Changing Subscriptions

Stripe supports changing existing subscriptions on the fly, without having to cancel and recreate them. The most impactful changes you might make include:

• Changing the billing cycle
• Upgrading or downgrading the subscription plan
• Canceling or pausing an active subscription

However, you can also alter subscriptions by updating the parameters normally used when the subscription is created:

• Applying discounts
• Using trial periods (which is how you change the billing cycle)
• Setting quantities
• Adding taxes

The trickiest aspect of changing existing subscriptions is proration. A proration is where the customer is charged–or refunded–a percentage of a subscription’s cost to reflect partial use. By default, any of the following actions result in a proration:

• Changing to a plan with a different base cost per billing interval
• Changing to a plan with a different billing interval
• Adding a trial period to an active subscription
• Changing the quantity

Proration is Stripe’s way to ensure customers are billed an accurate amount, but a proration results in different payment amounts being made than you may expect, which can be confusing. Further, prorations are never automatically refunded to a customer or immediately billed, although both are steps you can take manually.

For the smoothest user experience, Stripe supports the ability to preview a proration before enacting it.

Next steps

Now that you understand how subscriptions can be changed and how proration comes into play, you may want to check out:

• Billing Cycle
• Upgrading & Downgrading
• Canceling & Pausing
• Subscriptions API