Subscription Lifecycle Walkthrough

Choose lease access or earned ownership

An access subscription leases its included products while paid access remains valid. A keep-your-products subscription bundle can establish permanent ownership from eligible paid invoices. Record that model in the offer before checkout; a trial or an unpaid invoice does not earn new permanent products.

Use the matching standalone or bundle checkout and a signed-in buyer. After the verified provider callback, inspect the subscription, paid period, library, and product-level validation. A provider checkout URL or a status label alone does not prove that the exported plugin enforces the intended access.

Exercise changes and a failed renewal deliberately

Use change-preview before change-confirm for a bundle plan change. Read the timing, amount, conflicts, and preview identifier; confirm only that current preview. Canceling a scheduled change is separate from canceling the subscription. Cancellation normally stops renewal at the paid-period boundary, not by immediately refunding every previous payment.

For recovery testing, use an isolated provider test environment. An unpaid renewal starts a 14-day recovery episode with eligible reminder opportunities on days 0, 5, 10, and 13. Reconcile uncertain payments before retrying. At expiry, unpaid rental access is suspended while the subscription and billing continue. Restore access only after all outstanding payments are resolved and reconciled; a newer paid invoice alone is insufficient. A keep-your-products plan can end while previously earned ownership stays unless its qualifying payment is reversed.

Test safely

Use permitted test identities and the intended environment. Inspect allowed and rejected outcomes. Keep private customer data, serials, credentials, payment details, and verification links out of published examples.

Keep existing subscribers on their billing interval

Monthly and annual offers use different billing cadences. If a standalone subscription or a linked subscription bundle has active, trialing, past_due or unpaid contracts, changing its monthly/yearly interval is blocked. Create a separate offer for the new cadence rather than changing the period beneath current subscribers.

The settings and versioned-bundle APIs return 409 SUBSCRIPTION_BILLING_INTERVAL_LOCKED for this condition. Reload the existing offer and retain its interval. This guard does not convert ownership models, cancel existing subscriptions or migrate payment-provider billing authority.