Stripe - Monthly Subscription with First Period Length

0
votes

We offer a Pro Monthly Subscription where the monthly rate is $50 but we require the first 2-months to be pre-paid upfront.

Or you could rephrase another way; the first month of a Subscription is paid and the second month is pre-paid.

With another payment processor (FastSpring) we could configure a First Period Length on Subscriptions. For example, a Pro Monthly Subscription is purchased but the First Period Length is set to 2-months.

Here's a scenario:

  1. Subscription is purchased on July 1st
  2. First 2-months pre-paid on July 1st = $100
  3. Next charge date is September 1st = $50
  4. Charges ($50) continue monthly until Subscription is cancelled

We haven't found a clean way to accomplish the same First Period Length with Stripe.

Any idea how something similar could be configured with Stripe?

2
stripe-payments

2 Answers

1
votes

You can achieve this with a trial period and a one off-invoice. Here's the flow:

  1. Create the subscription and set the trial period to 60 days: https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/create#create_subscription-trial_period_days
  2. Create a one-off invoice to immediately charge for 2 months ($100): https://stripe.com/docs/billing/invoices/one-off
  3. After the 2 month trial period is over, the regular monthly subscription ($50 a month) will kick in
0
votes

A Product with two Pricing Plans and a scheduled change to the Subscription was a good fit for our scenario.

The first Pricing Plan (Intro) is configured with a 2-month term and $100 fee (2 * $50/month).

Second Pricing Plan is the regular monthly rate ($50/month).

When the Subscription is created the Intro plan starts on Day0 and a change is scheduled for 2-months to switch the Subscription to the regular Monthly pricing plan.

Here's the configuration in the Dashboard:

Stripe Subscription with First Period Length