## Stripe Subscriptions Documentation

This documentation set covers the comprehensive management of subscriptions within Stripe, a powerful platform for handling recurring payments and customer billing. It provides in-depth guidance on setting up, configuring, and managing subscription services, catering to a wide range of business needs and technical integrations.

### Core Concepts and Setup

*   **Subscriptions Overview:** Understand the fundamental concepts of Stripe Subscriptions, including how they work, their lifecycle, and the benefits they offer for managing recurring payments. (Page 2, Page 24)
*   **Building a Subscriptions Integration:** Learn the essential steps and considerations for integrating Stripe Subscriptions into your application, from product catalog setup to customer management and payment collection. (Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10, Page 11, Page 12, Page 13)
*   **Recurring Pricing Models:** Explore various pricing models available for subscriptions, including flat-rate, per-seat, tiered, and usage-based pricing, to effectively monetize your products and services. (Page 18, Page 38, Page 20, Page 21)
*   **Entitlements:** Discover how to map product features to subscription statuses, enabling automatic provisioning and de-provisioning of access based on customer subscription status. (Page 1, Page 3)

### Subscription Management and Configuration

*   **Billing Cycles:** Learn how to set and manage the billing renewal date for your subscriptions using billing cycle anchors. (Page 6)
*   **Trial Offers:** Configure free or paid trial periods for your subscription items to attract new customers and manage promotional campaigns. (Page 28, Page 46, Page 47)
*   **Billing Modes:** Understand and enable flexible billing mode for increased flexibility, accurate prorations, and access to new features. (Page 16, Page 35)
*   **Mixed Interval Subscriptions:** Combine subscription items with different billing periods on a single subscription for simplified invoicing. (Page 27)
*   **Backdating Subscriptions:** Learn how to backdate subscriptions to bill customers for past periods, useful for migrations and record-keeping. (Page 5)
*   **Subscription Schedules:** Automate changes to subscriptions over time, including future starts, backdating, and upgrades/downgrades. (Page 45)
*   **Prations:** Manage prorated charges and credits when subscription details are modified, ensuring accurate billing for partial periods. (Page 36, Page 15)
*   **Pending Updates:** Handle payment failures when updating subscriptions by leveraging pending updates to ensure changes are applied only upon successful payment. (Page 32)
*   **Bill Customers in Advance:** Utilize prebilling to charge customers for multiple service periods upfront. (Page 33)

### Payment and Discount Management

*   **Payment Methods:** Configure and manage various payment methods for subscriptions, including direct debits, bank transfers, and digital wallets. (Page 31, Page 39, Page 40, Page 41, Page 42, Page 44, Page 51, Page 52, Page 53, Page 54, Page 55, Page 56, Page 57, Page 58, Page 59, Page 60, Page 61, Page 62, Page 63, Page 64, Page 65, Page 66, Page 67, Page 68, Page 69, Page 70, Page 71, Page 72, Page 73, Page 74, Page 75, Page 76, Page 77, Page 78, Page 79, Page 80, Page 81, Page 82, Page 83, Page 84, Page 85, Page 86, Page 87)
*   **No Initial Payment:** Set up payment methods for subscriptions that do not require an immediate upfront charge, such as those with free trials. (Page 17)
*   **Coupons and Promotion Codes:** Apply discounts to subscriptions and subscription items to incentivize customers. (Page 19)

### Subscription Lifecycle and Operations

*   **Modifying Subscriptions:** Learn how to change existing subscriptions, including price adjustments, prorations, and pending updates. (Page 15, Page 48)
*   **Canceling Subscriptions:** Understand the process of canceling subscriptions, including immediate cancellations and automatic cancellations due to payment failures. (Page 14)
*   **Pausing Subscriptions:** Temporarily suspend service delivery and invoice generation for subscriptions. (Page 29)
*   **Pausing Payment Collection:** Temporarily halt payment collection for subscriptions, often used for grace periods or offering free services. (Page 30)
*   **Migrating Subscriptions:** Import existing subscriptions to Stripe Billing using either the migration toolkit or Stripe APIs. (Page 22, Page 23, Page 26)
*   **Webhooks:** Utilize webhooks to receive real-time notifications of subscription activity and manage asynchronous events. (Page 49)

### Advanced Features and Integrations

*   **SaaS Integration:** Learn how to build a Software as a Service (SaaS) business on Stripe, leveraging subscriptions and other products. (Page 3)
*   **Embeddable Pricing Table:** Create and embed a customizable pricing table on your website to display subscription options and direct customers to checkout. (Page 34)
*   **Manage Subscriptions on iOS:** Implement subscription management directly within your iOS application using the Billing SDK. (Page 25)
*   **Third-Party Payment Processors:** Integrate Stripe subscriptions and invoices with external payment processors. (Page 43)
*   **Script Language:** Understand the syntax and semantics of Stripe's scripting language for advanced billing logic. (Page 4)