A customer can have multiple subscriptions at the same time. However, all subscriptions that a customer is subscribed to will be on the same invoice schedule.

Therefore when altering subscriptions, there are specific choices you can make in Lotus about how and when to charge the customer.

Canceling a subscription will allow the option of either:

  • issuing an invoice for that subscription period immediately,
  • issuing an invoice for the subscription when the subscription was scheduled to renew/expire,
  • or deciding to not invoice the customer for the subscription.

Another necessary behavior is the ability to switch the plan a customer is on, usually for upgrades and downgrades. There are similar options for these scenarios:

  • End the current subscription immediately, bill for it, and then start the new subscription with the new plan now
  • End the current subscription immediately, don’t bill for it, and start the new one now
  • Switch the plan while keeping the same subscription billing cycle

Upgrades and downgrades are handled internally for usage-based metrics based on the proration setting for the metric. Proration for a gauge metric is set at the metric level.

As a quick example, if proration is set to day for a seats-based metric that is upgraded halfway through the month, the first half will be calculated based on the price of the seats for the month * (# of days/# of days in the month).

Plan VersioningInvoicing