A subscription connects your customers to your products/services that they pay and subscribe to. It determines the products and services that a customer has signed up for, and how frequently they're charged for it on a recurring basis.
A subscription is created when a customer signs-up for a plan using Checkout. Any associated addons or coupons are also added to the subscription. Any number of subscriptions can be linked to a Customer record in Chargebee, each with its own trial period, pricing, payment options, and so on.
You can create subscriptions in your Chargebee site, or use the create subscription API(Product Catalog 2.0 / Product Catalog 1.0 ).
As a customer, you can have a total of 900 subscriptions at any time. This limit includes both active and inactive subscriptions.
The subscription details page in Chargebee displays the details of the subscription along with its status. The following are various statuses of a subscription:
Future: Subscriptions that are yet to go into trial or active state on the specified date in the future.
In Trial: Active subscriptions that are in trial mode.
Active: Active subscriptions that are charged based on plan, addons, and billing period.
Non Renewing: Subscriptions that are scheduled to cancel and will no longer renew.
Paused: Active subscriptions that are stopped temporarily.
Cancelled: Inactive subscriptions that will no longer renew. You can configure how charges and credits are handled on cancellation.
To view all subscriptions in your Chargebee site, click Subscriptions. This page lists all your subscriptions along with a summary of each subscription.
This page diplays options such as filtering views, sending emails to customers, exporting the list of subscriptions to CSV file, and downloading shipping labels.
Select one or more subscriptions to perform bulk actions such as delete, change term end, and cancel subscriptions.
Only Admins can perform Bulk Actions such as bulk delete, changing end of term for multiple subscription together, and bulk cancel.
Following are the bulk actions that can be performed from the subscription details page:
Delete: Deletes the subscriptions.
Change Term End: Changes the end date of the subscription. On selecting this option, the Change Term End dialog will open. Enter the necessary details and click Apply Changes.
Cancel Subscription: Cancels the selected subscriptions. Enter the necessary details in the Cancel Subscriptions dialog and click Apply Changes. To cancel subscriptions, select More > Cancel Subscription option. Read more on Canceling subscriptions.
To create a new subscription in your Chargebee site, follow these steps:
The Subscription Info section collects information related to the plan you would like to subscribe the customer to.
As you add the subscription information, a sneak-peek of the immediate charges for the subscription gets displayed for your reference on the right side. You can click See breakdown to view the complete breakdown of immediate charges.
The Billing Info section captures information related to the billing of the subscription.
The Invoicing Options section captures information related to invoicing the subscription. You can choose to generate invoice immediately or add to unbilled charges.
The Shipping address section captures the shipping information related to the subscription, if you are dealing with shippable physical goods. You can either apply the billing address of the customer for shipping, or add the shipping address details.
Click Create.
If your plan does not have a trial period, you can create the subscription by setting Auto Collection to OFF. The subscription will be created as an offline subscription. Once the subscription is created, you can add the card details using the Add Credit Card option within the subscription.
Another way of creating subscriptions using plans without a trial period is by using the plan's hosted page URL. This allows you to enter the credit card details while creating the subscription.
When you open up an existing subscription, there are several details you can view and actions you can perform. The subscription provides you with all the details like customer info, CC info, due amount, trial days remaining (if in trial). You can also see subscription info, non-recurring items, address, current term charges/credits, invoices and transactions.
You can perform the following operations from the subscription details page:
The Edit Subscription option can be accessed from one of the following places:
It allows you to change one or more of the following aspects of the subscription such as:
Applying Changes: In the Apply Changes section you can choose to bring the changes into effect in three timelines as follows:
This option lets you add a one-time addon to the subscription. Learn more.
This option lets you add an additional charge to the subscription. It is a one-time charge and does not recur. Learn more.
If you have enabled Metered Billing in your Chargebee site and when the susbcription contains metered components, you can use this option to add usage data to the subscription. Click Add Usage, specify the date and time for when the usage is being added and specify the usage units in Quantity field.
You can also do a bulk import of multiple usage data for multiple subscription records using the Bulk Operations feature (for Subscriptions) in Chargebee.
This option can be used to apply and redeem additional coupons on an existing subscription. Only coupons that are applicable to the plan in this subscription will be displayed.
This option allows you to send an email with an auto-generated link that the subscriber can use to add/update their card details. If you use Chargebee's single-page checkout, then please make sure that you've configured the Update Payment Method Page redirect URL that users will be redirected to once they've successfully updated their payment method details.
This option appears only when the subscription is in "Future" state. You can change when the subscription should start using this option. If you need to start the subscription immediately (or on the current day, if your Chargebee site is on day-based billing mode), you can choose the current time/date.
If the subscription was created through the API and a trial period was specified, changing the start date will automatically remove that trial period. In this case, only the plan's trial period (if present) will be considered. Otherwise, the subscription will go into "Active" state.
The Change Next Billing Date option will appear on active subscriptions and is used to change the next renewal date/time. You can change the date/time to a later or an earlier point in time. The subscription will update on the specified date/time.
This option will only appear on trial subscriptions. This can be used to extend the trial period if needed.
The subscription details page also displays the following sections:
This option allows you to add a new credit card number if it is not available or update it if there is a change.
This option is used to enter the customer's shipping address. Once you have added this information, it will appear on the subscription as a new section. You can edit all the address fields except for the Label used. You can delete the address, and add a new one if needed.
If you've enabled any of the billing address fields, you will see this option, and you can use this to add/edit your customers' billing address.
This option can be used to cancel or re-activate a subscription. You can cancel a subscription immediately or at the next renewal. Only subscriptions with credit card info can be reactivated once it is canceled. Learn more.
You can override the price point of a plan while creating or editing the subscription when price overriding is enabled in your Chargebee site.
To change the price for an existing subscription, follow these steps:
If proration is enabled, a new invoice is generated for the subscription at the new price. Refundable credits are raised for the remaining period of the subscription at the old price and applied to the new invoice.
When an invoice is generated with incorrect details, such as an error in the line items, incorrect shipping and billing address etc, you can void that particular invoice and regenerate it using the Regenerate Invoice option.
Refer Regenerate Invoice to learn more about this.
If you wish to delete a Subscription in Chargebee, open the specific Subscription's details page and click the Delete Subscription option available on the actions panel.
This operation is irreversible - all data related to the Subscription, such as Transactions and Invoices, get deleted.
The numbers in the following reports will get modified when a Subscription is deleted:
Product Entitlements in Chargebee allow you to control the features accessible to customers based on the plan or addon they subscribe to. When a feature is activated and mapped to a plan or addon, it is automatically available for all subscriptions of the plan or addon.
You can view entitlements in subscriptions. The feature name, entitlement level, and status are displayed in the entitlement section of the subscription details page.
You can even override the entitlement level for each subscription, to add or change the entitlements to features that are not part of the associated plan or addon. Learn more.
1) Can I add coupons to the subscriptions on the customer's request?
Yes, you can add coupons to the subscription in your Chargebee on customer's request.
There are three scenarios where you can add the coupon:
2) Is it possible to send a quote to a customer which they can review before signing up?
Yes, enable Quotes in Chargebee to send pricing quotes or proforma invoices to your customers.
3) Why can't I find a way to add the time when I specify details such as "subscription start date", "change next billing date"?
The billing mode of your Chargebee site governs whether billing is done to-the-calendar-day or to-the-millisecond. If you have day-based billing mode set for your site, you will not be able to make changes to the billing-related times to a granularity lesser than a calendar day.