How long do we have to activate a recurring application charge?

Retired Boards Appdev Billing
1

Hi everyone! :slightly_smiling_face:

I understand that after creating a pending charge, Merchants have 2 days to accept the charge before the confirmation URL is invalid.

But after they’ve accepted the charge, how long do we as Partners have to activate the charge?

My ideal use case:

  1. Day 1: A Merchant subscribes to our app through a recurring application charge.

  2. Day 23: We detect the Merchant needs to change plans for their 2nd billing cycle (starting day 30). We email them to ask them to accept the plan change through the confirmation URL.

  3. At this point, we do not want to activate the charge as it will charge the Merchant a prorated amount.

  4. Day 30: Now I’d like to activate the charge so the Merchant is only on the new plan in the 2nd billing cycle.

Is this possible or do you have to activate the charge right after it’s accepted by Merchants?

Thanks

2

To follow up here, I am attempting to do this using the REST API.

But now reading here that the GraphQL API automatically activates accepted charges - https://www.shopify.ca/partners/blog/billing-api-graphql#:~:text=All%20charges%20are%20automatically%20activated,longer%20need%20to%20activate%20charges - and in the Partners Slack that eventually the REST API will do the same.

So I suppose the answer here is no.

Is there any intention in the future to allow plan changes to NOT result in a prorated charge? I understand the need for Merchants to ‘accept’ the plan change but it would be preferable to have control over if that plan change results in a charge today (the prorated amount) or no charge (so just the new plan from the next billing cycle).

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