Overview

Subscriptions 2.0 bring enhanced flexibility and new features for managing subscriptions: merchants can customize product plans and billing types, apply discounts, prorate subscription fees, upgrade/downgrade plans and leverage new webhook events for better automation and server logic.

Subscriptions 2.0 have been released in October 2024! We’re happy to provide this new feature to Sellix merchants, however some parts of this documentation might not be the best.

If you find anything that needs to be updated, reach out to our team through Discord; we’ll help you out and get you on a free premium plan for your time spent.

Features

With a complete revamp over Subscriptions (legacy), Subscriptions 2.0 now supports a lot of new features that were not available with the previous version.

Essentials

Here’s what’s important for most businesses when using Subscriptions 2.0.

Multiple Billing Options

Choose from standard subscriptions to percentage-based, graduated, volume, and package billing

New Webhooks

40+ events for tracking subscription lifecycle, including payment success/failure, upgrades, and cancellations

Calendar or Anniversary Renewals

Adjust billing intervals (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) and provide discounts for pre-paid plans

Flexible Plans

Use our API to get the details of a subscription from one of your customers

Trials

Specify any trial period and force customers to save a payment method before starting the trial

Full list

Released in October 2024, Subscriptions 2.0 are in continuous development and new features are being added on a regular basis.

This list is not ranked by priority and/or importance.

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13Q1 2025
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20Coming SoonQ2 2025
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25Coming SoonQ3 2025
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Managing Subscriptions with the API

Sellix provides API endpoints for programmatic management of subscriptions, enabling automation for tasks like creating, updating, and canceling subscriptions.

Update Subscription

Update a subscription and assign it to a customer of yours through our API

Webhook Events for Subscription Lifecycle

Subscriptions 2.0 offers comprehensive webhook events to keep track of each stage in a subscription’s lifecycle. Configure webhooks in your Sellix dashboard to receive notifications for various events.

Journey

1

Trial Started

Event: subscription-v2:trial-interval:started Only sent if a trial period is configured for this subscription product

The trial period for a subscription has started. No invoice has been created yet. If this webhook is sent, it is preceded by a subscription-v2:trial-interval:created event with a unique status.

The subscription status will be ACTIVE during the trial period, but the current interval during the trial will have a payment_type of TRIAL

Please note that if the product has a trial period, the trial period cannot be circumvented.
2

Trial Canceled

Event: subscription-v2:trial-interval:canceled Only sent if a trial period is configured for this subscription product

The trial period for a subscription has been canceled. One of the following events will be sent alongside this one:

  • subscription-v2:trial-interval:canceled-merchant: When the subscription is canceled by the merchant through their Sellix dashboard.
  • subscription-v2:trial-interval:canceled-customer: When the subscription is canceled by the customer through an embeddable or the Customer Billing Portal.
  • subscription-v2:trial-interval:canceled-api: When the subscription is canceled by calling the DELETE /subscriptions_v2/{uniqid} endpoint.
3

Trial Ended

Event: subscription-v2:trial-interval:ended Only sent if a trial period is configured for this subscription product

The trial period for a subscription has ended. Immediately after this event is triggered, the subscription-v2:payment-interval:started and subscription-v2:payment-interval:created events will be sent indicating that the first payment interval has been requested. This does not mean that the payment was received.

4

Subscription Started

Event: subscription-v2:started

This event is triggered when the status of the subscription goes from PENDING to ACTIVE, meaing once your customer’s subscription has been started and the payment has succeeded. You can use this event to implement any logic that should be executed once the subscription is purchased.

We highly suggest the usage of our custom fields to act as a metadata object in order to recognize which customer purchased your subscription and activate it for them.

This webhook event is typically preceeded by the subscription-v2:created event, which is sent when the subscription is created with a status of PENDING.

