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Set up a subscription

A subscription bills the same amount every cycle and keeps going until somebody stops it. There is no total to reach and no final payment. That is the whole difference from an installment plan.

Use it for memberships, retainers, and anything else the customer keeps paying for as long as they keep using it.

Before you start

How a subscription ends

A subscription has one setting for this, Ends, with two choices:

Ends What happens
Never It bills every cycle indefinitely. The only way it stops is if you stop it, or it pauses itself after repeated declines. This is the ordinary case
On date It bills every cycle until a calendar date you set, then stops on its own

Never is what makes a subscription a subscription. On date exists for a fixed-term commitment (a twelve-month membership, say) where the amount per cycle is still the thing you are agreeing, not a total to be divided up.

Choosing between On date and an installment plan

Both end on a date, so the question is which number is fixed. If you are agreeing an amount per cycle, use a subscription. If you are dividing a known total, use an installment plan with End date: that spreads the total evenly and works out the per-cycle amount for you.

Steps

  1. Open the record and click Charge.
  2. Choose Card, ACH, or Payment Link as the payment type.
  3. Choose Subscription.
  4. Choose how often it bills under Bills Every: weekly, fortnightly (labelled Biweekly on screen), monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly.
  5. Under Ends, choose Never or On date. If you choose On date, set Subscription Ends On.
  6. Set the Start Date.
  7. Optional: enter an amount under Upfront Payment to charge something today, before the regular cycle begins.
  8. Click Preview Subscription.
  9. Check the preview, then click Start Subscription to confirm.

What you should see

A new record showing the frequency and next payment date. If you set an upfront payment, or a start date of today, the first charge processes immediately.

If you chose Payment Link instead of a saved payment method, no charge happens yet. ChargeOn emails the customer a link for the first amount due, and the subscription waits for them to pay it.

If it does not work

Symptom Likely cause What to do
Subscription does not appear as an option The selected gateway is not configured to support that mode Check its Supported Payment Modes in the gateway reference
It was created, but no charge has ever happened The background jobs are not scheduled Part 7 of the quick start guide
It stopped charging on its own Three consecutive declines paused it. Three is the default; your administrator can change the limit Fix the payment method, then resume it
A charge came from a gateway you did not expect The first charge failed over to a fallback gateway, and it is now permanently pinned to it This is expected behaviour. See the warning in Installments and subscriptions