Guide
Subscription Renewals and Payment Recovery
Understand regular renewal pricing, customer payment updates, cancellation, and the 14-day recovery window.
Start with the right billing relationship
Subscription checkout uses Stripe, not PayPal. Keep the customer account, subscription, invoice, and payment state together when diagnosing a renewal. A recurring-access grant alone does not establish permission to charge a saved payment method.
SoundSync
Choose the ownership model
| Model | What payment provides |
|---|---|
| Standalone subscription | Recurring access to the configured product |
| Access / lease bundle | Access while the relevant subscription is paid or in its permitted recovery period |
| Keep-your-products bundle | Permanent products earned from qualifying paid invoices, plus the configured recurring delivery schedule |
| Rent-to-own | A separate installment model; production live checkout is not currently available |
Renewal prices and customer control
Monthly and annual plans renew at their regular list price. A subscription promotion discounts the initial payment only. Supported price increases require at least 30 days of advance notice before taking effect; decreases do not require that waiting period. Applicable checkout tax is recalculated for renewals using the configured tax rules.
Customers can update payment details, cancel at the end of the paid period, and reactivate an eligible plan before it expires. Standalone subscriptions and subscription bundles have distinct account actions. Independent plans can coexist when their product access does not conflict; overlapping plan changes are checked before confirmation.
Manually granted access is not permission to start charging a customer. Converting a manual grant to billing requires the supported payment setup, preview, and explicit confirmation.
A fixed payment-recovery window
An unpaid renewal starts a 14-day recovery episode. Reminder opportunities fall on days 0, 5, 10, and 13, subject to eligibility and delivery readiness. Customers can update their payment method from their account. Eligible automatic collection attempts remain subject to provider limits and the current payment state; this is not a promise of a charge attempt every day.
Rental suspension is not subscription cancellation
After the 14-day recovery deadline, an unpaid rental/access subscription has its license suspended, not automatically canceled. The subscription and billing continue, further renewal invoices can arise, and eligible recovery of outstanding payments continues. Suspension does not stop billing or forgive unpaid invoices. Customers who want to stop future renewals must use the supported cancellation action; cancellation does not erase an existing balance.
Rental access is restored after provider-confirmed payment and reconciliation of all outstanding invoices. A newer paid invoice alone does not clear older arrears. Closed or uncertain invoices can require billing review rather than automatic restoration.
A keep-your-products plan has a different outcome: an unresolved renewal can end the recurring subscription after reconciliation, while products already earned from unreversed qualifying payments remain owned. No new permanent products are earned from an unpaid invoice. Pending or uncertain payments are reconciled before another collection attempt; do not start another checkout to bypass recovery. Plugin enforcement follows the installed package and its signed offline/online rules, not an instant remote change to every distributed binary.
SoundSync
Resolve a failed renewal
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Read the current state
Check the ownership model, all outstanding invoices, recovery deadline, paid access period and pending provider payments.
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Update the payment method
Use the signed-in account payment-update action for the correct standalone or bundle subscription.
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Wait for reconciliation
A pending/uncertain provider result is reviewed before a new charge; do not repeatedly start new checkouts.
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Review access and billing separately
An unpaid rental is suspended while its subscription and billing continue. Provider-confirmed resolution of outstanding payments restores access; a newer paid invoice alone is insufficient. A keep-your-products plan can end without taking away previously earned ownership. Cancel deliberately to stop future renewals.
Notices and refunds
Supported renewal and recovery notices use the saved brand identity and Resend transactional delivery. They do not consume marketing-email usage. The standard 14-day refund window applies to the initial subscription payment only, not every automatic renewal; mandatory rights remain unaffected.
SoundSync
Two subscription models
Selected products versus all products describes bundle membership, not a third ownership model. A trial, unpaid invoice, or manually granted access is not proof of permanent paid ownership.
| Model | Offer and API value | What the customer keeps |
|---|---|---|
| Own the products | Subscription bundle with fulfillmentMode: keep_products | Qualifying paid invoices earn permanent ownership under the plan. Ending future billing does not erase already earned products; a reversal of the qualifying payment can reverse that ownership. |
| Lease the products | Standalone product subscription, or subscription bundle with fulfillmentMode: access | Recurring access while entitled. Cancellation preserves the paid-through period. An unresolved recovery suspends the license while billing continues; cancel separately to stop future renewals. Separate purchases are unaffected. |
Current access and previous records
The customer account separates current licenses and plans from Previous licenses and Previous subscriptions. Ended or inactive records stay available in expandable history; a plan with remaining eligible paid-through access is not hidden merely because cancellation is scheduled.
A signed-in marketplace customer who already owns a product can open their library and downloads from its product page. This is an account-specific lookup, not a public ownership list. License-reset cooldowns show the next eligible date; resetting activations does not create another license.
Plan changes appear only when eligible
The account offers bundle plan changes for eligible active or trialing lease plans without a scheduled cancellation. Ended plans, keep-your-products plans, and plans already scheduled to cancel do not offer the same plan-change controls. Payment recovery and plan-conflict checks still apply. Use the returned eligibility and preview rather than constructing a plan change from a hidden control.
History, payment records, cancellation, and paid-through access are different states. Retained billing history is not an invitation to restart a canceled plan or charge a saved card without authorization.
Saved compatibility settings and effective lifecycle rules
PUT /api/developer/products/{productId}/subscription-settings replaces normalized settings; it is not a sparse PATCH. Read the current settings first and send the complete intended values. Omitted enabled defaults to false, billingInterval to monthly, trialDays to 0, failedPaymentGraceDays to 14 and cancellationBehavior to access_until_period_end.
Legacy cancellationBehavior:lock_immediately can still be accepted and stored, but managed customer cancellation takes effect at paid-period end. Legacy grace settings do not replace the managed fourteen_days_v1 failed-payment recovery policy. Read the effective subscription/recovery state rather than treating a compatibility field as permission to shorten paid access.
Permanent gifts and paid subscription ownership
A timed manual keep-products grant gives the customer permanent ownership of the products included when the developer makes that grant, without a payment. That original product snapshot remains owned after subscription cancellation, expiry or incomplete billing setup. Explicit developer access removal can revoke the grant. New products added later are not retroactively included.
A lifetime manual grant instead provides complimentary ongoing subscription access; it is not the timed-grant ownership model or evidence of a paid invoice. Ordinary access-only grants and unpaid checkout trials also do not create paid ownership.
Paid keep-products invoices establish their own product snapshots. Refunding or reversing a paid purchase affects that purchase, not an independent manual ownership grant. Future paid subscription benefits still require the separate billing setup, preview and customer confirmation; a gift is not permission to charge a card.