Managing subscriptions in Stripe

When you charge for access to your AI using our built-in Stripe integration, you create and connect a new standard Stripe account to your Coachvox account. This gives you access to Stripe's features for managing your AI clients' subscriptions.

This article covers how to view and manage these subscriptions on Stripe, and how to handle requests for changes from clients.

Note: The initial setup of your Stripe account and product for your AI needs to be done from within your Coachvox account. See our guide on charging for access to your AI for setup instructions.

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How clients can manage their subscriptions

Your clients can manage their subscriptions directly from the AI chat. This is usually the easiest and quickest option for them. Here's what they need to do:

  1. Log in to your AI chat and click the cog icon in the top corner.
  2. Click 'Manage subscription' on the menu.

Manage subscription menu item

This will open their subscription portal that will look like this:

Customer subscription portal example

From here, they can update their payment method, change their billing information, or cancel their subscription.

Viewing your subscribers in Stripe

You can see who is subscribed to your AI and check the status of their subscriptions in your Stripe dashboard.

To view your subscriptions:

  1. Log in to your Stripe account at dashboard.stripe.com and go to Billing > Subscriptions.
  2. Here you'll see a list of your subscriptions, including their status (active, past due, cancelled).

To find a specific subscriber, use the search bar at the top to search by email address or customer name.

Stripe subscriptions example

You can also navigate from the main menu to Customers to browse your customer list.

Viewing coupon usage

You can review how many times a coupon has been redeemed in these places:

  • In Coachvox, next to any coupon codes.

  • In Stripe, in the 'Product catalogue' section under 'Coupons'.

You can also view the details of an individual client's subscription on Stripe and see any coupon applied.

Changing a client's subscription

If you want to make a change to a client's subscription, or cancel it on their behalf, you can do this in Stripe. Here's one method (there are multiple ways):

  • Open your connected Stripe account.
  • Search for the customer using their email address.
  • Open their customer record.
  • Under 'Subscriptions', find the subscription you want to change.
  • Click the three dots to the right of the subscription, then select Update subscription or Cancel subscription, as relevant, and go through any other on-screen options.

You can usually choose whether to apply any changes immediately or at the end of the current billing period.

Note: It's typically best to cancel the subscription on Stripe and still retain the customer record, so you have this for your accounting records. If you want to minimise the details retained, you can manually delete their billing information from Stripe.

Issuing refunds

Hopefully you won't have cause to issue any refunds, but if you do, you can do this from your Stripe dashboard. Refunds can be for the full amount or a partial amount. To issue a refund:

  1. In your Stripe account, go to Transactions > Payments and find the payment you want to refund. (Or find the subscriber, then view their payments.)
  2. Click the three dots (...) to the right of the payment and select Refund payment.
  3. Enter the refund amount (the full amount is selected by default), select a reason, and click Refund.

Stripe refund window

Good to know:

  • Refunds typically take 5-10 business days to appear in your client's account.
  • Stripe does not charge fees for refunds, but the original transaction fees are not returned.
  • Refunding a payment does not automatically cancel the subscription. If needed, cancel the subscription separately.

Customer communication settings

Stripe lets you customise the emails your clients receive about their subscription, such as renewal or upcoming payment reminders. You'll find these under Settings > Billing > Subscriptions and emails in your Stripe account. It's worth reviewing what's on by default and tailoring it to suit you and your audience.

This is separate from the failed payment retry emails covered below, which have their own settings.

Understanding failed payments

Sometimes a client's payment will fail. This could happen for reasons like insufficient funds, an expired card, or an issue with their bank.

What Stripe does automatically

Stripe has a feature called Smart Retries enabled by default. When a payment fails, Stripe automatically:

  • Retries the payment at the best time (using data to predict when the payment is likely to go through).
  • Sends email notifications to your client about the failed payment.
  • Continues to retry over a set period.

If all retry attempts fail, the subscription will be cancelled automatically (this is the default setting).

Customising your retry settings

You can adjust how Stripe handles failed payments:

  1. In your Stripe account, go to Billing and select Revenue Recovery.
  2. On the Retries tab, you can change the settings.

Stripe revenue recovery settings screen

Further guidance

For detailed help with Stripe, visit Stripe Support.

For help setting up chargeable access, see our guide on charging for access to your AI.

For help charging for Coachcart products, see our guide on creating digital products with Coachcart.

Check out our FAQs about access and charging for answers to other common questions.

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