When a subscription first starts, the following events will be triggered alongside this one, each with their respective created event:

  • subscription-v2:plan:started: Triggered every time a payment plan for a subscription is started.
  • subscription-v2:payment-interval:started: Treated every time a payment interval for a subscription is started.
5

Subscription Gateway Changes

Event: subscription-v2:plan:gateway-changed

Changing the gateway for a subscription will not create a new subscription. The recurring invoice will be charged through the new gateway. If the customer updates his preferred gateway for the subscription through our API via the PUT /subscriptions_v2/{uniqid} endpoint, embeddables or the Customer Billing Portal, you will receive a webhook event with the updated subscription object.

This event can be triggered alongside the subscription-v2:plan:payment-method-changed event.

6

Subscription Updates

Events: subscription-v2:plan:upgrade or subscription-v2:plan:downgrade

When the customer or merchant changes the plan of their subscription via the POST /subscriptions_v2 endpoint, embeddables, the Customer Billing Portal, or the merchant dashboard, one of these events will be triggered. When a subscription plan changes, the following events will be triggered alongside this one:

  • subscription-v2:plan:started: Triggered alongside subscription-v2:plan:created every time a new plan is selected for the subscription
  • subscription-v2:ended: Upgrades and downgrades will complete the subscription plan, which sends this event.
  • subscription-v2:plan:ended: Triggers whenever the subscription plan changes
7

Subscription Canceled

Events: subscription-v2:canceled and subscription-v2:plan:canceled and subscription-v2:plan:payment-canceled

Subscription cancelation by either the customer or the merchant triggers this event. The status of the subscription will be CANCELED or AWAIT_CANCELING. One of the following events will be sent alongside this one:

  • subscription-v2:canceled-merchant: When the subscription is canceled by the merchant through their Sellix dashboard. The subscription-v2:plan:canceled-merchant event is also sent.
  • subscription-v2:canceled-customer: When the subscription is canceled by the customer through an embeddable or the Customer Billing Portal. The subscription-v2:plan:canceled-customer event is also sent.
  • subscription-v2:canceled-api: When the subscription is canceled by calling the DELETE /subscriptions_v2/{uniqid} endpoint. The subscription-v2:plan:canceled-api event is also sent.

The following events are also sent: subscription-v2:payment-interval:canceled, subscription-v2:payment-interval:canceled-merchant, subscription-v2:payment-interval:canceled-customer, subscription-v2:payment-interval:canceled-api and subscription-v2:payment-interval:payment-canceled

8

Upcoming Payment

Event subscription-v2:payment-interval:upcoming

The event is sent a week before the current payment interval’s end.

9

Subscription Renewal

Event subscription-v2:ended

The first part of the renewal process is ending the previous plan and payment_interval. These events will be triggered as part of that process:

  • subscription-v2:plan:ended: When the subscription’s plan has reached the end of its current interval.
  • subscription-v2:payment-interval:ended: When the subscription’s payment interval has ended.

The second part is creating a new payment_ and plan_ for the subscription. These events will be triggered as part of that process:

  • subscription-v2:plan:payment-succeeded: When the payment for the subscription plan has been successfully processed.
  • subscription-v2:payment-interval:payment-succeeded: When the payment interval for the subscription has been successfully processed.
10

Subscription Failed

Event: subscription-v2:plan:payment-failed

The payment for the subscription has failed. The subscription will remain ACTIVE and the payment will be retried at a later time. When the payment is retried, the subscription-v2:payment-interval:charge-retried event will be triggered, and if the retry does not succeed, the subscription-v2:payment-interval:charge-failed and subscription-v2:payment-interval:payment-failed events may be sent If the payment is not updated, the subscription will be canceled and the subscription-v2:canceled event will be triggered.

Key Events

For a full list of webhook events, visit the Webhook Documentation.

EventDescription
subscription-v2:trial-interval:startedTriggered when a trial period begins.
subscription-v2:startedTriggered when a subscription begins.
subscription-v2:endedTriggered at the end of a subscription period.
subscription-v2:canceledTriggered if a subscription is canceled.
subscription-v2:plan:payment-succeededTriggered when a payment is successfully processed.

