Create subscriptions with Stripe Billing

With Connect, you can create subscriptions for your customers or connected accounts.

Software as a Service (SaaS) and marketplace businesses use Stripe Connect to route payments between themselves, customers, and connected accounts. You can use Connect to route payments or payouts and use Stripe Billing to support your recurring revenue model.

Use cases

You can create subscriptions for connect accounts, which supports several approaches for collecting payments. You can create subscriptions for your connected account’s customers using direct or destination charges, for your end customers to directly transact with your platform, and to charge your connected accounts a fee for using your platform.

The following use cases describe how to use Stripe Billing to create subscriptions from end customers to connected accounts, to bill platform end customers, and to bill connected accounts.

Use case	Description
Create subscriptions from the end customer to the connected account	Create subscriptions for end customers to your connected accounts, which supports several approaches for collecting payments. In this example, Prices reside on the connected account.
Create subscriptions to bill platform end customers	Marketplaces can directly offer membership subscriptions without involving your connected account. In this example, Prices reside on the platform.
Create subscriptions to bill connected accounts	Platforms can create subscriptions for their connected accounts. In this example, Prices reside on the platform.

Restrictions

Using subscriptions with Connect has these restrictions:

Your platform can’t update or cancel a subscription that it didn’t create.
Your platform can’t add an application_fee_amount to an invoice that it didn’t create, nor to an invoice that contains invoice items the platform didn’t create.
Only connected accounts with access to the full Stripe Dashboard can manage their customers’ subscriptions. For other connected accounts, the platform must manage their customers’ subscriptions.
Subscriptions aren’t automatically cancelled when you disconnect from the platform. You must cancel the subscription after disconnection. You can use webhooks to monitor connected account activity.

Create subscriptions from the end customer to the connected account

If you’re building a platform, you can create subscriptions for your connected accounts’ customers, optionally taking a per-payment fee for your platform.

This example builds an online publishing platform that allows customers to subscribe to their favorite authors and pay them a monthly fee to receive premium blog posts from each author.

Before you begin

Before you can create subscriptions for your customers or connected accounts, you must:

Create a connected account for each person that receives money on your platform. In our online publishing example, a connected account represents an author.
Create a pricing model. For this example, we create a flat-rate pricing model to charge customers a fee on a recurring basis, but per-seat and usage-based pricing are also supported.
Create a customer with the intended payment method for each person that subscribes to a connected account. In our online publishing example, you create a customer for each reader that subscribes to an author.

Decide between direct charges and destination charges

You can use either direct charges or destination charges to split a customer’s payment between the connected account and your platform.

With direct charges, customers won’t be aware of your platform’s existence because the author’s name, rather than your platform’s name, is shown on the statement descriptor. In our online publishing example, readers interact with authors directly.

Direct charges are recommended for connected accounts with access to the full Stripe Dashboard, which includes Standard accounts.

If you want your platform to be responsible for Stripe fees, refunds, and chargebacks, use destination charges. In our online publishing example, customers subscribe to your publishing platform, not directly with specific authors.

Destination charges are recommended for connected accounts with access to the Express Dashboard or connected accounts without access to a Stripe-hosted dashboard, which includes Express and Custom accounts.

For more information about the different types of Connect charges, see Charge types.

Use direct charges to create a subscription

To create a subscription with Charges associated to the connected account, create a subscription while authenticated as the connected account. Make sure to define the customer with a default payment method and the Price on the connected account. To use a customer without a default payment method, set payment_behavior: "default_incomplete". Learn more about payment behavior.

Expand latest_invoice.confirmation_secret to include the Payment Element, which you need to confirm the payment. Learn more about Payment Elements.

For an end-to-end example of how to implement a subscription signup and payment flow in your application, see the subscriptions integration guide.

Use destination charges to create a subscription

To create a subscription with Charges associated to the platform and automatically create transfers to a connected account, make a create subscription call while providing the connected account ID as the transfer_data[destination] value.

Expand latest_invoice.confirmation_secret to include the Payment Element, which you need to confirm the payment. Learn more about Payment Elements.

You can optionally specify an application_fee_percent. Learn more about collecting fees.

Additional steps before you create a subscription

To create a destination charge, define both the customer and the price on the platform account. You must have created a connected account on the platform. The customer must exist within the platform account. When using destination charges, the platform is the merchant of record.

