Prepaid plans

A prepaid plan charges the customer once for several deliveries, for example three months of coffee paid up front and shipped monthly. You get paid sooner and customers have fewer charges to think about. There's no separate prepaid switch: a plan is prepaid when its billing interval is a longer multiple of its delivery interval. Set it up in Subscriptions → Catalog → Subscription Plans.

• Prepaid billing cycles (optional): charge prepaid customers Every week or Every N weeks, or in a set week of each month, for all selling plans or one. Changing it changes when prepaid customers are charged.
• Ship day: when set, orders ship on the first ship day on or after the charge. It doesn't change when orders are released for fulfillment.

• A Prepaid subscription badge and the billing frequency.
• Delivery frequency instead of Frequency, and Next renewal instead of Next billing date.
• When you change the frequency, you set Deliver every and Charge every separately.
• Paid shipments are listed under the order's Shipments, where you can Reschedule one or Release early.

When you create or import a contract on a prepaid plan with weekly, monthly or yearly deliveries, the Recurring delivery anchor date sets the delivery weekday, day of month or month and day. Leave it blank to keep the plan's schedule. See CSV import template.

Billing must be a longer multiple of delivery in the same unit. For example, 3 Month(s) billing with 1 Month(s) delivery is prepaid. Mixing units, like weeks for billing and months for delivery, can give a schedule you didn't expect.

Dynamic rates aren't available for prepaid renewals. Set a fixed recurring shipping charge in Edit delivery details.

One-time product changes aren't available for prepaid renewals. Add it to a separate order instead.

• Prepaid subscriptions: get paid up front for several deliveries.
• Glossary: prepaid subscription, quarterly subscription, deferred revenue.