Postpone subscription

By default your subscribers are billed on the anniversary date of their subscription signup. If this date needs to change for any reason, a subscription can be postponed. This is the same thing as changing the subscription's next bill date. A postponed subscription will receive no further subscription invoices until the postpone date occurs, unless you make an immediate subscription change.

When a subscription is postponed, the bill date will be permanently modified for all future subscription bill dates. For example, a yearly subscription with a billing cycle of May 15, 2016 - May 20, 2017 that is then postponed to be May 15, 2016 - Dec 10, 2016 will have a new billing cycle of Dec 10, 2016 - Dec 10, 2017 starting on Dec 10, 2016.

🚧

Immediate changes after postponing will prorate more than 100%

Be careful if you are allowing immediate changes after extending the bill date. The time remaining could end up being more than the subscription's plan billing period, which will create charges and credits that are more than the original per unit price.

Recurly's postpone feature does not invoice the customer for the additional time, but an immediate subscription change after a subscription has been postponed will credit the customer assuming they had already been charged for the extra time.

How to Postpone a Subscription

You can postpone a subscription via the Admin Console or the API.

In the Admin Console, access the customer's account to view the desired subscription. In the details for this subscription, you will see the Current Period and next to it a hyperlink which says Change. Click the hyperlink and specify the date on which you would like the Current Period to end and the Next Bill Date to occur.

Via the V2 API, you would utilize the Postpone Subscription call. Learn more
Via the V3 API, you would utilize the Modify Subscription call. Learn more

🚧

Calendar Billing

If you are using our Calendar Billing feature, changing the bill date for a subscription will not change the bill date for all subscriptions on an account. For example, if an account has a bill date of the 15th of the month (meaning that all subscriptions invoice together on the 15th), changing the bill date of one subscription will not change the bill dates for all subscriptions on this account to the new date. Other subscriptions on the account will continue to bill on the account's bill date of the 15th.

Pause a Subscription

If you are trying to skip one or more billing cycles without changing the regular billing date, we do not recommend using the postpone feature. Instead, use our Pause Subscription feature. Learn more

Backdate a Subscription

Some B2B merchants have contracts that are being signed and their customers have actually started the subscription before they are able to add them into Recurly and bill them. In order to change the next bill date of those subscriptions so that they will bill on the same day in Recurly as they would in the original system or contract, you can shorten the bill date through the postpone action.

Add the customer's subscription to Recurly while they are still in their first billing cycle. This will bill them the full billing period amount of the subscription, or whatever custom amount you enter when adding the subscription. The start date in Recurly will not match when the customer actually started, but now you can postpone the subscription's bill date to realign the dates. On the Subscription Details page for the subscription, click on "Change Next Bill Date" and select the bill date that matches the next bill date for the contract or your own system. This new date is when the subscription will next bill and the customer will again be charged the full amount for the subscription's billing period.