#davi_d
shrewd shardBOT
Hello davi_d, we'll be with you shortly! Below are links to other discussions we've had with you in the past week in case you want to review that information. If your question is related to one of these previous discussions, please provide a comprehensive summary of the current state and what you need help with now. We help many users simultaneously, so a summary allows us to resolve your issue as soon as possible.
• https://discord.com/channels/841573134531821608/1163911807791005788, 2 days ago, 11 messages
burnt cargo
My understanding is that this was how Checkout already worked with coupons like this.
Oh that may only be for one time payments
silver isle
yeah unfortunately we're doing subscriptions which makes this annoying lol
burnt cargo
Just double checking, have you already tried this for a subscription in Checkout?
burnt cargo
Gotcha. I can put in a feature request to allow subscription mode to act more like payment mode for this
So for your option #2 you definitely can do this. You can pass in when you want the trial to end and pass in a payment_behavior of either allow_incomplete or default_incomplete to allow the subscription to start without a payment method https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/trials
silver isle
see the problem is that we also have like real trials for our subscriptions 💀
so then it becomes hard to differentiate just based off stripe's subscription state whether they're a real user who just used a "gift card"
or a trialing user
can we create a non-trial subscription without a payment method and just use allow_incomplete?
burnt cargo
That would allow the subscription to exist for 24 hours before cancelling. A credit note may be more helpful here
https://stripe.com/docs/invoicing/dashboard/credit-notes
https://stripe.com/docs/invoicing/integration/programmatic-credit-notes
That would let the subscription be active for free for the first month
Oh, or you could use your existing coupons and pass them in to the subscriptions API when creating the subscription
shrewd shardBOT
burnt cargo
silver isle
Right so if I did that
Without a payment method specified
It'd work?
i guess the main thing we want is as seamless of a UX as possible for whoever is redeeming the coupon.
So ideally all they would need to do is input their coupon on some page, and then we handle the rest with the API
sorry if im asking kinda basic questions, don't think the docs were set up for this kinda use case lol
prisma blade
Hi 👋
I'm stepping in as my colleague had to go
silver isle
hey! really appreciate the help thanks for stepping in!
prisma blade
Reading up on this thread, I think my colleagues' approach would work here. Using the credit-note to allow a user to have a free first month vs a recognized trial period. Since all of this could be performed on your back-end you could just track the "gift card" in your system and redeem it by generating the credit note for the customer.
The UX could be as simple as you need it to be since all of this is done on the back-end
silver isle
gotcha, what if we have a case where a "gift card" would last for more than a month
like basically any arbitrary amount of time
i was under the impression that we could like just do X months of a price_id for free, and then use the billing schedule to change it to its normal price after
but it seems like that may not be possible?
prisma blade
Actually you could use X months * price.unit_amount to determine the amount of the credit note and that would cover the customer for X months.
silver isle
oh ok that's great
and that wouldn't require billing info on the subscription?
this seems like the easiest option here https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules/use-cases#upgrade-downgrade-coupons - will using a coupon for X months * monthly price still require a payment method to keep the subscription active for the entire period that they have a "gifted" subscription?
what im worried about with the credit note approach is that it requires an invoice to be created, so the customer would end up getting some email telling them to pay, even though they're under the impression that they have a free subscription
prisma blade
Hmmm...that is true.
silver isle
a perfect solution in a perfect world would probably be allowing payment methods to be disabled in checkout sessions
but obviously i don't expect that to be implemented tomorrow lol
prisma blade
Yeah, the Checkout surface is fundamentally designed to accept payment so I don't see that happening.
I think the coupon approach is your best option here. So that it is clear to the Customer they will need to pay in the future and what that amount is.
Here is an example (forgive the odd currency)
silver isle
ok i guess there's no way to just not send someone an invoice?
prisma blade
Not if they have an active subscription
prisma blade
The credit balance approach results in the same effect to the Invoice
