything. You have to explicitly set everything in each phase

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So if the customer upgrades prices in phase 1 and you want that to be the same price in phase 2, you'll have to change the price in phase 2 as well when you update the subscription schedule

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:40 PM

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So if I have 10 customers that upgraded or downgraded i have to go in and set every phase?

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:40 PM

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Well it would just be 1 api request per customer that updates every phase

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https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscription_schedules/update

Stripe API reference – Update a schedule – curl

Complete reference documentation for the Stripe API. Includes code snippets and examples for our Python, Java, PHP, Node.js, Go, Ruby, and .NET libraries.

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Recommend reading through the subscription schedule docs fully first so you understand how they work

mild sage Dec 9, 2022, 8:42 PM

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Alright i will! thank you! if i keep having trouble can i contact you directly or is this chat saved?

midnight beacon Dec 9, 2022, 8:44 PM

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No problem! We archive threads after some time of inactivity, but if you post in the main dev-help channel, then someone can open a new thread for you

#novakinn