Create subscriptions to bill platform end customers

You can use Stripe Billing to create subscriptions for your end customers to directly transact with your platform without involving your connected accounts.

This example builds a marketplace that allows customers to order on-demand delivery from restaurants. This marketplace offers customers a premium monthly subscription that waives their delivery fees. Customers who subscribe to the premium offering pay the marketplace directly and don’t subscribe to any particular delivery service or restaurant.

Before you begin

Before you create subscriptions for your customers, you must:

Create a pricing model. For this example, we create a flat-rate pricing model to charge customers a fee on a recurring basis, but per-seat and usage-based pricing are also supported.
Create a customer record for every customer you want to bill.

You can also create a connected account for each user that receives money from your marketplace. In our on-demand restaurant delivery example, a connected account is a restaurant or a delivery service. However, this step isn’t required for customers to subscribe to your marketplace directly.

Create a subscription

To create a subscription where your platform receives the funds, without any money going to connected accounts, follow the Subscriptions guide to create a subscription with Stripe Billing.

Create separate charges and transfers

If you want to manually transfer a portion of the funds that your platform receives to your connected accounts later, use separate charges and transfers to pay out funds to one or more connected accounts. In our on-demand restaurant delivery example, you can use separate charges and transfers to pay out an affiliate fee to a delivery driver or restaurant who refers a customer to subscribe to the premium delivery service.

Create subscriptions to bill connected accounts

You can use Stripe Billing to create subscriptions to charge your connected accounts a fee for using your platform.

This example builds a gym management software platform that allows gym businesses to pay a monthly fee to use the software to manage scheduling and appointments for classes. The gym businesses pay the subscription fee, not the gym patrons.

The gym management software also facilitates one-time payments between the gym patron and gym business for each class that the gym patron enrolls in. The monthly subscription is between the connected account and the platform, which doesn’t involve the gym patron in the transaction.

In the diagram above, the gym business is the connected account and the gym patron is the end customer.

Before you begin

Before you create subscriptions for your customers or connected accounts, you must:

Create a connected account for each user that receives money on your platform. In this example, the connected account is the gym business.
Create a pricing model. For this example, we create a flat-rate pricing model to charge customers a fee on a recurring basis, but per-seat and usage-based pricing are also supported.
Create a customer on the platform with the intended payment method for every connected account you want to bill. In the gym management software example, you create a customer for each gym business:

Create a Customer object to represent the connected account

If your connected accounts use Stripe to process payments for their end customers, they might have already created a Customer object for each end customer.

To successfully create a subscription for the connected account to pay a recurring fee to the platform, you must create a separate Customer object to represent the connected account.

In the gym example, the gym business uses Stripe to process one-time payments for its gym patrons. They already created a Customer object for each gym patron, but you need to create a different Customer object to represent the gym business itself. Create only one Customer to represent each business entity and don’t create a Customer to represent each owner, manager, or operator of the business.

Create a subscription for the connected account

To create a subscription where your platform receives the funds from your connected accounts, follow the Subscriptions guide to create a subscription with Stripe Billing. The Customer object involved in the transaction represents the connected account, not the end customer. In our gym example, the CUSTOMER_ID represents the gym business, not the gym patron.

Enable your integration to receive event notifications

Stripe creates event notifications when changes happen in your account, like when a recurring payment succeeds or when a payout fails. To receive these notifications and use them to automate your integration, set up a webhook endpoint. For example, you could provision access to your service when you receive the invoice.paid event.

Event notifications for Connect and subscriptions integrations

Here are the event notifications that Connect integrations typically use.

