[Help] Specific payment use case scenario

[tas88]

Hi guys, I have this specific scenario and I need some help on how to achieve it:

Stripe is already integrated into my system and I have some active Stripe subscribers who have previously paid for an annual subscription.

Now, I aim to create a Stripe product, not a subscription, priced at $200 for a one-year renewal. If a customer purchases this new product, I intend for my system to utilize the Stripe API to extend their existing and valid subscription by an additional year.

To elaborate, I am interested in understanding whether the Stripe subscription API offers a mechanism to grant an additional year in advance.

 
It is important to note that these users are still required to make a payment for this subscription, and the current one must remain valid until its expiration.

That said, after thinking about potential solutions, I have come up with an idea, and I would appreciate your feedback to determine its viability.

I would be grateful if you could thoroughly consider the steps outlined below:

1. I create a new product (not a subscription) costing $200 for a one-year renewal;
2. The user buys this new product (not a subscription) which costs $200;
3. On my end, I listen to webhook events related to this new product;
4. Then, I would change the current subscription end date and extend it one more year without charging the user  (turning off proration ?)
5. Meaning that, I should add 1 year free to their existing subscription, e.g. via a stripe subscription schedule + a coupon for 100% off one phase of their schedule?

If there is a simpler way to do it, I would like to know that.

Thanks in advance.

[Remi J.]

Hello,

Our Billing product doesn't really support the model you're talking about at the moment unfortunately. We don't have a way to accept payments and model those as an "extension" of the current Subscription. There are many ways to model this but a lot of it depends on your real goals. You weren't clear on the relationship between that new $200 Product versus the existing one on a Subscription for example which makes it tough to guess what you are really after.

The flow you're describing could be reasonable but you don't really have a way to "extend the end date" on a Subscription so I wasn't clear what you mean by that. One solution would be to use the SubscriptionSchedule API [1] to control how many iterations of each phase are allowed and increment this each year when they pay that extra product maybe? Alternatively, you can have them pay and then you track internally whether the Subscription should be canceled when the next period starts or not.

Sorry this is a bit vague but I unfortunately lack enough information to guide you as I'm worried my read of your situation is quite different from what you are trying to achieve. I don't think api-discuss@ is a good fit for this back and forth and I'd recommend working with our support team directly on https://support.stripe.com/contact or talking to developers on our Discord server https://stripe.com/go/developer-chat

Best,

Remi

[1] https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules

--
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to api-discuss...@lists.stripe.com.