Introduction

Prepaid Subscriptions are subscription orders where the customer pays the full subscription fee upfront instead of in monthly intervals. This model is beneficial for both you and your customer — it supports predictable cash flow on your end and often comes with incentives (like discounts) for customers who commit to paying in advance.

Feature overview

With prepaid subscriptions:

• Customers pay for the subscription period upfront.
• No recurring payments are scheduled until the initial prepaid period ends.
• After the prepaid period, the subscription can auto-renew monthly using the defined extension price.
• You can distinguish between prepaid and monthly variants through clear naming.

Technical setup

Setting up prepaid subscriptions

Prepaid subscriptions are set up in your shop system by creating a variant with an upfront payment plan. During the variant creation, define whether the payment should be charged monthly or in full at once.

Configuring extension/renewal pricing

To continue charging monthly after the prepaid period:

1. Go to Products > Variants in the circuly Hub.
2. Select the variants for which you want to define an extension price.
3. Click on Edit extension price.
4. Enter the monthly extension price that should apply after the prepaid term ends.

This price will be used when the auto-renewal activates after the prepaid term.

Prepaid subscriptions in the circuly Hub

• The variant title should indicate whether it's an upfront or monthly plan.
• No recurring payments are scheduled until the auto-renew starts.
• The extension price is visible during subscription creation but can only be edited via the Product List > Edit Variant screen.