Event	data.object type	Description
`account.application.deauthorized`	`application`	Occurs when a connected account disconnects from your platform. You can use it to trigger cleanup on your server. Available for connected accounts with access to the Stripe Dashboard, which includes Standard accounts.
`account.external_account.updated`	An external account, such as `card` or `bank_account`	Occurs when a bank account or debit card attached to a connected account is updated, which can impact payouts. Available for connected accounts that your platform controls, which includes Custom and Express accounts, and Standard accounts with platform controls enabled.
`account.updated`	`account`	Allows you to monitor changes to connected account requirements and status changes. Available for all connected accounts.
`balance.available`	`balance`	Occurs when your Stripe balance has been updated. For example, when funds you’ve added from your bank account are available for transfer to your connected account.
`payment_intent.succeeded`	`payment_intent`	Occurs when a payment intent results in a successful charge. Available for all payments, including destination and direct charges.
`payout.failed`	`payout`	Occurs when a payout fails. When a payout fails, the external account involved is disabled, and no automatic or manual payouts can be processed until the external account is updated.
`person.updated`	`person`	Occurs when a `Person` associated with the `Account` is updated. If you use the Persons API to handle requirements, listen for this event to monitor changes to requirements and status changes for individuals. Available for connected accounts that your platform controls, which includes Custom and Express accounts, and Standard accounts with platform controls enabled.

Here are the event notifications that subscriptions integrations typically use.



`customer.created`	Sent when a Customer is successfully created.
`customer.subscription.created`	Sent when the subscription is created. The subscription `status` might be `incomplete` if customer authentication is required to complete the payment or if you set `payment_behavior` to default_incomplete.
`customer.subscription.deleted`	Sent when a customer’s subscription ends.
`customer.subscription.paused`	Sent when a subscription’s `status` changes to `paused`. For example, this is sent when a subscription is configured to pause when a free trial ends without a payment method. Invoicing won’t occur until the subscription is resumed. We don’t send this event if payment collection is paused because invoices continue to be created during that time period.
`customer.subscription.resumed`	Sent when a subscription previously in a `paused` status is resumed. This doesn’t apply when payment collection is unpaused.
`customer.subscription.trial_will_end`	Sent three days before the trial period ends. If the trial is less than three days, this event is triggered.
`customer.subscription.updated`	Sent when a subscription starts or changes. For example, renewing a subscription, adding a coupon, applying a discount, adding an invoice item, and changing plans all trigger this event.
`entitlements.active_entitlement_summary.updated`	Sent when a customer’s active entitlements are updated. When you receive this event, you can provision or de-provision access to your product’s features. Read more about integrating with entitlements.
`invoice.created`	Sent when an invoice is created for a new or renewing subscription. If Stripe fails to receive a successful response to `invoice.created`, then finalizing all invoices with automatic collection is delayed for up to 72 hours. Read more about finalizing invoices. Respond to the notification by sending a request to the Finalize an invoice API.
`invoice.finalized`	Sent when an invoice is successfully finalized and ready to be paid. You can send the invoice to the customer. View invoice finalization to learn more. Depending on your settings, we automatically charge the default payment method or attempt collection. View emails after finalization to learn more.
`invoice.finalization_failed`	The invoice couldn’t be finalized. Learn how to handle invoice finalization failures by reading the guide. Learn more about invoice finalization in the invoices overview guide. Inspect the Invoice’s last_finalization_error to determine the cause of the error. If you’re using Stripe Tax, check the Invoice object’s automatic_tax field. If `automatic_tax[status]=requires_location_inputs`, the invoice can’t be finalized and payments can’t be collected. Notify your customer and collect the required customer location. If `automatic_tax[status]=failed`, retry the request later.
`invoice.paid`	Sent when the invoice is successfully paid. You can provision access to your product when you receive this event and the subscription `status` is `active`.
`invoice.payment_action_required`	Sent when the invoice requires customer authentication. Learn how to handle the subscription when the invoice requires action.
`invoice.payment_failed`	A payment for an invoice failed. The PaymentIntent status changes to `requires_action`. The status of the subscription continues to be `incomplete` only for the subscription’s first invoice. If a payment fails, there are several possible actions to take: Notify the customer. Configure your subscription settings in the Dashboard to enable Smart Retries and other revenue recovery features. If you’re using PaymentIntents, collect new payment information and confirm the PaymentIntent. Update the default payment method on the subscription.
`invoice.upcoming`	Sent a few days prior to the renewal of the subscription. The number of days is based on the number set for Upcoming renewal events in the Dashboard. For existing subscriptions, changing the number of days takes effect on the next billing period. You can still add extra invoice items, if needed.
`invoice.updated`	Sent when a payment succeeds or fails. If payment is successful the `paid` attribute is set to `true` and the `status` is `paid`. If payment fails, `paid` is set to `false` and the `status` remains `open`. Payment failures also trigger a `invoice.payment_failed` event.
`payment_intent.created`	Sent when a PaymentIntent is created.
`payment_intent.succeeded`	Sent when a PaymentIntent has successfully completed payment.
`subscription_schedule.aborted`	Sent when a subscription schedule is canceled because payment delinquency terminated the related subscription.
`subscription_schedule.canceled`	Sent when a subscription schedule is canceled, which also cancels any active associated subscription.
`subscription_schedule.completed`	Sent when all phases of a subscription schedule complete.
`subscription_schedule.created`	Sent when a new subscription schedule is created.
`subscription_schedule.expiring`	Sent 7 days before a subscription schedule is set to expire.
`subscription_schedule.released`	Sent when a subscription schedule is released, or stopped and disassociated from the subscription, which remains.
`subscription_schedule.updated`	Sent when a subscription schedule is updated.

