Add option to charge the full amount when switching/upgrading

WooCommerce Subscriptions can be a little tricky when selling a yearly subscription with synchronized renewals. The default setting is to only charge the user on the renewal date so unless the user signs up right before the yearly renewal date, they will get a free membership for anywhere from a few months to an entire year.

With the Prorate First Renewal setting set to “Never (charge the full recurring amount at sign-up)” the user pays the full amount at first signup and when they resubscribe. However, customers who upgrade from a free membership to a paid membership pay $0 for the upgrade and are not charged until the renewal date.

While this may not be an issue for monthly subscriptions, this does not work with yearly subscriptions as the user could upgrade within the first month and receive almost an entire year’s upgraded membership for free.

Please add an option to charge the full recurring amount when switching/upgrading. If there is a simple way to accomplish this via hooks/filters please advise.

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Current Status

Open

Last updated: March 4, 2020

2 comments

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  1. Daniele says:

    I agree, this is very important for subscriptions on longer billing cycles.
    Also, if a user DOWNGRADE the plan should change on the next renewal date and not immadiately, or the customer will loose the benefit already paid for.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Absolutely essential. The issue really only applies to Free to Paid, as paid to paid should rightly be prorated, should it not. I get that a free member can also purchase a paid membership, however, if I have a free subscription, won’t I have to become a different user (and use a different email) to also have a paid account??

    Regardless, perhaps the documentation should read:

    “A subscription may be switched if it is active but will require payment OF THE PRORATED FEE if it is switched from a free to paid subscription so future payments can be processed automatically” and ADD

    “If you need to charge the full fee, then you need to get members to buy a new subscription”