ryanl4753 | Stripe Developers | Page 1

astral joltBOT Jun 29, 2023, 5:29 PM

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native dune Jun 29, 2023, 5:30 PM

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Hello! It sounds like it's charging for all 11 for the next period of the Subscription, not the current one, which is expected behavior when you want to charge the prorated amount immediately.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 5:32 PM

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If I don't have a 100% discount, it does not charge for all the licenses, it only charges the prorated amount for the current period, and only for the one license

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 5:33 PM

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Can you show me some examples?

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 5:34 PM

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Sure. I can make some test-mode screenshots. One minute. Thanks for the help so far!

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This is how it works with no discount applied:

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going from 10 to 11 adds an additional charge right away, but only for the one license they didn't already pay for

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Here is a different subscription I'm making right now, which shows a $0 charge for the first year period

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Here is the attempt to increase the license count. I want to charge $12 right away prorated for the current billing period, but it wants to charge for all 11 licenses:

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 5:43 PM

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What happens if you switch to "Charge proration amount on next invoice"?

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 5:45 PM

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That appears to add 11 licenses worth of charges to both the current and next billing period

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but somehow it is just ignoring the fact that 10 licenses should be covered by the first paid invoice with the 100% off coupon

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 5:48 PM

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Gotcha, okay, give me a couple minutes to check on something...

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 5:48 PM

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ok, thanks!

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 5:54 PM

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Okay, so this is expected behavior, albeit not intuitive. Your 100% coupon is one-time only, and it was already used one time for the initial discount. That means it can't be used again for the proration calculation.

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You can apply a new coupon to the Subscription when you update it to take an amount off that accounts for the existing discount you want to retain.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 5:56 PM

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Ouch. Any way around it? We have some integration code that will increase their licenses when they add more users/seats in the product. It does this by just increasing the license total and charging a proration. But for any customers that got a special discount on their first invoice, it will undo the whole coupon.

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Even if I can write the code to find the original coupon, I can't use the same one. We only wanted to discount the first 10 licenses 100%. So the coupon can't really work

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 6:00 PM

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Right, you would need a different coupon/discount.

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One that only took off the amount for the original licenses.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 6:03 PM

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and then I'd have to have it know to stop doing that coupon after the next billing period ends?

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and I'd have to generate new coupons on the fly each time they change their licenses in the app

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 6:05 PM

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Yes.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 6:06 PM

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I can probably use this issue to get my billing team to never use one-time coupons again. Not working with prorations is a good enough reason to look at a different approach. Any thoughts on a different way to discount the initial licenses that would work? I could suggest we try making custom tiered pricing for each customer.

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oh, but the tiered pricing would keep doing the free licenses every year...

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 6:07 PM

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Most people use a trial period when they want 100% off initially, but I don't know if that would work for your use case. Tiered pricing could work; you could switch to a different Price once you want the discounts to end.

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So you'd have the initial tiered Price with $0 for the first X, then switch to a different tiered Price with $not-zero for the first X when you're ready.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 6:08 PM

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can subscription schedules make that happen automatically for the second billing period?

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I think this still applies for a 50%-off-once coupon, right? So it would still not remember that the licenses are already half-"paid" during a prorated increase?

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 6:13 PM

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Yep, you can use Subscription Schedules to make that happen automatically later.

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And it would still apply for other one-off coupons regardless of the percentage, yep.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 6:18 PM

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hmm. This is super weird. It happens even in a license reduction. If I go down to 9 licenses, it wants to charge the customer money. But if I turn proration off, it "remembers" the coupon.

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Thanks for your help. It really feels like there is something wrong with it. But I might be able to find a way to work around it

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It feels like it is basically "coupons only work on a subscription if you don't buy more licenses"

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 6:20 PM

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It's more that the coupon only applies once. Prorations are a new, separate calculation, and the one-time coupon doesn't apply because it's already been used.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 6:33 PM

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Yeah. I just would have thought that the proration only applied to things that weren't already paid for

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Also weird, because it seems like it changes behavior for dollar-off instead of percent off. Still checking on that

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oh, nevermind. It works the same way I think. If I make a "one dollar off once" coupon, apply it to a subscription on creation, and then update it to add a new license with an immediate prorated charge, it charges both the amount of the new license, plus it reverses the coupon by charging one extra dollar

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 6:43 PM

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Yep, that makes sense, the coupon was already used so it can't also apply to the proration calculations.

errant socket Jun 29, 2023, 6:46 PM

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Yeah. So basically a "proration" is effectively a "recalculate the charges for this billing period from the ground up"

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thanks for your help! I think that covers all my stuff

native dune Jun 29, 2023, 6:47 PM

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Yep! Happy to help!

#ryanl4753