r3v3rb_best-practices

[sacred sedge]

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[amber thorn]

Hi, let me help you with this.

[still karma]

Thanks Vanya

[amber thorn]

You can achieve this with Subscription Schedules: https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules

You will need to create 2 phases:

• with Price A, for 1 cycle
• with Price A and Price B

[still karma]

Well Price 'B' would be an ad-hoc item, The default subscription is for a digital product - XX uses per month. The second part would be a physical product that we would ship but add the cost to their next billing period. I'm sure I've seen this capability in the past somewhere

[amber thorn]

Yes, this will add the one-off item to the next Invoice: https://docs.stripe.com/api/subscriptions/update#update_subscription-add_invoice_items

But not, if you use it when creating a Subscription it will add it to the initial Invoice.

[still karma]

So the user will create a subscription prior to adding any extra items - it would be a pre-requisite

Or they can purchase the physical product using Stripe payments like a standalone purchase

[amber thorn]

Then you can just update the Subscription with add_invoice_items

[still karma]

perfect, the 20 limit is that per month/cycle or just adding 20 items in one call to the add_invoice_item?

[amber thorn]

Good question. I think it's per call. But if you make another call you will need to re-add the existing items too.

[still karma]

Really?!?!? That's not great for users that might want to add two or three items over a billing schedule!

[amber thorn]

It's best to check for yourself to be sure.

[still karma]

Okay, I'm rethinking implementation to show in our dashboard the extra 'fees' for physical products but then just send that once prior to the customers next billing schedule and then add them according to the quantity we hold for that month.

For example if we 'bill' them monthly we can tally the total they have used at the end of each calendar month and send to their billing account for the next schedule even if thats on the 12th of the month ...

[amber thorn]

Actually, I ran some tests now and it seems like add_invoice_items actually saves the existing items. Sorry, my bad.
It means then 20 is the limit per call.

[still karma]

I see, so we can just add them at the point of placing the 'order' on our solution

I guess the only issue we have to really consider is non-payment

we normally only ship prior to payment being successful in our current implementation

As they have a customer object, could we bill these extras as direct payments?

[amber thorn]

Sure, you can just create a PaymentIntent and use the saved PaymentMethod of the customer.

[still karma]

What would be our legal requirements - from a terms and conditions point of view that we can take extra payments outside of the billing schedule?

I'm based in the UK

[amber thorn]

I don't know much about legal aspects, unfortunately. Probably best to ask Stripe Support: https://support.stripe.com/?contact=true