How to create separate subscriptions interval from billing interval

Problem Statement

You want to know how to create separate subscriptions interval from billing interval.

Solution

Scope

How to create a plan where billing is monthly, but the commitment from the customer is yearly.

If a customer, cancels a subscription with monthly billing, then the billing will proceed for the rest of the year. How to do this?

Summary

In Chargebee, currently, it is not possible to have a yearly plan with monthly invoicing. This can be achieved through Contract Terms and setting termination fee.

The other option is by creating a quarterly plan, and further specify the billing cycles as 12 if you wish to cancel the subscription automatically after 1 year.

Solution 1:

Chargebee enables you to retain customers in subscriptions for a specific number of billing cycles. You can define contract terms for each subscription and automate all the subscription workflows based on their respective terms. Chargebee supports the following workflows for managing contract terms. You can:

• Override the price of a plan at the subscription level.
• Specify if the subscription being created is on contract.
• Define the contract renewal terms.
• Define the cancellation terms.
• Apply a termination fee.

In your case, I am afraid there is no direct way to charge the customer for the unused month while canceling, however, you can set up a termination fee here.

Chargebee allows you to charge a termination fee for customers who want to terminate a subscription on contract immediately. You can create a non-recurring addon for termination fee and add this to the subscription, to charge the customer whenever the contract is terminated.

**Solution 2: ** You could achieve this by creating a quarterly plan, and further specify the billing cycles as 12 if you wish to cancel the subscription automatically after 1 year.

Then, at the portal settings, you can restrict customers from canceling their subscriptions from the customer portal. To find this option, please navigate to Settings > Configure Chargebee > Checkout and Self-Serve Portal > Portal and disable the option "Allow customers to cancel subscriptions".

Now, for cancellation, they could reach out to you at the end of the yearly subscription if they want to cancel and you could schedule the cancellation for the particular customer on request as required.