[BUG] Subscription enters a broken state if the user decide not to make the payment

[luizkowalski]

Bug Report

Not sure if this is a skill issue on my side or a real problem but I found this problem: when the user goes to the Stripe payment page for example and then decides not to do anything about it, the old subscription is gone and the new one gets a customer without a subscription.

To Reproduce:

• I have a user on the fake subscription, expired. they see the Current.user.payment_processor.billing_portal.url button and they click.
• As soon as they click:
  Old Pay::Customer loses its default

Pay::Customer Update All (1.0ms)  UPDATE "pay_customers" SET "default" = FALSE WHERE "pay_customers"."owner_id" = 232633310 AND "pay_customers"."owner_type" = 'User' /*action='create',application='Switchboard',controller='subscriptions'*/                                      ↳ app/controllers/subscriptions_controller.rb:11:in 'SubscriptionsController#create'

New Customer is created

Pay::Stripe::Customer Create (0.7ms)  INSERT INTO "pay_customers" ("owner_type", "owner_id", "processor", "processor_id", "default", "data", "stripe_account", "deleted_at", "created_at", "updated_at", "type") VALUES ('User', 232633310, 'stripe', NULL, TRUE, NULL, NULL, NULL, '2025-01-11 12:19:20.582205', '2025-01-11 12:19:20.582205', 'Pay::Stripe::Customer') RETURNING "id" /*action='create',application='Switchboard',controller='subscriptions'*/

• No subscription is created at this point, just Pay::Customer.

Now, if they simply click Back or close the page, they don't have any subscription.

Here is my question: is this expected behavior and maybe I should code defensively around it or is this a bug?

Expected Behavior:
User still has any subscription even if they don't make a payment

• Pay gem version: 8.3.0
• Ruby version: 3.4.1
• Rails version: edge
• Operating System: Mac

Additional Context:

Possible Fix:
When the user has no default customer, instead of create a new one, first try to restore the latest customer that is not default

Checklist:

• I have searched for similar issues and couldn't find any
• I have checked the documentation for relevant information
• I have included all the required information

[excid3]

You say the fake subscription is expired? What methods are you calling to check for a subscription?

You'll have to provide some more specifics of what you're doing step-by-step.

[luizkowalski]

You say the fake subscription is expired?

yes

What methods are you calling to check for a subscription?

payment_processor.on_trial_or_subscribed?(name: NAME)

let me try to provide some details here:

When a user signs up on my app, I give them 14 days trial

def subscribe_to_trial
  set_payment_processor :fake_processor, allow_fake: true
  trial_period_ends_at = Subscription::TRIAL_PERIOD_DAYS.from_now
  payment_processor.subscribe(trial_ends_at: trial_period_ends_at, ends_at: trial_period_ends_at)
end

When the trial expires, the user can see the subscription button, that does this:

def create
  Current.user.set_payment_processor :stripe
  session = Current.user.payment_processor.checkout(
    line_items: [{ price: Subscription::PRICE_ID, quantity: 1 }],
    mode: Subscription::MODE,
    subscription_data: {
      metadata: {
        pay_name: Subscription::NAME,
      },
    },
    success_url: Rails.application.routes.url_helpers.subscriptions_url,
    cancel_url: Rails.application.routes.url_helpers.subscriptions_url
  )

  redirect_to session.url, allow_other_host: true
end

at this point, the things I mentioned above happen: current Pay::Customer is no longer default and a new customer with stripe as processor gets created but no subscription. If the user does not pay, by simply navigating back or just closing the page, the stripe customer is still the default but no subscription is created since the payment wasn't completed.

I have a wrapper around the subscription itself and for now I managed to solve it by creating the empty_subscription

[excid3]

Stripe allows you to give users a free trial without a payment method, so you could simplify this considerably using just Stripe and not the fake processor.

When you call Current.user.set_payment_processor :stripe that will make Stripe the default.

The fake processor subscription still exists regardless of the default payment processor. You just have to make sure you aren't scoping the query to the current payment processor.

Current.user.subscriptions here uses through: :pay_customers to do that. https://github.com/pay-rails/pay/blob/main/lib/pay/attributes.rb#L17

[luizkowalski]

I know about Stripe's trial but when the trial expires, it keeps trying to charge the subscription, even without a card linked and some people were complaining about getting too many emails (Stripe was pretty much trying to charge every other day), so I went with Fake and let them just choose when/if they want to pay.

I guess there might be a configuration on Stripe to disable this behavior but I didn't dig too much into it

The fake processor subscription still exists regardless of the default payment processor. You just have to make sure you aren't scoping the query to the current payment processor.

Yeah, true, I ended up updating my code:

def subscription
  @subscription ||= payment_processor.subscription(name: NAME) || most_recent_subscription
end

def most_recent_subscription
  @most_recent_subscription ||= user.subscriptions.order(created_at: :desc).first
end

then I also had to update how I check for fake? since the paymen_processor might be Stripe, but the subscription not

def fake?
  subscription.type == "Pay::FakeProcessor::Subscription"
end

not particularly happy with this but I think it's good enough and makes sense

[excid3]

https://docs.stripe.com/api/checkout/sessions/create#create_checkout_session-subscription_data-trial_settings-end_behavior-missing_payment_method

[luizkowalski]

this works for the checkout but I didn't find a way to do this during user setup and subscription to trial

def subscribe_to_trial
  set_payment_processor :stripe
  payment_processor.subscribe(
    plan: Subscription::PRICE_ID,
    trial_period_days: 14,
    name: Subscription::NAME,
    quantity: 1,
    subscription_data: {
      trial_settings: {
        end_behavior: { missing_payment_method: "cancel" },
      },
    }
  )

this fails because subscription_data is not expected here obviously and by checking the code I didn't see any other way to provide this option

[excid3]

Just pass in trial_settings: {} to subscribe()