cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Importing from another paywall, subscription issues/questions

I am currently working on a script to import our current users from another paywall to Authorize.net.

 

My script works well but I have some concerns that I need to identify in order to ensure a smooth transition without upsetting the userbase. 

 

My first question is, how can I setup the subscription to honor the current users subscription status? Meaning, I have multiple different subscription types: Monthly, quarterly, and Annually; I want to import the current users and set the start date for billing to be the end date of the current subscription from the original paywall. This leaves some gaps in their status since the subscription will start a month, 3 months, or 1 year later. What is the best way to ensure the user has a valid status but they are billed on the correct date?

 

My plan was to start their subscription today, then add a free trial for the offset. The issue here being the trials are only for the occurrance of the subscription. So if I have a year subscription and a trial occurance of 1, this gives the user a fill year for free. This will not work.

 

So now I am thinking of providing a free trial subscription for the total days until they are to be charged, and another subscription to be the actual subscription so that they will be charged properly. This won't work since a subsccription requires a payment. So I cannot give a free trial of x days before the customer is charged. 

 

What I have currently done, is I created a new subscription for each customer with their new start dates (adjusted from the start date of their current subscription). This has all future dates and some can be a year away. My concern with this is that they really don't have a subscription until the start date (which can be a year away) and I am concerned that this will show the user as having an inactive subscription. When I check their subscription status, it does show as active. My question here, is this expected behavior? Is the start date the date for the customer to be charged? How are they in an active subscription status if their start date is in the future?

 

I have a bit on uncertainty that I need cleared before I can do this migration on a production environment. Any insights on this would be appriciated.

 

To clarify what I need to do:

I need to bring my users over from another paywall. I need to maintain their current subscriptions and ensure they are billed on the correct date for the renewal. 

 

Thanks,

Jeremy

 

olyJeremy
Member
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Hello,

 

Then your problems are solved. I just created a subscription with a start date of 2025-08-30 and this subscription's status is active.

Powered by NexWebSites.com -
Certified Authorize.net developers

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3

The parameters of a subscription are all very well defined with the paymentSchedule elements.

 

  • interval Contains information about the time between payments.
  • length The measurement of time, in association with the Interval Unit, that is used to define the frequency of the billing occurrences.
  • startDate The date the subscription begins (also the date the initial billing occurs).
    The date entered must be greater than or equal to the date the subscription was created.
  • totalOccurrences Number of billing occurrences or payments for the subscription.

Having an active subscription status with a start date in the future, means the subscription is in the system and payments begin on the startDate.

Powered by NexWebSites.com -
Certified Authorize.net developers
NexusSoftware
Trusted Contributor

Hello and thanks for your response.

 

I am aware of the parameters. My concern is with the start date and the subscription itself. 

 

If I were to create a subscription today, and set the start date to next year, would this subscription be in the active state from now to the start date? The more I play with this API, it seems this is the case. If so, then my problems are solved. Given that I am working on a production system, I need to make sure I am 100% without a doubt correct in my assumptions. I am migrating our users from another paywall and these two paywalls don't work together to do the transfer. My old paywall worked with entitlements so it was a bit more tricky to get setup. I like the simplicity of this paywall.

 

Thanks,

Jeremy

Hello,

 

Then your problems are solved. I just created a subscription with a start date of 2025-08-30 and this subscription's status is active.

Powered by NexWebSites.com -
Certified Authorize.net developers