Authorize.net - ARB - enabling/disabling subscription

Question

So I am dealing with Authorize.net's ARB, and I have a situation where the user is applying for usage of our service for eg. 3 months. We charge the user for this period - 3 months, but we don't make a subscription immediately. The thing is, we don't want to automatically charge them again once the membership expires after 3 months, but only if they go to account settings and set that option (extend membership automatically). So if they don't select it, there is no need to establish a subscription, so that's why we aren't doing it in starting point, once the user applies for this service.

So the question is, should I create a new subscription once user selects "Yes" for that option, and delete the subscription when he selects "No" ?

Is there another way to do it?

It's really hard to find some answers by Google, and I was hoping someone with more experience will have an answer here.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

When the user selects "Yes" for the new subscription just create a new ARB subscription with a start date of three months past their three month trial period. The three month subscription will run its normal course and terminate after three months. Then the new subscription will start at that point.

But here's the catch with that solution: you need the customer's credit card information in order to recreate another subscription. Unless you store it somewhere (bad idea) you can do that. So you would need to ask for it again. That's a large hurdle to overcome and will negatively affect conversion rates.

Alternatively you can automatically create the three month subscription at the point where the user starts their three month trial. As they approach the end of the three month trial you should make them aware there subscription will automatically start unless they cancel it. This solves the creation of the subscription problem but isn't very popular with users as nobody likes being automatically enrolled in a subscription.

Third option is to use Authorize.Net's CIM API to create a payment account for that user. Then you can charge against their card whenever you want. The problem with that is CIM does not support subscriptions. So you'd have to write your own subscription engine to make this work.

So there is no ideal solution for this. You just need to pick the one that you think works best for you.