#nico_best-practices
fluid notchBOT
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fluid notchBOT
worthy oak
More Context
We have two Stripe billing flows:
New registrations
- Checkout in
mode: subscription - Persistent Products/Prices per TLD
- Renewals handled via
invoice.paid webhooks - This works as intended.
Domain transfers
- Initial one-time transfer fee (amount can differ from renewal)
- After a successful transfer, we create a Subscription for annual renewals
- We currently delay the first charge using
trial_end = transfer_date + 1 year
This leaves subscriptions in a “trialing” state even though the customer has already paid, which makes lifecycle state and reporting unclear.
Goal
Model "pay once now, then start recurring billing at a fixed future date" in a way that keeps Stripe’s subscription state, reporting, and customer portal behavior semantically correct.
gray mortar
Hello! Just to set expectations upfront, this channel is mainly focused on API integration help, so MRR/ARR calculations aren't really our forte.
That said, I can share what I know. Stripe doesn't factor trials into MRR calculations (here's more info on that: https://support.stripe.com/questions/understanding-monthly-recurring-revenue-(mrr)-and-annual-recurring-revenue-(arr)).
I do have a couple of suggestions for what you can try, but I can't say how these would affect your MRR/ARR. You might need to test things out or reach out to our support team to get clarity on that part.
Here are the options you could try:
- Prebilling: This might work for your use case. Check out the docs here: https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/prebilling. This would likely only work if the transfer fee is the same amount as the yearly subscription price.
- Subscription Schedules: You could set up the transfer fee as a yearly price that ends after one year, then automatically switch to your actual yearly subscription price.
I personally think Subscription Schedules seem to fit what you want better : https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules, so I'll recommend trying this out first
worthy oak
Hello! Just to set expectations upfront, this channel is mainly focused on API i...
Hi again 🙂 A colleague looked into this shortly, just shortly for my understanding so it would be possible to use it like this: Phase 1 charges the transfer fee once and phase 2 automatically switches to the true annual renewal price with the billing anchored to transfer_date + 1 year?
But looks exactly like the thing we were looking for so thank you very much already
gray mortar
yep! what you described is correct. The Transfer fee would be set up as a yearly price though.
fluid notchBOT
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