> ## Documentation Index
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> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Subscriptions

Vindicia Subscribe lets you create and manage subscription billing with market-leading ease and flexibility.

**What is a subscription?**

A subscription is a recurring purchase of your offering (products or services) and the entitlement granted to access them. It is billed according to a billing schedule (called billing plan), which indicates the frequency of billing, and purchased by a customer (customer account stores the customer details along with the customer's payment method).

The subscription, is a recurring purchase by a customer and the customer's payment method for the purchase that includes Products, and a Billing Plan. In a subscription, all products are charged on the same day, as defined by the billing plan. Subscribe allows you to provide a subscription quote before creating it, in order to present the end-customer with the final charge, including tax and discounts.

To offer a subscription plan, you must pre-define products, billing plans and optionally discount campaigns or rate plans in the Subscribe [Product Catalog](productCatalog).

## Subscription Purchase Flow

When a subscription is purchased using one of the many supported Payment Method options, the system performs the subscription purchase activities. For real-time payment methods such as credit cards or debit cards the activities can be immediate. Other payment methods may require activation only after payment approval is received.

The following Subscription activities are performed as part of a subscription purchase:

1. Customer Account creation (for new customers only)
2. Subscription creation
3. Charge calculation based on the product and billing plan
4. Discount calculation, if applicable
5. Sales Tax or VAT calculation based on the address supplied, when relevant,
6. Payment request and charge with the merchant's payment provider
7. For Credit cards:
   * Customer authentication based on locale for example 3DS (PSD2) authentication in Europe
   * Card validation with the payment provider

## Subscription Scenarios

Subscribe key attribute is its flexibility. Accordingly, it supports a variety of scenarios and statuses for subscriptions:

* **New Subscription Scenarios**
  * **New Subscription Creation**: This scenario typically triggers an immediate charge. When applicable, card validation is performed prior to the subscription creation. The charge is authorized in real-time and the charge capture is performed as a batch process later.

  * **Future Subscription Creation**: This scenario allows to create a future subscription starting on a defined date. Credit card validation can be performed at time of creation or at the time of capture.

  * **Free Trial Subscription**: This scenario allows a subscription to be created without a payment method being provided by the customer for the free trial period. A valid payment method is required for the first charged (non free) billing period. If one is not provided, the subscription will be canceled. You can set a grace period for the subscription prior to cancellation allowing the subscriber additional time to provide a payment method without losing access to the product.

  * **Pending Subscription (with no activation date)**: The pending subscription scenario means that when the customer purchases the subscription the first payment is pending and not immediately charged. This is often used when physical goods are being shipped and you wish to synchronize the first payment with the date of the shipment. When the time to activate the subscription is reached, you can immediately activate the subscription with no lag time.

  * **Subscriptions with an Earlier Start Date**: This scenario works to support and record subscriptions captured in the past. Subscribe calculates and generates charges for the current periods.
* **Subscription Modifications**: Subscribe allows **non monetary changes** such as changing the invoice format (attachment or inline of an email), editing the name on the subscription, or editing the shipping address. These changes will not change the subscription identification or billing.

  You can perform the following modifications with **monetary impact**:

  * **Add Campaign Codes to Discount an Existing Subscription**: In this scenario, when campaign promotional codes are relevant for any subscription including existing ones, customers can request to associate a discount code to the subscription and accordingly be charged a discounted rate for the promotional period.
  * **Add Stackable Discounts to Existing Subscriptions**: In this scenario, customers ask to include multiple discounts to existing subscriptions and accordingly be charged a discounted rate for the subscription as defined by the merchant.
  * **Add/Remove Products (Subscription Items) from/to an Existing Subscription**: This scenario allows to add Products or remove products from a subscription. This can be performed as long as the subscription keeps at least one active product associated with it. This scenario allows immediate change with pro-ration (Subscribe will calculate the pro-ration required) or changes occurring in next billing period.
  * **Modify the Subscription's Billing Date**: The subscription billing date can be changed.
  * **Modify the Billing Plan**: Changing the billing plan will change the subscription anniversary date. When performed in the middle of the billing cycle, proration will be calculated.
  * **Modify the Payment Method**: This scenario is restricted to specific payment methods. Existing subscriptions can replace one credit card to another or can move from a bank transfer to a credit card. Other payment methods cannot be modified and the subscription will need to be canceled.
* **Pausing and Resuming a Subscription**: This scenario is a great way to reduce immediate churn but keep in touch with your customers. It allows you to offer your active subscribers a break period during which they are not billed. You can pause a subscription immediately or at the end of a period, pro-ration is not supported in this scenario. You can Resume a paused subscription at any time by keeping the original billing date or changing to the resume billing date. If the paused subscription is not resumed over a 5 year period, Subscribe will cancel the subscription.
* **Subscription Cancellation Scenarios** Subscribe allows 2 different scenarios for canceling an active subscription according to your preference:
  * **Immediate Cancellation**: Subscribe enables this scenario along with calculating pro-ration and refund of the remaining subscription period, or calculating fees if the minimum commitment period was not completed.
  * **Cancellation at the End of a Period**: In this scenario a customer has asked to cancel an active subscription. The subscription and its service entitlement will remain active until the end of the paid period and will then be canceled.

## Subscription Entitlement

Entitlements determine whether a customer has access to your offerings by providing access codes that are recognized by your system. Entitlements are defined in the Product and/or Billing Plan and granted by the subscription that includes these items. For subscriptions, entitlements are active while billing is successful. Providing a grace period which extends entitlement to the service during potentially temporary billing failures can help retain customers, while issues are resolved. For more details, see [Entitlements](entitlements).


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