> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://guides.paynow.gg/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://guides.paynow.gg/orders-and-subscriptions/subscriptions.md).

# Subscriptions

Every purchase of a subscription-type product creates a subscription: an agreement to bill the customer again on a schedule. Each payment it generates appears in [Orders](/orders-and-subscriptions/orders.md), and a free period before billing starts is a [trial](/orders-and-subscriptions/trials.md).

*Dashboard → Content → Subscriptions. Needs `subscription_read`.*

<figure><img src="/files/spj8LOfVo5ag8oiJIhOJ" alt="The Subscriptions list showing subscription ID, customer, product, price and status."><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Reading the list

| Column       | What it tells you                                                                                                              |
| ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **ID**       | The subscription identifier. Quote this to support; it's the fastest way to get an answer about a specific recurring customer. |
| **Customer** | Who is being billed.                                                                                                           |
| **Product**  | What they subscribed to.                                                                                                       |
| **Price**    | The recurring amount.                                                                                                          |
| **Status**   | Active, cancelled, or otherwise. A cancelled subscription usually remains active until the end of the paid period.             |

The smaller text under the package name is the product's **custom label**, set on the [product](/products/creating-a-product.md). It lets communities running the same rank name across several servers tell them apart, for example two `Gold Rank` products labelled *Survival* and *Creative*.

## What customers can do themselves

Subscribers manage their own renewals at [checkout.paynow.gg/subscriptions](https://checkout.paynow.gg/subscriptions), and can cancel there without contacting you.

{% embed url="<https://checkout.paynow.gg/subscriptions>" %}

Link it directly: pin it in Discord, put it in your store's footer, include it in receipt emails. A subscriber who can't find how to cancel is a candidate for a chargeback instead, which costs you the revenue and counts against your store's chargeback rate. A cancellation costs you nothing but the renewal.

## Cancellation versus refund

Different actions, different outcomes, and confusing them causes angry tickets.

| Action     | Effect on access                                           | Effect on money                 |
| ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------- |
| **Cancel** | Access continues to the end of the paid period, then stops | Nothing returned                |
| **Refund** | Depends on how you handle delivery                         | Money returned for that payment |

Cancelling doesn't refund the most recent charge, and refunding doesn't stop future renewals. A customer who wants out entirely and wants their money back needs both.

## Failed renewals

A renewal can fail: an expired card, insufficient funds, a bank declining a recurring charge. The subscription doesn't silently vanish. It stays **active** and the list shows a **Retrying** badge instead of the status, with the next retry date on hover. The subscription's own page shows **Next attempt at** and **Attempt count**.

PayNow retries a failed renewal several times before giving up. Read **Attempt count** on the subscription rather than guessing where in that sequence a customer is. Most failures are an expired card, which no number of retries will fix, so a message to the customer beats waiting it out.

## Two questions that come up

**A customer says they were charged several times in a month.** Check the product's billing period first. A weekly product bills every week, and most "charged multiple times" reports are a weekly subscription read as a monthly one. Genuine duplicates show as two separate subscriptions in the list.

**Stopping duplicate or downgrade purchases.** A per-customer stock limit on the product stops a customer holding more than one of it, including buying a cheaper tier alongside an upgraded one. See [Stock](/products/creating-a-product.md#stock).