edutomesco

[mystic shale]

Hi
Can you give a concrete example please of this ?

[warm needle]

yes

I have a product that have 5 prices of yearly recurrence. This 5 prices represent 5 services on my company that are metered prices with layers. The first layer is the quantity is included on your subscription and it costs 0€. The second layer is all the overage that the user consumes that is not included on the subscription and so it would be charge the next billing cycle that extra amount. But with the annual plans what happens is that I don't want to wait one year to charge this extra amount I want to control that monthly, and so I would like to every month passed on an annual subscription to emit an invoice to the customer to liquidate this overage used.

The reason the interval is anual is because one of the price is a licensed that is a fixed price the user should pay in the case of annual subscriptions annually

More clear?

[warm needle]

I'm thinking on create a worker on my service to control when the subscription change of month and emit an invoice manually for all the overage the user did.

Hi?

[mystic shale]

Sorry for my late reply, I think you can refer to this:
https://stripe.com/docs/billing/invoices/subscription#generating-invoices

Otherwise, you can create multiple subscription for the same customer, each Subscription represent a Layer, (one annual subscription, one monthly...)

[warm needle]

I can't do that because I used the checkout of Stripe

[slim tundra]

I'm struggling to understand the use case you describe. Can you share an existing sub_xxx that demonstrates the behaviour?

[warm needle]

sub_1MnzULG1fQyuUuzXngkGkfTV

[slim tundra]

But with the annual plans what happens is that I don't want to wait one year to charge this extra amount I want to control that monthly
That's just not possible unfortunately

and so I would like to every month passed on an annual subscription to emit an invoice to the customer to liquidate this overage used.
Why not just use a monthly price?

The reason the interval is anual is because one of the price is a licensed that is a fixed price the user should pay in the case of annual subscriptions annually
Then this is something you'd need to account for in your integration. Perhaps you prevent cancellations until after annual period is over

[warm needle]

exactly if user cancels you have access since the finalitzation of your subscription because you already paid

can you propose me a better design?

or how people manage this use case?

[warm needle]

because I need one compact invoice with all the services (prices) that we offer

Business model don't allow me to emit two different invoices with different prices

[slim tundra]

Then just prevent them from being able to cancel the subscription until a specific date (i.e. don't allow for it in your UI)

[warm needle]

But I don't unserstand why this can help me?

because I need to charge the licensed prices just ones per year

[slim tundra]

Well then have 2 Subscriptions: one with the annual price, and the other with the recurring monthly prices

If you need them on one Invoice, then you'll need to use your own Invoicing service

[warm needle]

but I'm using the checkout of stripe I think I can't achieve that

[slim tundra]

There's no way to do what you're describing with a single Subscription

[warm needle]

https://stripe.com/docs/billing/invoices/subscription#pending-items-frequently

[slim tundra]

True, Checkout can't really support super complex, niche use cases like that

[warm needle]

and about this?

Use pending_invoice_item_interval to specify an interval for how often to bill for any pending invoice items. This is equivalent to having Stripe create a one-off invoice for the subscription on a recurring basis.

this could handle it?

[slim tundra]

Maybe that will work, have you tried it? Your use case is very specific, it's hard for me to fully recommend something as I don't have all the context you do

[warm needle]

I didn't try it

But this is to put prices to execute on different interval isn't it?

[slim tundra]

No, you'd need to manually add the invoice items to each Invoice not the Subscription

[warm needle]

I mean what is considered a pending invoice item?

[warm needle]

don't understand

[warm needle]

But this is an attribute that you set in the susbcription

[slim tundra]

Read the documentation:

These one-off items are added to the next invoice created for this customer. To make sure this is added to a specific subscription, use the optional subscription parameter to apply it to that subscription.

So you'd need to add them ~every month I imagine if your Subscription is annual

[slim tundra]

That doesn't add it to the Subscription, it just means to allow apply/charge for those pending items on invoice related to that subscription

[warm needle]

but how this invoice is trigger?

I mean I need to do something apart from specify this when I create the subscription?

[slim tundra]

Because you'd specify pending_invoice_item_interval: https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/object#subscription_object-pending_invoice_item_interval

The best option is you to just try this out, and use billing clocks to see if this works as you need

[warm needle]

Okey, but I dont need to manually create any invoice no?

[slim tundra]

No, you'd need to manually create the Invoice Item every month though to reflect the monthly charge you want

[warm needle]

but how I know when I need to create this invoice?

I mean I need a webhook or something like this no?

because its tottally async

[slim tundra]

You'd create it via a job or a queue I guess, at whatever timestamp you want to generate the monthly invoice

[warm needle]

In general, when a customer incurs overage charges for a metered price during the middle of a subscription period, a pending invoice item is created for the overage amount, and this item is added to the next invoice that is generated for the subscription, according to the specified pending_invoice_item_interval. The exact amount of the pending invoice item will depend on the pricing and metered usage for the specific price in question.

but reading this it suggests I do not need to create any invoice

I mean

how I know when it's the next month if I put an interval of "month"

[slim tundra]

You don't create an Invoice no, you'd create an Invoice Item every month (if that's the interval you want), which would be invoiced according to the pending_invoice_item_interval field on the Subscription

[slim tundra]

As stated, you need to programmatically create these Invoice Items on the 1st of every month, for example (or whenever you want to bill the user)

[warm needle]

and how I can do that?

I don't exactly understand

So then why it's used ending_invoice_item_interval

[slim tundra]

Via the API: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/invoices/subscription#adding-upcoming-invoice-items

[warm needle]

if I need to control myself the first of each month

[slim tundra]

Because otherwise, we'll only generated an Invoice for those pending items according to the default billing cycle for the Subscription. Which, in your case, would be yearly

This is what that parameter exists, so you can charge for one-off items related to the Subscription of a different interval

But you need to create the Invoice Items yourself

[warm needle]

Okey so then I need to put all the prices that I want to charge on this invoiceitem object?

But for me the difficult thing is to know when I should put this? I need to know the change of month and that is sync with the stripe

[slim tundra]

Yes, correct

[slim tundra]

I don't understand the question

[warm needle]

I can execute this in a cron for example every two hours

[slim tundra]

Honestly, my original recommendation would be to just try this out and see how it works, and whether it's a good fit for you

[warm needle]

so first it's better to try just setting the parameter

[slim tundra]

Create your Subscription with your annual Price, set pending_invoice_item_interval: 'monthly'

[warm needle]

monthly it's month isn't it?

[slim tundra]

Then try adding Invoice Items, passing the subscription parameter and see what happens

You'll need to do this with a test clock so you can jump forward to the billing intervals as needed

[warm needle]

but how can I specified this customer and subscirption on test clock

if I can put code to create it?

[slim tundra]

You'd create the clock and then create a new Customer and Subscription: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/testing/test-clocks#how-to-use-test-clocks

[warm needle]

but from the dashboard I can't put the attribute I want

when I create the subscription