Don't charge payment on initial order

[ArchitechproOU]

Hi,

We would like to create a subscription contract that will have 0.00 price on the initial order (automatically created by Shopify during subscription purchase), but the recurring payments to be of a specified amount. 

Here's the example why we need to build such an approach: our customer is using a subscription with anchor payment on certain month day (15-th of every month) due to their billing / legal policies. If a customer will create their subscription on 14-th of the month, they will pay twice:
- on 14th (via the order auto-created by Shopify when the subscription is created);
- on the 15th (subscription's recurring payment's anchor day).

We need to make the first order (on 14-th) to be free (0.00), and all the following ones to be paid (15-th day of every month).

What is the correct way to implement such a logic? 

[Brian_S]

Awtomic Subscriptions has batching ("anchor dates") as well as dynamic subscription plan (changing discounts after X orders) features that I believe would enable the functionality you're looking for. Happy to give a demo if you're interested : )

[ArchitechproOU]

Hey! Thanks for the reply, but we're interested in API / technical part, as subscriptions is already a part of one of our apps. Thanks for the offer anyway 🙂

[Brian_S]

makes sense.  It is possible but you'll have to do most of the work on your end. Shopify will put details about the contract's cycle discounts in the contract but you have to do the heavy lifting

[JuanHoyos · Accepted solution]

Hi @ArchitechproOU , one way to make the first order free but the following ones is to create two pricing policies with different afterCycle values and update the price in the subscription line.

Here's an example of two pricing policies that will cause Shopify to use $0.00 in the first order and guide the successive management of the subscription contract:

billingPolicy: {
  recurring: {
    interval: MONTH,
    intervalCount: 1
    anchors: { type: MONTHDAY, day: 15 }
  }
}
pricingPolicies: [
  {
    fixed: {
      adjustmentType: PERCENTAGE
      adjustmentValue: { percentage: 100 }
    }
  }
  {
    recurring: {
      adjustmentType: PERCENTAGE
      adjustmentValue: { percentage: 0 }
      afterCycle: 1
    }
  }
]

To update the subscription and bill the successive orders with the expected price, the app can computePrice and then set the currentPrice of the subscription contract line.

As an alternative, some merchants could benefit from the same results by setting limits in a discount coupon:

Please let us know how it goes and sorry for the late reply.

Best,

Juan