Separate events are available for plan upgrades, downgrades, payment failures, and retries.

Advanced Subscription Features

Here’s a brief list of other cool features, for a full overview see the full list here.

Billing Options

Subscriptions 2.0 supports a new and improved billing system with advanced customization options. Each subscription plan can have separate billing settings.

  • Payment Type: Choose whether customers are charged in ADVANCE (at the start of the billing cycle), or ARREARS (at the end of the billing cycle; good for usage based subscriptions).
  • Renew Type: Choose whether the subscription is renewed on the first of every month (CALENDAR), or on the anniversary of the subscription start date (ANNIVERSARY).
  • Billing Type: Choose whether customers pay the full amount of the subscription when they first subscribe (FULL), or if the subscription is PROTATED to dynamically charge the customer based on the remaining time in the billing cycle.
  • Custom Intervals: Subscriptions 2.0 provides four base intervals: DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, and YEARLY, which can be paired with integer values to customize the interval length when creating the subscription product. This implementation has no restrictions on payment method and is handled by Sellix
  • Upgrades/Downgrades: Subscriptions 2.0 supports upgrades and downgrades between subscription plans with no overhead. Everything is handled internally, and webhook events (subscription-v2:plan:upgrade) and (subscription-v2:plan:downgrade) are automatically emitted so you can handle your server logic accordingly

Customers can change their gateway, payment method, payment plan, and more without creating a new subscription. All changes will automatically take effect, and the price change will automatically take effect as set by the merchant.

Subscriptions 2.0 support the customer balance, allowing customers to use funds in their customer portal to pay for subscription fees

Subscription Addons

Specify any additional payment that can be added for a single month or for a longer period of time, giving your customers a way to add optional benefits or perks to your subscriptions.

Addons have an optional field called All Recurring Bill Invoices similarly to coupons. if it is checked, then the addon will be applied to all invoices created for the subscription, otherwise only for the first invoice.

Upgrades/Downgrades

Upgrades and Downgrades can happen when a customer changes their subscription plan, when a merchant changes a customer’s subscription plan, or when a customer resubscribes to an existing subscription with a different plan. Both upgrades and downgrades will change the renewal date of a subscription.

  • DOWNGRADE: The current plan will remain ACTIVE. A new plan will be created with the PENDING status and will not be ACTIVE until the current plan has ended.
  • UPGRADE: The current plan will be COMPLETED, and any unused time will be credited to the customer’s balance. The new plan will be activated immediately after the payment is received.

To upgrade a subscription via our API, you can use the POST /subscriptions_v2 endpoint with the same email to overwrite the existing subscription. The subscription will be upgraded/downgraded based on the new plan’s price.

Customer Billing Portal

Every customer will have access to their customer billing portal, where they can view, cancel, and update any active subscription purchased from you or any other business on our platform.

They will authenticate using their personal email address, used to purchase your product subscription. The customer billing portal can be found at YOUR_DOMAIN/customer/auth

Integrations

Three ways to integrate subscriptions into your website.

Sellix Hosted Experience

You will be using our hosted experience through YOUR_DOMAIN, asking customers for their ID/Email/Username through product custom fields to activate the subscription on their account.

Customized embeds

Through product embeds. You can embed subscription products on your website, and automatically set hidden custom fields to uniquely identify your customers when the webhook events are sent.

Developers API

Brandless implementation with our API. Use your own logo and website to manage customers and subscriptions. Currently, the documentation is hosted on dev-openapi.sellix.io. However, it will soon be available on this page as well, with an improved document.

Cryptocurrencies

From the get-go, we support subscriptions billed automatically through cryptocurrencies.

This works by approving X recurring payments on the customer’s cryptocurrency wallet and automatically sending a transaction for each renewal period.