Edit
Changing Plans
If a plan no longer suits a customer, instead of editing their current Subscription (resulting in a Custom Subscription), you can change them to an entirely different plan. This in concept is equivalent to canceling their current subscription and starting a new one with the new plan, but without any interruption in service.
Example: Change a subscription to a new plan
The inputs are the same as when creating a subscription, and the response will contain both the current (now canceled) and the new subscription.
Customizing a Subscription
Subscriptions can be edited to accommodate changes in customer needs. You can
add or remove any SubscriptionItem
that is currently active or scheduled to be
active in a later Phase
. This effectively means you can change any property of
a subscription. The only limitation is that you cannot change the past. You
cannot change SubscriptionItems
that have since deactivated, and when changin
currently active items, the changes cannot be retroactive.
Example: Add a new SubscriptionItem
to a subscription
timing
: The timing of the edit. Useimmediate
for immediate activation. Usenext_billing_cycle
to schedule the edit for the next billing cycle, only if the subscription is aligned.customizations
: An array of customizations to apply to the subscription. The Edit API uses a JSONPatch inspired syntax to modify subscription. In this case, we're adding a newSubscriptionItem
to thedefault
phase.
Edit Timing and Modes
When you are editing a subscription, you can choose between different modes to execute the changes. This is important because certain subscription changes can impact the billing cycle, entitlement limits and invoicing.
Typicially SaaS companies want to downgrade or cancel subscriptions at the end of the billing period to avoid refunds and revenue recognition issues. While upgrading a subscription is expected by customers to take effect immediately.
1. At the end of the billing period
Great for downgrading a subscription. We recommend to use this mode when you want to avoid any changes in the provided service before the end of the billing period.
For example a customer downgrading to a lower priced or free plan. With schedling the subscription edit to the end of the billing period you can keep providing the service at the old plan until the end of the billing period and only make the changes at the beginning of the next period. So what the customer already paid for will be honored and no changes will be made to the service until the next period.
2. Immediatly
Great for upgrading a subscription. When a customer wants to upgrade their subscription to a higher plan with more features or limits it's expected the chnage to take effect immediately. We recommend to edit subscriptions with immediate mode when you want to upgrade a subscription. Inside the immediate mode you can choose between partial edit, restart billing period or pro-rate prices to have further control over invoicing and entitlement changes.
2.1. Partial Edit
With partial edit OpenMeter will only edit the rate card in the subscription you changed. The rest of the subscription, including the billing cycle, will stay the same.
The updated or added rate card will behave as the following:
- If has a flat fee, it will invoice the fee immediately for the full price independent of remaining billing period.
- If has usage-based price, it will be billed at the end of the period, but
there will be two line items on the invoice:
- One for the time between the beginning of the period and the change's time with the old price.
- One for the remaining time in the period for the new price.
- If has a metered entitlements, only the entitlement limit will change and the usage period will be accounted for the entire billing period.
2.2. Restart Billing Period
Restart billing period will restart the billing period for the subscription. This means that the billing cycle will be reset to the date of the change and all the prices and metered entitlements will restart. The subscription in the future will follow this new billing anchor.
Restart billing period is coming soon.
2.3. Pro-Rate Prices
With pro-rate prices OpenMeter will pro-rate the price of the new rate card for the remaining billing period. This means that the price will be adjusted proportionally for the remaining billing period.
Pro-rating is coming soon.