Create invoice payment plansPublic preview

Invoice payment plans let you break up an invoice’s total amount into separate payments with different due dates for your customers. This can expand your billing flexibility. For example, you could first collect a deposit and then the balance amount of a transaction at a later date. Alternatively, you could break up dues into more favorable terms for your customers by splitting them up into multiple, smaller increments over time. Stripe reminds your customers of upcoming payments that they have to make and shows them a history of past payments that they’ve already made. You can use both the Dashboard and the API to generate payment plans.

Limitations

Payment plans are currently a preview feature and have a few important limitations. Make sure that the following limitations don’t conflict with your use case:

• Payment plans aren’t supported by Stripe Revenue Recognition or the Stripe Connector for NetSuite.
• Invoices with payment plans aren’t reflected accurately by Stripe Tax obligations monitoring. Consult with your tax advisor.
• Stripe Tax doesn’t support partial refunds, so tax liability won’t be reflected accurately. Consult with your tax advisor.
• Payment plans don’t auto-charge customers with saved payment details. Customers must return to the payment page to make subsequent payments. You can’t use them with charge_automatically invoices.
• Stripe automatically emails reminders to your customers to complete subsequent payments. We send these emails 1 week before payments are due by default. Sending these emails overrides any email reminder schedules and settings for one-off invoices. You can turn off the email reminders by disabling the setting for Send finalized invoices and credit notes to customers.
• For Connect users, application fees can’t be set on payment plan-enabled invoices. You can only set fees on PaymentIntents.
• Additional fields associated with payment plans aren’t available in Sigma.
• Some Billing Analytics charts (Top Subscribers, Collections) only register invoices that are fully paid. Other charts are unaffected.
• Subscription invoices can’t have payment plans applied.

This guide shows how to set up and manage payment plans without any code using the Dashboard.

Create an invoice in the Dashboard add line item details

In the Dashboard, create an Invoice and add relevant details such as the customer, desired line items, and their prices and quantities.

Create an invoice with the Dashboard

Enable the invoice to collect dues in multiple payments

After entering customer and line item details, select Request in Multiple Payments under Payment Collection in the invoice editor to enable payment plans on the invoice.

By default, Stripe sets up a payment plan where the amount due is evenly divided into four payments due over 4 months.

Enable multiple payments in the Dashboard

Configure individual payments and due dates

To customize the payment plan, click Edit payment plans. You can customize a payment plan in the following ways:

• Change due dates or amounts due
• Add or subtract payments,
• Relabel the names of individual payments

Toggle inputs between absolute values and percentage by selecting the gear next to the percentage / fixed amount column.

You can use Quick actions as a shortcut to evenly redistribute amounts across payments or even out amounts that don’t add up to the total amount due for the invoice. By selecting Use as deposit, the first payment is relabeled as a deposit and the redistribution of amounts due only affects subsequent payments. You can’t exit this view unless the sum of all payments is equal to the total amount due on the overall invoice.

Configure the payment plan through the Dashboard

Finalize the invoice

After customizing the payment plan, finalize and send the invoice by clicking Review invoice. You can’t finalize an invoice if the amounts of the individual payments don’t add up to the total amount due on the invoice (if, for example, line items were changed after the payment plan was set up).

Post-finalization actions on invoices

You can still revise, void, or mark as uncollectible a finalized invoice with a payment plan, only before the first payment is received. Additionally, payment plans can only be “marked as paid” outside Stripe for the entire remaining amount due of the invoice, and not for a partial amount.

Tracking partially paid invoices

Payment plan invoices that have been partially paid display a partially paid status across the Stripe Dashboard. However, if any invoice payments aren’t made by their due date, the overdue status takes precedence. To view invoice status with the API, review the amounts_due and payments fields for details.