#nexuscrawler_best-practices
elfin lynxBOT
👋 Welcome to your new thread!
⏲️ We'll be here soon! Typically we respond in a few minutes, but sometimes we might take a bit longer if the server is busy or if you have a particularly tricky question.
⏱️ We close idle threads, which makes them read-only. Once a thread is closed it won't be reopened, but you can always start a new thread if you have another question.
🔗 This thread will always be available, even after it's closed. You can find it again using Discord's search, or you can save this link: https://discord.com/channels/841573134531821608/1276248549780099276
📝 Have more to share? Add more details, code, screenshots, videos, etc. below.
humble silo
Hi 👋
I think you could use Subscription Schedules for this.
https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules
What you could do is create a Schedule from an existing Subscription ( https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules/use-cases#existing-subscription ). This will create a Schedule with 1 phase that represents your Susbcriptons current billing cycle.
You would then add a new phase that represents the free month to start at the end of the current billing cycle. This represents the free month
Then you add a third phase that goes back to the original billing cycle and continues to bill the customer like normal.
stiff glacier
If we forward the customer to the customer portal, will he realistically be able to see that this is what will happen after the current period ends?
We don't want to leave them guessing if the referral reward has been applied or not.
Is it possible to simply send an update for the subscription with a new period end?
Or would that not work as intended?
humble silo
That isn't a parameter you can update on the Subscription.
https://docs.stripe.com/api/subscriptions/update
stiff glacier
Ah, I see, thanks.
elfin lynxBOT
stiff glacier
We are just looking for a way to do this that makes sense from a customer perspective after the referral.
They should basically log into their stripe customer portal and see that their subscription period has been extended by a month.
tight oasis
Hi there 👋 jumping in as my teammate needs to step away soon. I'm not as familiar with how it looks in the Customer Portal (my teammates and I in this forum specialize in working with the API), so you may need to test how exactly it looks based on your customer portal settings, but you can add a Coupon to the Subscription to discount the next Invoice so the Customer doesn't have to pay.
https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/coupons#discount-subscriptions
https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/coupons#coupon-duration
You can't arbitrarily stretch out a billing period since they're tied to the interval set on the Price being used for the Subscription.
You could also explore pausing payments for the Subscription. This use case shown here sounds like the closest pause flow to what you're describing:
https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/pause-payment#collect-payment-never
stiff glacier
Ah, the pausing seems like they way to go.
If I understand this correctly, we would set pause_collection[behavior] to void, and pause_collection[resumes_at] to the current period end plus 1 month?
Will this also update the anchor and shift it a month into the future?
Because we are both offering monthly and yearly subscription options.
tight oasis
Nope, I'm pretty sure that leaves the billing cycle anchor unaltered.
stiff glacier
But that would not change anything for yearly subscriptions then, would it?
It would be like it never paused at all.
If I pause a yearly subscription in the 7th month for 1 month and the anchor doesn't change, the user would still get billed on month 12.
tight oasis
Correct. The idea of extending an annual Subscription's current period by a month is much more complex, since it isn't on a monthly cycle.