Launching continuity has never been easier thanks to sticky.io Subscriptions for BigCommerce plug-and-play billing frequencies feature.
In this article, you and I will take a deep dive into understanding what billing frequencies are and how to create them. In Step 2, we will discover how to append them to your products.
Without further ado, let's begin!
In a hurry? Watch our Onboarding & Training Specialist guide you through every possible combination of billing frequency that can be created in just 3:58. Inversely, review our step-by-step article below.
Navigation to Billing Frequencies
To begin, from your storefront navigate over to Apps > My Apps > sticky.io > Billing Frequencies.
Naming Your Billing Model
As with every new billing model, the name! It's generally recommended that you name the billing model whatever the intended purpose for it is. For example, if you'd like to bill your consumers on a monthly cadence, we would title this '30 Day Billing Model'.
It is important to note that you can reuse the same billing model across your products. Additionally, the billing model is seen by your consumers. So try to make it memorable and clear.
Subscription Types
Subscription Types are the literal backbone of your billing frequencies. Each subscription type denotes a unique billing frequency depending on your business needs.
Type
Bill by Cycle
Bill by Cycle is the most common billing frequency both among sticky.io customers as well as the industry as a whole. Here you can bill your consumers every 'X' number of days.
For example, we could denote every 30, 60, or 90 days. And the consumer would be billed automatically 30, 60, or 90 days from the initial sign-up date.
Bill by Date
Bill by Date allows merchants to bill consumers on a specific day in a given month. This is the perfect billing model for merchants who are in the consumables space and may only have inventory in a specific date range each month.
For example, we could denote the 10th, 15th, or 20th of each month. And the consumer would be billed on the 10th, 15th, or 20th of each month.
It is important to note that if you were to denote a date that isn't available within the given month, the consumer would be billed on the last date within that given month. For example, we specify the 31st, but the month ends on the 30th.
Bill by Day
Bill by Day allows merchants to bill consumers in a specific week and day in a given month.
It is important to note that by default, this is a monthly billing model with finer control on specifically when in a given month you'd like to bill your consumers.
However, this does support a higher frequency of billing by leveraging the 'Custom' option which can be found when specifying the 'Week'.
In turn, merchants can still bill consumers on a specific day in a given week but can increase the monthly billing cycles to say twice a month.
Bill by Relative Date
Bill by Relative date enables merchants to bill consumers on the same day they had originally signed up for.
As such, if a consumer were to sign up on the 15th, the consumer would subsequently be billed on the 15th of each month thereafter, attaining the 'relative' date.
Similar to Bill by Date, if a consumer were to sign up on the 31st, but the month thereafter only had 30 days, the consumer would be billed on the 30th.Bill by Relative Date can be configured based on two unique frames of reference - based on the start of the trial or based on the end of the trial. An example situation could involve a consumer purchasing a product under a 14-day free trial model on January 1st. A billing event for the full price of the item would take place on January 15th. Choosing Based off of start of trial would ensure the consumer is billed on a recurring basis on the 1st of the following months. Choosing Based off of end of trial would ensure the consumer is billed on a recurring bases on the 15th of the following months.
Trial offers are a future-state feature for the sticky.io Subscriptions app for BigCommerce.
As of today, you, as the merchant, can choose Based off of start of trial or Based off of end of trial with no difference in performance or functionality.
Bill by Schedule
Bill by Schedule enables merchants to bill consumers over wide date ranges. This is commonly used by merchants offering seasonal goods or mystery crates.
It is important to note that Buffer Days is a critical element of ensuring a consumer isn't double-billed in quick succession.
If a value for this field is placed, the system will look to see if the transaction date is equal or less than the buffer days, if so, the next upcoming rebill date will be skipped.
Congratulations, you're officially an expert on creating billing models using the sticky.io Subscriptions for BigCommerce app!