Is there a way to cancel pending status subscription.

Shopify Apps
,
1

  1. Handling Downgrades with APPLY_ON_NEXT_BILLING_CYCLE
    When a client subscribes to the Plus plan and later decides to downgrade to the Basic plan, the downgrade remains in a pending state until the next billing date because of APPLY_ON_NEXT_BILLING_CYCLE. At that time, Shopify sends a webhook with the new Basic plan as “Active.”

    However, what happens if the client changes their mind before the next billing date and either:

    • Wants to upgrade instead of downgrading?
    • Decides to stay on the current plan (cancel the downgrade)?

    Since Shopify does not provide a way to cancel a pending downgrade, this can create a situation where multiple active subscriptions exist. Shopify only cancels previous subscriptions when there is a single active one, but if multiple subscriptions are pending or active, it does not automatically resolve them.

    How can we properly manage this scenario to ensure there is only one active subscription at a time?

2. Production Behavior of APPLY_ON_NEXT_BILLING_CYCLE
In development, after subscribing to a new plan (even with 15 days remaining on the current one), Shopify immediately sends:

  • A Cancel webhook for the previous plan
  • An Active webhook for the new plan

Does this behavior remain the same in production? Or do these webhooks only trigger on the next billing date?

If they only trigger on the next billing date, how can we confirm whether the payment was successful or if the pending subscription will simply expire without being charged?

mutation AppSubscriptionCreate {
    appSubscriptionCreate(
        name: "PLUSBilling"
        replacementBehavior: APPLY_ON_NEXT_BILLING_CYCLE
        lineItems: {
            plan: {
                appRecurringPricingDetails: {
                    interval: EVERY_30_DAYS
                    price: { amount: "151", currencyCode: USD }
                    discount: {  }
                }
            }
        }
        test: true
        returnUrl: "https://google.com"
    )

So in the subscriptions there could be many Active subscription plans, this is not what i want. And if the client has the confirmation link of previous PENDING page, they can still click on paid which will creates multiple Active plans

                    {
                        "createdAt": "2025-02-26T03:29:38Z",
                        "currentPeriodEnd": null,
                        "id": "gid://shopify/AppSubscription/34265301281",
                        "name": "PLUSBilling",
                        "returnUrl": "https://google.com/",
                        "status": "PENDING",
                        "test": true,
                        "trialDays": 0
                    },
                    {
                        "createdAt": "2025-02-26T03:29:39Z",
                        "currentPeriodEnd": null,
                        "id": "gid://shopify/AppSubscription/34265334049",
                        "name": "PLUSBilling",
                        "returnUrl": "https://google.com/",
                        "status": "PENDING",
                        "test": true,
                        "trialDays": 0
                    },
                    {
                        "createdAt": "2025-02-26T03:29:40Z",
                        "currentPeriodEnd": "2025-03-28T03:30:53Z",
                        "id": "gid://shopify/AppSubscription/34265366817",
                        "name": "PLUSBilling",
                        "returnUrl": "https://google.com/",
                        "status": "ACTIVE",
                        "test": true,
                        "trialDays": 0
                    },
                    {
                        "createdAt": "2025-02-26T03:29:55Z",
                        "currentPeriodEnd": null,
                        "id": "gid://shopify/AppSubscription/34265399585",
                        "name": "PLUSBilling",
                        "returnUrl": "https://google.com/",
                        "status": "PENDING",
                        "test": true,
                        "trialDays": 0
                    },
                    {
                        "createdAt": "2025-02-26T03:30:04Z",
                        "currentPeriodEnd": "2025-03-28T03:30:25Z",
                        "id": "gid://shopify/AppSubscription/34265432353",
                        "name": "PLUSBilling",
                        "returnUrl": "https://google.com/",
                        "status": "ACTIVE",
                        "test": true,
                        "trialDays": 0
                    }
                ]
2

Did you find a solution for this?

3

I do not understand why the “pending to be applied in the next billing cycle” subscription has no indication that it will do that. There is nothing like willStartAt or something similar, and the status is just “ACTIVE”. Because I made it so that status ACTIVE sets that as the shop’s active subscription in the internal DB, it went wrong. The webhook gives no indication that the CANCEL-current-subscription ACTIVE-next-subscription is caused by “APPLY_IMMEDIATELY” or “APPLY_ON_NEXT_BILLING_CYCLE”.