Customize pricing and billing
DocsCurrentLast updated: October 6th 2021, @ 7:10:14 pm
With subscription services, you may encounter scenarios where you want to customize a subscription for select customers. PayPal enables you to customize pricing and billing details for new and existing subscriptions. Common customization scenarios include:
| Scenario | Example |
|---|---|
| Merchants offering custom pricing based on negotiations with customers. | A merchant who provides remote tech support services at a rate of $10 per person per month offers a discounted rate of $8 per person per month to a key customer. |
| Merchants extending a finite subscription plan for customers. | A merchant who provides online music tutorials extends a 12 month subscription by one additional month to a customer who expressed interest in extending the service. |
| Merchants reducing the one-time setup fee for customers. | A merchant who offers gym and yoga classes reduces the registration fee for an undecided customer from $20 to $10. |
You can also:
- Extend trial periods.
- Control billing preferences based on customer profile types.
- Set custom values for subscribers while they upgrade or downgrade between plans.
- Set custom tier definition and price for volume-based and tiered-based subscriptions.
Example: discount subscription price
This example customizes a subscription with the following characteristics:
- A merchant sells dog food packets.
- The normal subscription plan is $10 per food packet per month.
- The customer needs 20 food packets per month.
- The merchant gives the customer a discounted rate of $8 per food packet per month.
This sample code shows how to set a discounted price when setting up a subscription:
Sample request
curl -v -k -X POST https://api-m.sandbox.paypal.com/v1/billing/subscriptions \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer Access-Token" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "PayPal-Request-Id: PLAN-18062020-001" \
-d '{
"plan_id": "P-7K577606KK9446621L5LJHUY",
"quantity": "20",
"subscriber": {
"name": {
"given_name": "John",
"surname": "Doe"
},
"email_address": "customer@example.com"
},
"plan": {
"billing_cycles": [
{
"sequence": 1,
"total_cycles": 0,
"pricing_scheme": {
"fixed_price": {
"value": "8",
"currency_code": "USD"
}
}
}
]
},
"application_context": {
"brand_name": "Acme Pet Food",
"locale": "en-US",
"user_action": "SUBSCRIBE_NOW",
"shipping_preference": "GET_FROM_FILE",
"payment_method": {
"payer_selected": "PAYPAL",
"payee_preferred": "IMMEDIATE_PAYMENT_REQUIRED"
},
"return_url": "https://example.com/returnUrl",
"cancel_url": "https://example.com/cancelUrl"
}
}'
Limitations
| Limitation | Example |
|---|---|
| You can't update attributes that already passed or completed. | You can’t extend a trial period after it's completed. |
| After you customize a subscription attribute for a subscriber, changes to the generic plan attribute won't impact this subscriber's customized subscription. | A subscription plan is $10 per month. The merchant customizes the plan to $5 per month for a specific subscriber. If the merchant changes the plan price from $10 per month to $12 per month, the price of this particular subscriber remains $5 per month. |
| If you update subscription prices, billing cycles within 10 days aren't affected until the next billing cycle. PayPal informs existing subscribers of the price change at least 10 days in advance. | You update the subscription price from $10 to $12 on the 10th of the month. This subscriber's billing cycle starts on the 15th of the month. This subscriber pays $10 for their subscription on the 15th of the month, and on the following month pays $12. |