Shopify App Uninstall And Reinstall Flow In Terms Of Billing Cycles

[Limechat_devs]

Hello there,

We are integrating shopify billing functionality for our app. We are almost done with the integration part and was testing the functionality before the feature goes live.

There is an official doc, which gives information about the billing cycle of app subscription when ever an app is uninstalled and then reinstalled.

Link to official doc which we are referring = https://shopify.dev/apps/billing/subscription

This doc says that when a merchant being on a paid subscription uninstalls the app and comes back within the same billing cycle, the old "app billing cycle" is considered by shopify and is resumed by shopify automatically.

But when we tested this out, this was not the case.

Please find below the series of events that happened with us while we tested the app uninstall and reinstall flow.

1. Our app was installed by a merchant and he bought our starter plan of $29/month. Shopify started to show him an app subscription of $29/month on merchant dashboard
2. He uninstalled the app and we received 2 webhooks from shopify. First one is "app_uninstalled" and the other one is "app_subscription_update" (with the information that the current paid subscription has been cancelled by shopify)
3. Now at this point, when I checked the "billing" section on merchant dashboard, it showed me no subscriptions related to my app. (We considered that shopify had cancelled the paid subscription
4. When the merchant again installs the app next day, and purchases a high tier plan (lets say our pro plan of $625), he was redirected to an "approval" page of shopify and their he was shown as "$625 subscription will be activated with a validity of 30 days".

This is weird, as we were expecting that shopify would know the old "app billing cycle" of the merchant since the old billing cycle is still valid for this merchant.

But on the contrary, shopify created a new subscription for the merchant and the app billing cycle has also changed.

So we are curious to know how this app uninstall and reinstall flow actually works?

1. Will shopify create a new subscription every time a merchant purchases a plan (after app uninstall) and eventually changing the app billing cycle
2. Will shopify know the old app billing cycle and append the new subscription in the same billing cycle (As discussed in the official documentation)

PS: Attaching screenshots for better clarity

Step 1: When merchant purchases the paid plan for the first time

Step 2: When the merchant has uninstalled the app, and he is now unable to see any active subscriptions

Step 3: When the merchant again installs the app within old billing cycle, and purchases a new subscription

Thanks !

[andrew_shakes]

did you find the solution to it, as I am facing the same here. Thanks!

[ssodano]

Is there any news for this? I am having the same problem.

[MuhammadDaniyal]

So far, I know that, Every time when merchant wants to purchase a plan. Shopify always create a new charge_id. If it is accepted the status will change to active or if merchant cancel it the status will be cancelled other wise it will remain in the pending state for 2 days and then got expire.

When the app is uninstall: The active subscription charge got cancelled. You have to create a new charge for the merchant if merchant reinstall your app.