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Plans
Plans are a new feature in the upgraded Recurring Billing service. They help you manage setup costs and recurring amounts across multiple subscriptions. You can create and manage plans in the Business Center or through the API.
A plan defines the billing details for a subscription, including a setup fee and a recurring amount. When creating a subscription for a customer, you assign the customer to a plan. Individual subscriptions are still available, but they require individual management.
When creating and managing subscriptions, plans provide a flexible way to standardize setup fees and recurring amounts while simplifying administration:
- Assign customers to a plan when creating a subscription
- Apply plan changes to new subscriptions only, or to both new and existing subscriptions
- Continue using individual subscriptions, with individual management
- Retrieve, amend, activate, deactivate, or delete plans
Plan Types
Recurring Billing supports two types of plans:
- Standard plans: Created and stored within the Recurring Billing service for reuse. You can assign these plans to multiple subscriptions.
- One-time plans: Created for a single subscription and not stored for reuse or assigned to other subscriptions.
Billing Cycle Options
Plans support the following billing cycle options:
- A payment schedule with no end date
- A payment schedule with a fixed number of payments
Creating and Updating Plans
When creating or updating a plan, you can:
- Define the billing schedule by setting the amount, currency, and frequency
- Specify the number of billing cycles for a fixed number of payments
- Include an optional setup fee
- Apply a single plan to multiple individual subscriptions
- Make changes to the plan and choose whether to apply them only to new subscriptions or to all existing subscriptions