Subscriptions
How to charge a customer on a repeating schedule until they cancel
What is a subscription?
A subscription charges the customer on a repeating schedule and keeps going until it's canceled. There's no set number of payments and no end date.
Use it for memberships, retainers, software, and anything else billed continuously. If you want a fixed number of payments instead, use a payment plan.
How to create a checkout with a subscription
- Go to Storefront → Checkout pages.
- Click Create checkout page.
- Enter a Product title.
- Under Billing, select Recurring billing.
- Under Recurring schedule, select Subscription.
- Under Pricing, select Fixed price.
- Enter the amount in the Price field.
- Select a currency from the Currency dropdown.
- Select how often to charge from the Repeats dropdown.
- Click Create checkout.
The checkout opens in the edit view, on the Product → Details tab. That's where you change the price later, add a highlight, or add more prices.
Repeats
Repeats sets how often the customer is charged. The same amount is taken every period, indefinitely.
- Daily
- Weekly
- Monthly
- Every 3 months
- Every 6 months
- Yearly
When the customer is charged
The first payment is taken as soon as the customer completes checkout, and then once every period after that.
Two options change that first charge:
- A trial delays it until the trial ends.
- A start date delays it until the date you set.
A setup fee doesn't delay anything — it's added to the first payment.
What you can add to a subscription price
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Trial | Free or paid access before billing starts |
| Discounted from | Shows the original price struck through next to the current one |
| Start date | Begins billing on a future date |
| Billing anchor | Aligns charges to a chosen day of the month |
| Setup fee | A one-off charge added to the first payment |
| Use Stripe price | Reuses a price that already exists in your Stripe account |
| Label, description and highlight | Names the price and adds a badge above the product title |
Selecting a Paid trial replaces the Setup fee checkbox with a required Setup fee field — the amount the customer pays for the trial period.
Proration
If a billing anchor shortens the first period, the customer is charged a prorated amount at checkout — only for the days between buying and the anchor date — and the full amount every period after that.
The figure is worked out from the moment of checkout rather than in whole days. A $29/month subscription with an anchor on the 1st, bought partway through August, charges $18.32.
What the customer pays at checkout
A setup fee is charged in addition to the prorated amount, not instead of it.
Example: A $99/month subscription starting 29 August, with a $19 setup fee, charges $19 today — the subscription portion is $0 because billing hasn't started, leaving only the setup fee. From 29 August it charges $99 a month.
Charging more than one price on the same page
A checkout can offer several prices — a monthly and a yearly subscription, for example — and the customer picks one. Click Add price under Product → Details.