First time using Stripe's API. What Stripe Webhook events should I use to ensure a user subscription is active and paid for and how should I store it in my database?
I was thinking to set up a Webhook for invoice.paid and then inserting the period_end datetime into my database and running something like
if ( $period_end < date('Y-m-d H:i:s') ) {
//treat subscription as inactive
} else {
//treat subscription as active
}
Is that an advisable way to ensure a subscription is active (paid for)?
You should use
customer.subscription.updated
invoice.payment_failed
invoice.payment_succeeded
You need to use customer.subscription.updated event to handle the case when first time user subscribes to your product.
then use of invoice.payment_failed will inform you about the successful payment of auto payment for subscription and use of invoice.payment_failed will inform you that auto payment for your subscription is failed.
If you want to check if your subscription is active then you can use stripe.checkout.sessions.retrieve(session_id);
Related
Background:
When creating subscriptions through the Stripe API, you can use payment_behavior: error_if_incomplete when you want Stripe to return an HTTP 402 status code in case a subscription’s first invoice cannot be paid. In this case Stripe does not create a subscription at all if the payment fails.
Question:
Is there a way to achieve the same behavior when using Stripe Checkout?
My experience is that even if the payment fails, Stripe creates a subscription with status: incomplete which is then expired if no successful payment is made within 23 hours. I've checked the parameters for creating Checkout Sessions but found no option to set payment_behavior there.
Sources:
https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/create#create_subscription-payment_behavior
https://stripe.com/docs/api/checkout/sessions/create
Bad News
Unfortunately this is not something that can be configured presently. When Checkout creates a subscription, all the parameters not provided directly are set to the Subscription default. The default payment_behavior for a Subscription is default_incomplete.
Good News
You can achieve this behavior using Webhooks. You would listen for the invoice.payment_failed event, check the billing_reason property of the invoice is subscription_create (identifies the first invoice of a new subscription), and then cancel the related subscription.
If you are using Subscriptions and Invoices, it is recommended you use webhooks anyway to keep track of changes in status.
When I create a checkout session, I include the user_id in the metadata. This allows me to retrieve the user_id when checkout.session.completed event is fired which I will need in order to save the stripe customer id in the database for that user.
Is this the correct approach?
The issue I am having now, is that given this logic whenever the first payment is created I will need to provision the subscription in the checkout.session.completed event, future payments will be handled by invoice.paid event. This is because invoice.paid will can only recognise the user by customer id, which gets populated by checkout.session.completed.
Question:
Is my approach for storing the customer id correct?
How can I provision the subscription from the checkout.session.completed event for the first payment and then future payments are provisioned by invoice.paid?
To provision and monitor a subscription, Stripe recommends listening to three events: checkout.session.completed, invoice.paid, and invoice.payment_failed.
If you need a user_id to provision the subscription, then yes adding it on the Checkout Session metadata makes sense.
When you get the invoice.paid event you can retrieve the associated subscription with the subscription property of the invoice. And then, if needed, you can find the Checkout Session for that subscription with the list checkout sessions endpoint and passing the subscription ID.
I am using stripe for a subscription based project and recently found out that you can subscribe without the user requiring payment information with a trial period.
How does stripe handle the user once the trial period ends but didn't any payment information?
When I look at customers it says that there isn't any default source.
At the end of the trial period, the Subscription would renew its billing cycle. This would make the Subscription move to status: "active" and send customer.subscription.updated. A new Invoice would also be created. This would send the invoice.created event.
An hour or two later, the Invoice would be automatically finalized and Stripe would attempt to pay it. The payment would fail since the Customer has no payment method attached. This would send an invoice.payment_failed event. The Invoice would be retried multiple times as documented here. Stripe can even send emails to your Customer asking them to add/update their card.
If all payment retries fail, the Subscription would then be canceled automatically.
I have successfully created a customer in stripe with a subscription of plan .After successful payment I am not able to get the charge Id because after subscribing a customer to a plan.It automatically generates an invoice.So what is the way that I can get that particular charge stripe Id from stripe and store it in my system database.
Getting the charge ID for a subscription (or an invoice) can be done via their webhooks integration. You need to expose an API in your app where Stripe can fire these requests. You can subscribe to various events there, but in your case you'd need to do so on charge.succeeded. The charge ID will be in the data structure of the event object.
Take a look at the various other lifecycle events you can use with webhooks.
is there any way to change Automated Recurring Billing (ARB) subscription status inactive to active using authorize node.js sdk.
A canceled subscription cannot be reactivated. However, if you use ARBGetSubscriptionRequest for the cancelled subscription, the response will include a customer profile which you can use to create a new subscription.