Billing community members FAQs

Question

Accepted Answer

Curious about how billing works for your members?
We’ve put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions to help you understand how billing works for Community subscriptions.
In general, Podia follows standard practices used across the industry for recurring subscriptions.
Frequently Asked Questions About Billing Community Members
What happens if someone pays for a full year but cancels at some point before that year? Do they get any sort of prorated refund? 
If a member cancels before their yearly subscription ends, they won’t automatically receive a refund for the unused time.
This follows industry standards since yearly plans usually come with a discounted rate.
If you want to issue them a partial refund, you will need to do it directly through Stripe. Log in to your Stripe account and issue a partial refund through there.
To avoid confusion, we recommend clearly outlining your refund policy on your terms page.
Are members sent reminders before they are auto-renewed in the monthly or yearly billing?
Following industry standards, members receive an email notification after their monthly or yearly payment is processed.
They won’t receive a reminder before the charge goes through.
How do failed charges get retried?
Stripe uses smart retries to retry card charges at the optimal time to increase the chance of a successful charge. 
We strongly recommend using Stripe's smart retries, which is the default setting.
If you need to change the retry schedule, you can do so by adjusting your subscription settings in Stripe. 
For Podia to function properly, it is important that the "Subscription status" remains set to "cancel the subscription" when all retries fail.
If someone chooses the annual payment option and pays for a full year upfront, will they be able to renew at the same price (even if the "public" price goes up)?
Whatever price people are charged when they sign up for the plan is their price for life. This is an industry standard and also how Stripe functions automatically.
You won't be able to change or lower the price for a member unless you or they cancel their subscription and sign up for a new one.
Can someone switch from monthly to annual? If they do, would they get the annual option from the plan they originally signed up for or would they only be able to get the current annual rate?
Yes! They will be able to switch from monthly to annual directly from their customer dashboard.
How are members charged when they change plans?
When a member changes plans, they’re added to it right away and charged for the time spent on that plan during their current billing cycle.
Before confirming the change, they’ll see a breakdown of the updated cost and any price difference they’ll need to pay.
On their next invoice, members will be charged for the time spent on the new plan, plus the cost of the upcoming month or year—minus any unused time from their previous plan that they already paid for.
If you'd like to manually invoice/charge the customer immediately from the Stripe dashboard as opposed to having the prorations added on to the next billing cycle's invoice, you can follow the instructions below: 
Navigate to the customer profile on your Stripe dashboard
Scroll down to "Pending invoice items" to where the prorations are listed and click Invoice now. This generates the draft invoice — it does not immediately charge the customer.
If you'd like to immediately charge the customer, you can click on the draft (scheduled) invoice that was just created and click the Charge customer button. (If you don't manually perform this step, Stripe will automatically attempt to charge the invoice in 1-2 hours)
DISCLAIMER: Stripe does not associate these prorated invoices with a subscription. The prorated payment won't appear in the customer's Podia dashboard or your sales history. 
How can I have my members agree to limited or no refunds?
We recommend all Podia users to create their own terms & conditions for their own businesses.
Your members must agree to these in order to subscribe to your services and will be a perfect spot to list any refund policies you may have. You can find out how to set those up here: Customize your Terms & Conditions/Privacy Policy
Still need help?
If you have any questions, send an email to hello@podia.com or click the purple help icon to send us a message 😄