Subscriptions
A subscription is a recurring billing relationship: it locks in the product, quantity, and price a customer agreed to, then renews on a cycle until someone changes or ends it. Subscriptions are created from subscription-type orders — you cannot create one directly.
When should I read this?
- A customer wants to pause over the summer and resume in the fall.
- A customer is upgrading seats mid-cycle and you need to know what they will be charged.
- A customer asked to cancel and you want to do it without surprises.
- You need to apply a promo code to an existing subscription.
Use cases
| Scenario | What you do |
|---|---|
| Customer adds 5 seats in month 2 of an annual plan | Use the line-item editor, Preview the proration, then commit — Floatless generates a proration invoice for the upgrade. |
| Seasonal business pauses from June to September | Click Pause while active; billing stops until you click Resume. |
| Customer is leaving at the end of the month | Choose Cancel at End of Cycle so they keep access through the paid period. |
| Payment failed and you are in dunning | Nothing to do on the subscription itself — see Failed payments; the subscription shows Past due. |
Where to find it
Open Billing → Subscriptions. The top of the page shows health stats: active subscriptions, monthly recurring revenue (MRR), churn rate over 30 days, ARPU, and subscriptions expiring soon.
Subscription statuses
| Status | Meaning | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | Created, not started yet | Edit, cancel |
| Active | Billing normally | Pause, cancel, amend, apply coupon |
| Trialing | In a free/paid trial window | Cancel, wait for conversion |
| Paused | Billing stopped by you | Resume, cancel |
| Past due | Payment is failing | Resolve payment; dunning runs automatically |
| Canceled | Ended | Reactivate (if scheduled to cancel at period end) |
Pause, resume, and cancel
On the subscription detail page:
- Pause (active subscriptions): billing stops until resumed. A paused subscription keeps its history and pricing.
- Resume (paused subscriptions): billing restarts from the next cycle.
- Cancel offers two policies:
| Policy | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Cancel at End of Cycle | The subscription stays active until the end of the paid period, then ends. The customer keeps access. |
| Cancel Immediately | Ends now; unused time is credited to the account balance. |
You can add an optional cancellation reason — it is stored on the subscription record. When a cancellation is scheduled, a banner on the detail page shows the end date, and Reactivate reverses it before that date.
Change quantities and prices (amendments)
Mid-cycle changes are the most common subscription operation. Floatless handles the money fairly through proration: the customer pays only for what they use.
Steps
Open the editor
On an active subscription, click Edit. The editor has two tabs: Header Settings (period end, billing cycle, notes) and Line Items.
Adjust the line items
Change quantity or unit price per line. The start date of an already-started subscription is locked.
Preview the proration
Click Preview before saving. The billing preview shows:
- The action per line (charge or credit).
- Net proration, immediate invoice amount, credit memo amount, and next-period amount.
- An old → new → net table per line.
Commit the changes
Click Commit Changes. Floatless generates a proration invoice for increases or a credit memo for decreases, and records the change in the Amendments tab with the amounts and reason.
Usage-based subscriptions
If the subscription includes metered products, the detail page shows a Usage tab: per-meter cards with total usage, included units, billable quantity, estimated cost, and a daily usage chart. From there you can also Report Usage manually for a single correction. The included-units progress bar turns amber at 70% ("Using plan") and red at 90% ("Approaching limit").
See Usage control center for fleet-wide monitoring.
Apply a coupon to an existing subscription
At the bottom of the Details card, click Apply Coupon, enter the promo code, and confirm. The discount applies to future invoices — see Discounts & coupons for how coupons are built.
Common issues
- I don't see the subscription I just sold. Subscriptions come from subscription-type orders. Check the order — if it was created as a standard order, it will not produce a subscription.
- The customer says the price changed. Subscription line prices are locked from the order. Catalog price changes only affect new subscriptions.
- Past due won't go away. The customer's payment must succeed (retry via Payment recovery); the status updates automatically after a successful charge.