Installments and subscriptions¶
ChargeOn bills a customer repeatedly in two ways: an Installment Plan or a Subscription. Each answers a different question, set out below.
| Installment plan | Subscription | |
|---|---|---|
| What is fixed | A total the customer owes | An amount per cycle |
| Does it end? | Always, by design | Normally never |
| Typical use | A $6,000 invoice over six months | A $99/month membership |
| On screen | Bill until: three choices | Ends: Never, or On date |
The distinction is not cosmetic. An installment plan divides a number you already know; a subscription commits to a number per cycle and keeps charging it. Picking the wrong one gives the customer the wrong bill.
Choosing between them¶
Ask one question: do you know the total?
- Yes: the customer owes $6,000 and will pay it off. That is an installment plan. Choose which of the three things you want to fix (a number of payments, an amount per payment, or a finish date) and ChargeOn works out the rest.
- No: the customer pays $99 a month for as long as they are a member. That is a subscription.
A subscription can be given an end date, which makes it look superficially like the third kind of installment plan. The difference is still which number you are fixing: a subscription bills the amount you set every cycle, while an installment plan divides the total to fit.
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Set up an installment plan | The three ways a plan ends, and what you enter for each |
| Set up a subscription | Billing every cycle, ending never or on a date |
| Pause, resume or stop | Interrupting either one temporarily, or ending it for good |
| Review history | Every charge either one produced, including failures |
What they share¶
Both are set up from the Charge action, both run in the background once scheduled, and both record every charge they attempt.
Six frequencies are available to both: weekly, fortnightly (labelled Biweekly on screen), monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly. The setting is labelled Frequency on an installment plan and Bills Every on a subscription.
Both can charge a saved payment method, or send a fresh payment link every cycle if you would rather not hold one. Neither can collect card details itself. There is nobody at the keyboard when it runs.
Before you set either one up¶
You need one of the following:
- A saved payment method for the customer, or
- A willingness to let ChargeOn send a fresh payment link every cycle instead. Choose Payment Link as the payment type during setup. No card or bank details are collected up front, and it waits for the customer to pay each link.
Nothing charges until the background jobs are scheduled
Installing ChargeOn does not start repeat billing. An administrator has to schedule the background jobs first. See Part 7 of the quick start guide. A plan created before this is done looks completely correct and simply never charges anyone.
A fallback gateway becomes permanent
If the very first charge fails on your primary gateway and succeeds on a fallback, every future cycle bills that fallback gateway from then on, not the one you originally configured. There is no automatic failing back. See Pause, resume or stop if this catches you out, and the terminology guide for how gateway fallback works in general.
For which gateways support Installment and Subscription billing, see the gateway reference.