Set up recurring billing and check on subscriptions
Charge clients monthly, quarterly or yearly, and see who's active, who's behind and what you can count on each month.
Recurring billing suits ongoing coaching, memberships and retainers. Your client pays once to start, and Stripe charges them on schedule after that. The Subs tab shows every subscription in one place.
Before you start
- Time: 10 minutes.
- Stripe connected. Subscriptions run through your Stripe account. See Connect Stripe, live and test mode.
Step 1: Choose how clients start paying
Pick one of these. Each creates a subscription when the client pays.
| Way to sell it | How |
|---|---|
| A recurring product in a checkout or payment link | Create a product with Billing Type set to Recurring. See Add a product to sell. Then sell it with a payment link or a checkout form. |
| A payment link with recurring billing | In Payments > Links, set Billing Type to a recurring option. See Share a payment link. |
| A repeating invoice | In a new invoice, set Billing cadence to a repeating option. See Send an invoice and record payments. Good for retainers with corporate clients. |
Coupons and subscriptions
Checkout forms don't take coupons on subscriptions right now. Embedded Card Payment accepts coupons on one-time purchases only (recurring or mixed carts are blocked), and Stripe Checkout (Redirect) takes no coupons at all. If you want to offer a lower monthly rate, create a separate recurring product at that price. See Create a discount code.
Step 2: Check on your subscriptions
- Go to Payments > Subs.
- Read the cards: Total Subscriptions, Active, Monthly Recurring (MRR) and Annual Recurring (ARR). MRR is what you can expect each month from active subscriptions.
- Under Filters, search by plan or customer, or pick a status in All Status.
- In All Subscriptions, each row shows Customer, Plan, Price, Status, Renewal and Actions.
What the statuses mean:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Billing normally. |
| Trialing | In a free trial period. |
| Past Due | The latest payment failed. Reach out kindly; often the card expired. |
| Cancelled | Ended. No more charges. |
The Insights and Customer Health tabs next to Subscriptions give a wider view once you have a few clients on recurring plans.
Cancel a subscription
Look in the subscription's Actions column for the cancel option. If you don't see it there, cancel it in your Stripe dashboard under Subscriptions, then click Sync All at the top of Payments.
If the subscription gave access to a course or membership, remember to remove that access too. See Manage your course members.
Check it worked
- A new subscriber shows in All Subscriptions as Active with the right plan, price and renewal date.
- Monthly Recurring (MRR) includes them.
If something's off
- A subscription is in Stripe but not here: click Sync All at the top of Payments, then refresh.
- The customer shows as Unknown, or the plan as Unknown Plan: the Stripe record has no linked customer or product name. Check it in Stripe.
- MRR looks wrong: a $0 subscription counts as active but adds $0. Check prices on the rows.
- A client is Past Due: Stripe retries failed payments according to your Stripe settings. Ask the client to update their card, or send them a fresh payment link.