Test your integration

After you create your subscription, thoroughly test your integration before you expose it to customers or use it for any live activity. Learn more about testing Stripe Billing.

Additional options

After you create your subscription, you can specify an application_fee_percent, set up the customer portal, charge your customer using the on_behalf_of parameter, and monitor subscriptions with webhooks, in addition to other options.

Collect fees on subscriptions

One time each billing period, Stripe takes this percentage of the final invoice amount, including any bundled invoice items, discounts, or account balance adjustments, as a fee for the platform. We make this deduction before charging any Stripe fees.

When creating or updating a subscription, you can optionally specify an application_fee_percent. This must be a non-negative decimal between 0 and 100, with at most two decimal places.

This example shows application_fee_percent for subscriptions that use direct charges on connected accounts:

This example shows application_fee_percent for subscriptions that use destination charges:

Calculating application fee percent

To see how we calculate application_fee_percent, consider this scenario:

A subscription costs 30 USD per billing cycle
There’s a 10 USD invoice that’s on the next invoice
A 50% coupon applies
The application_fee_percent is 10

In this case, the total application fee is 2 USD: (30 USD + 10 USD) * 50% * 10%.

Percent fees and flat fees

Application fees on subscriptions must normally be a percentage because the amount billed with subscriptions often varies. You can’t set a subscription’s recurring application fee as a flat amount.

However, you can charge a flat application_fee_amount on an invoice, as explained in the next section.

The application_fee_percent parameter doesn’t apply to invoices you create outside of a subscription billing period. For example, it doesn’t apply to proration invoice items that are immediately invoiced. In these cases, directly set an application_fee_amount on the invoice for the amount you want to charge.

Work with invoices created by subscriptions

Each cycle, subscriptions create invoices and invoices create charges. For more information about subscription cycles, see the subscription lifecycle. To charge a flat or dynamic fee that can’t be automatically calculated with application_fee_percent, add an application_fee_amount directly on each invoice created by the subscription.

This example shows an application_fee_amount for an invoice with a direct charge on the connected account:

This example shows an application_fee_amount for an invoice with a destination charge:

To automatically charge an application_fee_amount, create a webhook that listens for the invoice.created event. You can also do this manually by creating an invoice for pending invoice items and setting an application fee on it.

The application_fee_amount set directly on an invoice overrides any application fee amount calculated with application_fee_percent and is capped at the invoice’s final charge amount.

Use coupons

After creating subscriptions, you can add coupons to your subscriptions. Coupons are merchant-facing objects you can use to control discounts on subscriptions or invoices. Promotion codes are customer-facing codes that are created on top of coupons and can be shared directly with your customers. Learn how to create customer-facing codes.

Use trial periods

You can start a customer’s subscription with a free trial period by providing a trial_end argument when creating the subscription:

The trial_end parameter takes a timestamp indicating the exact moment the trial ends. When creating a subscription, you can alternatively use the trial_period_days argument: an integer representing the number of days the trial lasts, from the current moment.

When creating a subscription with a trial period, we don’t require a payment method for the customer. We still create an immediate invoice, but for 0 USD.

Three days before the trial period is up, a customer.subscription.trial_will_end event is sent to your webhook endpoint. After seeing that notification, take any necessary actions, such as informing the customer that billing is about to begin.

When the trial ends, a new billing cycle starts for the customer. After the trial period is up, Stripe generates an invoice and sends an invoice.created event notification. Approximately 1 hour later, Stripe attempts to charge that invoice.

