Manage active subscriptions

Edit an active subscription

Modify an active subscription's settings such as pricing, plan, and pause or resume through the FastSpring app or API. Changes take effect at the next billing date unless you prorate.

1. In the FastSpring app, go to Sales > Subscriptions and select the subscription you want to edit. The subscription details page opens.
2. Click the Product. The Edit page opens.
3. Make your changes and click Next. The Review Plan page opens.
4. Review the Current and Proposed plan changes.
5. Click Change to apply your plan changes.

Prorate plan changes

When you upgrade or downgrade, prorate charges or credits immediately:

1. In the FastSpring app, go to Sales > Subscriptions and select the subscription you want to edit. The subscription details page opens.
2. Click the Product. The Edit page opens.
3. Edit the subscription's plan or unit price. Click Next, and the Review Plan page opens.
4. Review the Current and Proposed plan changes. Click Next: Preview Proration, and the Preview Proration page opens.
5. Review the Current and Proposed plan changes.
6. Click Change & Prorate Now.

If you choose to Change & Prorate Now, the customer will be charged a new amount and will have access to the changed plan immediately. Proration is not available for managed, paused, trial, or inactive subscriptions or if the next rebill date is today.

Limitations

When upgrading or downgrading a subscription, you can prorate the adjustments to immediately charge or refund the customer for the difference. The option to prorate a subscription is not available if:

• The subscription is inactive
• Trial subscriptions are ineligible for plan changes
• No default payment method is configured
• The subscription is paused, or scheduled to be paused
• The subscription is a managed subscription
• The next subscription rebill date is today
• The subscription has never been successfully billed
• The last successful charge is no longer refundable (most charges cannot be refunded after six months)

Update subscription pricing via API

Programmatically update pricing for all active instances of a subscription:

1. Retrieve subscriptions by product path:

   Endpoint

   Replace product1 with the your product path ID.

   GET /subscriptions?products=product1

2. Record each subscription ID from the response.

3. Send a bulk update with your new price:

   Endpoint

   POST /subscriptions

   Replace aBCDE12fGH3iJkL4mNOpqr and 12-AbCdefgHijk3mnOpq with your subscription IDs.

   Replace "USD": 100.00 with your updated pricing.

   JSON

    {
      "subscriptions": [
        {
          "subscription": "aBCDE12fGH3iJkL4mNOpqr",
          "pricing": {
            "price": {
              "USD": 100.00
            }
          }
        },
        {
          "subscription": "12-AbCdefgHijk3mnOpq",
          "pricing": {
            "price": {
              "USD": 100.00
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
   

4. FastSpring applies the new pricing to all active subscriptions immediately.

Preview prorated estimates via API

You can preview prorated charges, credits, and refunds on recently changed subscriptions using the Preview a prorated plan change API. It returns a response that presents a preview of prorated amounts for a recently changed subscription plan.

To access this capability, send a POST /subscriptions/estimate request with the preview and prorate flags set to true in the request payload:

Endpoint

POST /subscriptions/estimate

 {
     "subscriptions": [ 
       {
         "subscription": "subscription-id",      
         "prorate" : true,                      
         "preview" : true
       }
   ]
 }

Handle declined rebills

Declined rebills may come from the issuing bank of the customer's credit card. To reduce declines caused by expired credit cards, FastSpring automatically requests an update to the payment account 5 days before each rebill.

If a rebill is declined, FastSpring sends an email notification to the customer. Customers can update their payment information in the Account Management portal to keep the subscription.

Automatic retries

FastSpring retries declined transactions 1, 3, and 5 days following a decline. This occurs until the customer successfully updates their payment information or FastSpring cancels the overdue subscription.

If you configure payment overdue notifications, FastSpring will retry the charge immediately before sending each notification.

Cancel or un-cancel a subscription

You or your customers can cancel or undo a cancellation before the next billing date:

1. In Sales > Events, open the subscription instance.
2. Click Cancel in the Overview panel. The Cancel Subscription modal opens.
3. Choose Deactivate At Next Period or Deactivate Now, and click Confirm.
4. To undo before deactivation, click Un-Cancel in the Overview panel.