Set up billing

The two-minute walkthrough, on invented example data. The steps, in words, below.

1. How do you sell today?

Billing starts with one question. Pick the way that fits; you can change everything later.

• I already sell with Stripe: sumwerk reads your products and prices and suggests what each one is (next step). Nothing changes in Stripe.
• Start fresh: pick a pricing model (per seat, tiers with limits, plan plus credits, flat plus add-ons) or describe your app. sumwerk drafts plans, limits and prices; nothing goes to Stripe until you publish.
• Only entitlements, no payments yet: plans without Stripe, given by default, by a trial or by hand.

2. Tell sumwerk what your app limits

Under Billing → Settings → Features, add what your plans differ in: features that are on or off (API access, SSO) and limits (seats, projects, exports per month). The key is what your app’s code asks for, so it stays once created.

3. Sort your Stripe prices

Billing → Settings → Stripe prices lists every product with its prices and how many customers pay each, and a suggestion for every price:

• the main item of a subscription is a plan’s price; the plan is named after the product (a brand most of your product names start with is left out);
• an item beside a plan is an add-on for the feature its product is named after, sold with the plan it rides along with. Several plans may share one product, a price per plan;
• a one-off price is a credit bundle.

Accept one, Change it in its row, or Accept all suggestions that come from running subscriptions. Prices nobody pays yet stay a guess for you to check.

4. The pricing

Billing → Settings → Pricing has two views of the same thing.

Table: plans across; down, each plan’s prices per period, its rules (who can get it, trial, after a cancellation), what it gives, and its extras. Every cell is its own form: click, change, save. Nothing else on the page moves.

What customers can buy: every plan per billing period, with the extras its customers are offered:

• bold is the price new customers get. Where a plan has two prices for the same period, choose one: For new customers. Checkout, upgrades and the pricing page then always take it; customers on the other keep theirs;
• gray is an older price customers keep, or a price for any plan;
• orange is a price on the plan’s subscriptions that the plan does not offer (another plan’s): mark it a known deal, or move those customers;
• Missing is a gap: the plan sells an extra monthly but not yearly, or lacks a monthly or yearly price the other plans have. Add a price, or mark it Not offered.

Needs a look lists all of these, most customers first.

5. Publish

A new price is a draft until you publish: then sumwerk creates it in Stripe (on the product the plan’s or the extra’s other prices are on), and a new amount archives the old price while its customers keep it. Publishing needs billing management switched on (Account → Stripe and sync). A price published by mistake is archived again.

To try things on test data first, switch to a sandbox at the top: there, publishing goes to the sandbox’s own Stripe sandbox, never to live.

6. The rest

The checklist on Billing shows what is left until your app’s first customers arrive: trials and what happens after a cancellation, your customers’ pages (plan selection, checkout, invoices, in your colors), and connecting your app (Connect your product; every call in the API reference). A sandbox gets a copy of your app with its features, plans and limits, so your app’s staging asks it the same questions as live. How plans group Stripe products for revenue reports: Plans.