To end a trial early, make an update subscription API call, setting the trial_end value to a new timestamp, or now to end immediately:

Learn more about how to delay payments on active subscriptions using trial periods.

Set up the customer portal

The customer portal allows your customers to manage subscriptions and invoices. If you’re a Billing user, the portal lets your customers manage their subscriptions (update, cancel, pause, and so on). Invoicing-only users can use the portal to pay an invoice, add a payment method, and so on. Learn more how to integrate the customer portal.

Monitor subscriptions with webhooks

We send notifications to your app using webhooks. Webhooks are especially important for subscriptions, where most activity occurs asynchronously. To use webhooks with your subscriptions:

Create a webhook endpoint in your app.
Add logic to handle Stripe events. For subscriptions, these include payment failures and subscription state changes (like moving from trial to an active state).
Test your webhook endpoint to confirm that it’s working as expected.

Learn to use webhooks to receive notifications of subscription activity.

Make the connected account the settlement merchant using on_behalf_of

You can create or update a subscription with the on_behalf_of parameter for a few purposes:

To make the connected account the settlement merchant
To use a connected account’s branding in hosted resources (email receipts, invoices, and the customer portal)

Read the following docs for requirements to using on_behalf_of and more information about how it affects payments on subscriptions:

For automatic transfers to the connected account, refer to the on_behalf_of parameter details in Charge on behalf of a connected account.
For information on how to transfer payments manually, refer to the Transfer Availability section in Creating separate charges and transfers.
For a list of account capabilities required for processing payment methods, refer to Payment method capabilities.
For a list of branding options to enable on the connected account, refer to the settings.branding parameter details in the API reference docs

This example shows on_behalf_of for a new subscription using separate charges and transfers:

This example shows how to use on_behalf_of with a destination charge and application fee:

Understand disconnect behavior

When a connected account is disconnected from a platform, subscriptions are not automatically canceled. However, some aspects of payment collection may continue or cease to continue based on the charge type used.

Direct charges

After disconnect, subscriptions continue to run on the connected account. If the subscription was created with an application_fee_percent, the application fee continues to be collected by the platform after disconnect. Remove the application_fee_percent from the Subscription before a connected account disconnects from your platform. After disconnect, a connected account can clear the application_fee_percent parameter from existing Subscriptions through the API.

Destination charges or separate charges and transfers

After disconnect, existing subscriptions created as destination charges or separate charges and transfers continue to generate invoices, but they can’t transfer funds to a connected account. Before disconnecting, you should assist connected accounts with subscription migrations or cancel associated subscriptions.

Destination charges with on_behalf_of

When a connected account is disconnected from a platform, any on_behalf_of subscriptions won’t charge the customer on subscription invoices set to charge_automatically. We continue to generate subscription invoices for each cycle, but they remain drafts with auto_advance set to false.

To continue collecting payment, you must reconnect with the disconnected account, or explicitly remove these fields from the subscription invoice and reattempt payment on these invoices.

Integrate tax calculation and collection

You need to first determine which entity is liable for tax. The entity that’s liable for tax might be your connected account or the platform, depending on your business model. To learn more, see Stripe Tax with Connect.

Create subscriptions with Stripe Billing

With Connect, you can create subscriptions for your customers or connected accounts.

Use cases

Restrictions

Create subscriptions from the end customer to the connected account

Before you begin

Decide between direct charges and destination charges

Use direct charges to create a subscription

Use destination charges to create a subscription

Additional steps before you create a subscription

Create subscriptions to bill platform end customers

Before you begin

Create a subscription

Create separate charges and transfers

Create subscriptions to bill connected accounts

Before you begin

Create a Customer object to represent the connected account

Create a subscription for the connected account

Enable your integration to receive event notifications

Event notifications for Connect and subscriptions integrations

Test your integration

Additional options

Collect fees on subscriptions

Calculating application fee percent

Percent fees and flat fees

Work with invoices created by subscriptions

Use coupons

Use trial periods

Set up the customer portal

Monitor subscriptions with webhooks

Make the connected account the settlement merchant using on_behalf_of

Understand disconnect behavior

Direct charges

Destination charges or separate charges and transfers

Destination charges with on_behalf_of

Integrate tax calculation and collection

See also