#danatdoxyme
viral grove
candid cove
Hello! It's really not very practical to do what you're describing. The closest you can come is using a Setup Intent on these payment methods, but that won't guarantee they'll work later for an actual payment. The only way to know for sure if a payment will succeed is to attempt that specific payment.
For example, let's say a card works fine, but only has $2 available. A Setup Intent or a small charge will succeed, but if you then try to do a $10 charge it will fail.
That's just one of many examples of why this approach is problematic.
I recommend bringing people back, trying their existing payment method, and if that fails prompt them to enter new payment info.
neon lily
What's the difference between setup intent and a the creating a charge as far as what the user might experience on their bank account?
Does intent just check, while charge create a hold?
Will they see a charge if we just did a setup intent? We want to get close, with as few exceptions as possible
We might serve up the portal link as a backup, but the workflow is pretty unidirectional
candid cove
Setup Intents validate the card, they don't create an actual charge. Behind the scenes they usually create a $0/$1 validation, and those usually don't show up on cardholder statements (but it depends on the card/bank).
neon lily
So if we did this, we would use setup. Any other edge cases that come to mind? You mentioned not having enough money in the account, can you think of anything else?
candid cove
Yeah, there are a lot. Maybe it's valid today, but it gets lost/stolen/canceled/etc. tomorrow when you try the actual charge.
neon lily
These are users that haven't been around in months, so I think as long as we can get most of those weeded out, we'll alert the remaining. This is helpful. When we want to actually charge, can we just create a subscription, selecting that card id (we are a subscription service), and the invoice and charges will take place or is there a second step to the SetupIntent that is required?
candid cove
The Setup Intent and the Subscription in this use case would be separate and not directly related to each other.
neon lily
Right, intent we might do the day before we run our campaign.
candid cove
Yes, you would create the Subscription when the customer indicates they want that to happen.