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Subscriptions
Subscriptions allow you to automatically charge customers on a recurring schedule for predictable recurring revenue.
What You Will Learn
- What subscriptions are and how they work
- How Plans and Subscriptions relate
- Subscription lifecycle and statuses
- Payment retry logic and delinquency handling
- How to create, manage, suspend, reactivate, and cancel subscriptions
What Is a Subscription?
A subscription is an active billing agreement between you and a customer that
automatically processes payments on a recurring schedule. Unlike one-time
transactions or invoices, subscriptions continue charging until they are completed,
cancelled, or suspended.
Subscriptions work like a gym membership or streaming service—customers sign up once, and payments are charged automatically at regular intervals.
Why Use Subscriptions?
Subscriptions are ideal for businesses offering ongoing products or services:
- Memberships (gyms, associations)
- SaaS products
- Subscription boxes
- Retainers or maintenance services
- Premium content access
- Benefits for Your Business
- Predictable recurring revenue
- Automated billing and retries
- Reduced manual work
- Improved cash-flow forecasting
- Benefits for Your Customers
- Automatic, convenient payments
- No missed due dates
- Uninterrupted service
- Easy subscription management
Subscription Components
- Customer
- Every subscription is linked to a customer profile containing:
- The customer name and email address
- The securely stored payment method
- Billing and shipping addresses, if applicable
A valid customer with a payment method is required before creating a subscription. Only the default payment method for a customer can be used to pay for a subscription. - Subscription Name
- A descriptive identifier to help you manage subscriptions:
- By default, this field is auto-generated (for example, SUB-001)
- Name can be customized during creation and edit (for example, Jane Doe – Premium Membership)
- Plan
- Plans define how customers are billed. Each Plan includes:
- Amount
- Currency
- Frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and so forth)
- Duration (fixed number of billing cycles or ongoing)
- Setup fee (optional)
Plans are reusable templates. One Plan can power many subscriptions. - Start Date
- The start date determines when billing begins. Charges process at 2:00 AM local time.
- If set to today, the first payment processes immediately
- For future dates, the subscription stays pending.
- The start date cannot be changed after the first payment.
- Subscription ID
- A system-generated and unique ID that is used for reporting and support. Subscription IDs cannot be edited.
How Subscriptions Work
Once active, the system automatically:
- Processes the first payment on the start date
- Calculates the next billing date
- Charges the customer on each billing cycle
- Sends payment receipts by email
- Repeats until completed, cancelled, or suspended
Plans vs. Subscriptions
- Plans
- Purpose
- Billing template
- Reusability
- Reusable
- Customer Linked
- No
- Processes Payments
- No
- Subscriptions
- Purpose
- Active billing agreement
- Reusability
- Unique relationship between Plan and Customer
- Customer Linked
- Yes
- Processes Payments
- Yes
Subscription Status Lifecycle
Pending → Active → Delinquent → Suspended → Cancelled / Completed
- Pending
- Waiting for start date (Payments: No)
- Active
- Billing normally (Payments: Yes)
- Delinquent
- Payment failed, retrying (Payments: Retrying)
- Suspended
- Paused (Payments: No)
- Cancelled
- Permanently stopped (Payments: No)
- Completed
- Finished all payments (Payments: No)
Delinquent Subscriptions & Retry Logic
When a payment fails, the system automatically retries based on billing frequency:
- Daily
- Retry Interval: 1 hour, Retries: 1
- Weekly
- Retry Interval: Every 1 day, Retries: 3
- Monthly
- Retry Interval: Every 2 days, Retries: 5
- Yearly
- Retry Interval: Every 15 days, Retries: 3
Outcomes:
- Retry succeeds → back to Active
- All retries fail → Suspended
Contact customers early when payments fail to avoid churn.
Editing Rules
- Before First Payment (Pending)
- Customer, Plan, Start date, Subscription name
- After First Payment
- Subscription name only
Core billing details are locked after the first payment. To change Plan or price, cancel and create a new subscription.
Timing Restrictions
Subscriptions cannot be suspended or cancelled within 10 minutes before or after payment processing. This prevents billing conflicts.