Recurring charge discounts

A discount can be applied to either annual and 30-day subscriptions. Recurring charge discounts apply the next time that the subscription is charged. If you change the app subscription price, then the discount applies to the remaining portion of the current billing interval, and future recurring billing intervals.

If you offer trial days with discounts, then the discount applies when the app billing interval begins after the trial days end. If the app subscription is currently in a trial period and you add an app subscription discount, then the trial ends and the subscription with the discount apply immediately.

If you have specified a set number of billing intervals for your discount, then the time starts counting down from the moment that the discount is applied. Trial periods are ignored. If you don't specify a limit to the number of billing intervals for the discount, then the discount is considered limitless and applies indefinitely to the recurring charges.

If your new subscription requires prorating, for example if the price or billing interval is changed, then the discounted price is used when calculating the prorated amount.

If the new subscription doesn't require proration, then the discounted price starts from the renewal date.

You can remove a discount from a subscription at any time by creating a new recurring charge without a discount.

The merchant is charged the discounted price for the remainder of the billing interval unless a proration is required, for example, for an increase or decrease in price. If a price change is created with a discount, then the discount is applied to the remaining value until the next recurring charge.

An app can have only one recurring app charge per merchant. If a merchant changes their subscription while their current plan is active, then they need to accept a new recurring app charge. The existing recurring app charge is cancelled and replaced by the new charge when the merchant approves it. Most plan changes with discounts are immediate. However, changes are deferred for 30-day plans that change to annual, and for annual plans with higher prices that change to annual plans with lower prices.

If a merchant is on a Silver plan and changes to a Gold plan with a discount, then we credit the remaining value of the Silver plan (proration) and charge the merchant the price of the discounted Gold plan with 1 use deducted from the duration limit.

If a merchant is on a Gold plan and changes to a Silver plan with a discount, then the charge for the new discounted plan is deferred until the current plan’s billing interval is complete. The charge for the new plan is also deferred when a merchant is on an annual plan and downgrades to a 30-day plan.

Creating a recurring charge with a discount is a great way to incentivize new merchants to try out for the app at a lower cost. You can view the discount when the merchant approves a subscription. The merchant invoice displays the discounted price but the Partner Dashboard shows the full price (without the discount).

Creating a new subscription overwrites any existing discount. Discounts are not carried over from one subscription to the next.

Use the appSubscriptionCreate mutation to specify the discount to the plan by using the appRecurringPricingDetails field on the line item’s plan. The discount value can be a percentage value or a fixed amount. The only supported currencyCode input is USD.

When the mutation is completed, you can redirect the merchant to the confirmationUrl in the response where the merchant approves or declines the charge. After they approve the charge, they are redirected to the returnUrl that's specified in the mutation input.

The following example shows how to create a new recurring charge with a percentage value discount:

The following example shows how to create a new recurring charge with a fixed amount discount: