> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.komerza.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Selling Subscriptions

> Sell recurring products, control renewals, and manage subscriber access

Any product variant can be sold as a subscription. Turn on recurring billing for the variant and every purchase of it creates a subscription for that customer. Individual subscriptions live under **Products → Subscriptions**; store-wide behaviour is configured in **Settings → Subscriptions**.

<Note>
  If **Products → Subscriptions** isn't in your dashboard, contact support to
  confirm whether subscriptions are enabled for your account. Viewing the page
  also requires the View Orders team permission.
</Note>

## Making a variant recurring

On the variant, expand **Recurring Billing**, switch on **Enable recurring billing**, and pick a **Billing interval**: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, or Custom with a day count.

Two rules decide the price a subscriber pays:

* The **price and currency are locked in at signup** from the variant price and your store currency.
* **Renewals are charged at the variant's current price.** If you raise the price later, existing subscribers renew at the new price. Renewal reminder emails go out before each charge, so it isn't silent, but it is a real change to your subscribers' bills.

<Warning>
  Subscription and one-time products cannot be combined in a single order, and a
  100%-off order cannot create a subscription.
</Warning>

## Automatic vs manual renewal

This is the single most important thing to understand before you launch, because it is decided by the payment method, not by you.

| Payment method                                          | Renewal behaviour                                                     |
| ------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Stripe or Mollie**                                    | Automatic. The gateway charges the stored payment method each period. |
| **Everything else** (crypto, PayPal, Square, and so on) | Manual. Nothing is charged automatically.                             |

Manual-renewal subscribers get reminder emails before expiry containing a checkout link for the next period. That renewal order is reused while it stays unpaid, so a customer clicking an older reminder link will not be charged twice.

The store setting **Force manual renewal** turns even Stripe and Mollie subscriptions into manual renewals, if you would rather every period be an explicit decision by the customer.

## Store-wide settings

**Settings → Subscriptions** has three sections.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Customer Actions">
    * **Allow customers to pause** - off by default, with an optional maximum pause duration in days and a maximum pause count.
    * **Allow customers to cancel** - on by default, with a **Cancel mode**: *End of period* (access continues until the period ends, and the customer can reactivate to undo it) or *Immediate* (access is revoked right away).
    * **Allow customers to reactivate** - on by default.
    * **Allow payment method updates** - on by default. The customer is redirected to the gateway's own secure form.

    Immediate cancellation applies **no proration and no automatic refund**. If a refund is appropriate, you issue it yourself.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Payment Recovery">
    **Grace period days** (default 3) and **Max retry attempts** (default 3),
    used when an automatic charge fails.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Notifications & Expiry">
    * **Send expiry & renewal notifications** - on by default, with reminders at **7, 3 and 1 days** before expiry.
    * **Apply grace period on manual renewal** - off by default. Manual subscriptions otherwise expire at the end of the period.
    * **Revoke access on expiry** - on by default. See the warning below.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Statuses

<ResponseField name="Active">Paid and current.</ResponseField>

<ResponseField name="Past Due">
  An automatic charge failed. The payment is retried on a backoff schedule, and
  the subscription's detail page shows Failed Payment Count, Last Failure and
  Next Retry.
</ResponseField>

<ResponseField name="Paused">
  Resumes automatically at its resume date. Note that the billing period
  restarts from the resume date.
</ResponseField>

<ResponseField name="Canceled">
  Ended by you or the customer, according to your cancel mode.
</ResponseField>

<ResponseField name="Expired">
  Reached after the configured maximum retry attempts. You and the customer are
  both notified.
</ResponseField>

<Tip>
  If a customer was charged but the subscription still shows Past Due, wait
  before intervening. Status is reconciled with Stripe and Mollie automatically,
  and a paid invoice flips it back to Active.
</Tip>

## Access revocation

<Warning>
  With **Revoke access on expiry** enabled, delivered items are revoked when a
  subscription expires or is cancelled immediately. **License keys are redacted
  permanently and cannot be restored automatically** - if the customer
  resubscribes, you must re-issue keys manually. File downloads re-enable on
  their own while the subscription is active.
</Warning>

This is worth deciding deliberately before you have subscribers. Revoking access protects a licensed product; it also means a lapsed-then-returning customer needs manual work from you.

## What your customers can do

Customers currently have **no self-service billing area**. There is nowhere for them to cancel, pause or change a subscription themselves, so subscribers contact you and you make the change from **Products → Subscriptions**.

A message like "Cancellation is not allowed for this subscription" means your store or product configuration forbids that action - change it in **Settings → Subscriptions**.

Subscription questions from your customers come to you, not to Komerza.

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Products & Variants" icon="box" href="/guides/products-and-variants">
    Where recurring billing is configured.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Managing Orders" icon="receipt" href="/guides/orders">
    Renewal orders behave like any other order.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Supported Payment Methods" icon="credit-card" href="/guides/payment-methods">
    Only Stripe and Mollie support automatic renewal.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Notifications" icon="bell" href="/guides/notifications">
    Alerts for renewals, failures and expiries.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>