Starting a subscription with a prorated period

[Aaron Michal]

I feel like i'm missing something obvious.

I need subscriptions to renew on a fixed schedule but start with a prorated amount for the remaining part of the current period. For example.

Plan A is billed monthly on the 15th of the month for $100

A customer signs up on the July 1st.

There were 30 days in june so I want their first invoice to run on June 1st for the remaining 15 of those 30 days. The amount would be (15/30 * $100)=$50

And their next invoice should run on June 15th for $100 (and the $100 on each 15th of the month after that)

I've read https://stripe.com/docs/subscriptions/billing-cycle and tried various combinations craeting the invoice with and without a trial_end and updating it with a new trail_end with both prorate=true and prorate=false. I even tried playing with proration_date:

subscription = stripe_customer.create_subscription

subscription.proration_date = next_billing_date

subscription.trial_end = next_billing_date

subscription.save

This seems to create 2 invoices

* an invoice for the full amount

* a second invoice with two line items

   - one for $0 and 

   - one for a credit but with the a description that makes no sense "Unused time on <plan> after <now>"

[Jonathan Lomas]

Hi Aaron!

Thanks for reaching out - I'm sorry you're having issues with this!  I think your best bet here is a two-step approach making use of the Invoice Item [0] to handle that initial charge:

1) Create an Invoice Item on the Customer [1] to cover off the first billing amount; and

2) Create the Subscription with the `trial_end` date set to the next billing date (i.e., June 15). [2]

As long as you create the initial Invoice Item before creating the Subscription, that initial Invoice Item will be picked up - and paid - when creating the Subscription.

This means that as soon as you create the Subscription, the customer will be billed for that initial amount - i.e., the Invoice Item - and then they won't be billed again until the `trial_end` date - i.e., the 15th of the month.

Hopefully that'll get you moving forward; if not, or you run into any other integration issues, don't hesitate to let me know!

Best,

Jonathan

[0] https://stripe.com/docs/api#invoiceitems
[1] https://stripe.com/docs/api#create_invoiceitem
[2] https://stripe.com/docs/api#create_subscription-trial_end

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