Streamlining Subscription Management with Stripe Schedules

Image Credits: https://chartmogul.com/blog/why-is-stripe-so-popular/

Subscription-based services have become crucial for businesses these days since they provide a reliable source of revenue while offering convenience to customers. However, managing these subscriptions can become increasingly complex, especially when it comes to handling future changes to subscription plans. Stripe, one of the most powerful payment infrastructures in the world, facilitates this requirement through Stripe Subscription Schedules. In this blog post, we’ll explore how Stripe Schedules can help you automate future changes to subscriptions and enhance your subscription management process.

What are Stripe Schedules?

Stripe Schedules is a feature that allows businesses to automate subscription-related events, such as plan changes, trial periods, and billing cycles, in advance. It offers a straightforward and efficient way to schedule and execute changes to subscriptions without manual intervention, reducing the administrative burden on you and ensuring a seamless experience for your customers.

Common Use-cases of Stripe Schedules

• Schedule subscription activation
• Automate upgrades and downgrades
• Schedule subscription cancellations
• Manage installment plans

A comprehensive list of Stripe Schedule use-cases with sample codes can be found here.

Automating Subscription Upgrades and Downgrades

One of the most common use cases for Stripe Schedules is automating subscription plan changes. Whether a customer wants to upgrade immediately, to a higher-tier plan with additional features or downgrade to a more affordable option on a future date, Stripe Schedules can handle these requests with ease.

For example, if a customer requests a downgrade from a premium plan to a basic plan that starts at the beginning of the next billing cycle, you can set up a schedule to automatically switch their subscription when the next billing period begins. This ensures a smooth transition for the customer and minimizes the chances of manual errors.

Below steps demonstrate how you can integrate with Stripe Schedules API, to schedule a downgrade to be activated on the start date of the next billing period.

1. Generate a Subscription Schedule. You have following 2 options for this.
   *Create a new Subscription with a Schedule.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscription_schedules \
  -u "sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7d:" \
  -d customer=cus_GBHHxuvBvO26Ea \
  -d start_date=now \
  -d end_behavior=release \
  -d "phases[0][items][0][price]"=price_1GqNdGAJVYItwOKqEHb \
  -d "phases[0][items][0][quantity]"=1 \
  -d "phases[0][iterations]"=12

* Generate a Subscription Schedule from an existing Subscription.

curl -X POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscription_schedules \ 
-u "sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc:" \ 
-d from_subscription=sub_GB98WOvaRAWPl6

2. Fetch the created Subscription Schedule and update it to add an additional phase.

curl -X POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscription_schedules/sub_sched_1FSRtAILNmKrzH4z9scwDpeL \
  -u "sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc:" \
  -d "phases[0][plans][0][price]"="price_1GqNdGAJVYItwOKqEHb" \
  -d "phases[0][plans][0][quantity]"=1 \
  -d "phases[0][start_date]"=1577865600 \
  -d "phases[0][end_date]"=1580544000 \
  -d "phases[1][plans][0][price]"="price_1GqNdGAJVYItwOKqEHb" \
  -d "phases[1][plans][0][quantity]"=1 \
  -d "phases[1][iterations]"=1 

Here, we need to pass in two phases in the update request — The first phase should be the existing current phase on the Subscription Schedule. The values should be passed in as it is, without any modifications. The second phase should represent the subscription once it’s been downgraded. iterations set to 1 indicate that the downgrade will be activated on the start date of the next billing cycle.

Depending on your requirements, you can also set proration_behavior, tax_rates and discount_codes

3. In case you want to remove this schedule from the subscription, you can simply release the schedule. This will only cancel the future downgrade.

curl -X POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscription_schedules/sub_sched_1OCUR82eZvKYlo2CGBx2JGbV/release \ 
-u "sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc:"

4. In order to view all the schedules of a subscription customer. You can use the below request.

curl https://api.stripe.com/v1/subscription_schedules
-u "sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc:" \
-d "customer=cus_OoOlYtLOckfZc5"

Managing subscriptions and ensuring a smooth experience for your customers can be a challenging task, especially as your business grows. Stripe Schedules offers a solution that streamlines subscription management, automates future changes, and enhances the overall customer experience.

By taking advantage of Stripe Schedules, you can reduce administrative overhead, increase revenue predictability, and minimize errors. Ultimately, this feature allows you to focus on what matters most: growing your business and providing value to your customers.