Rails Reji
Introduction
Reji provides an expressive, fluent interface to Stripe's subscription billing services for your Rails applications. It handles almost all of the boilerplate subscription billing code you are dreading writing. In addition to basic subscription management, Reji can handle coupons, swapping subscription, subscription "quantities", cancellation grace periods, and even generate invoice PDFs.
Installation
Reji is a Rails gem tested against Rails >= 5.0
and Ruby >= 2.4.0
.
To prevent breaking changes, Reji uses a fixed Stripe API version. Reji currently utilizes Stripe API version 2020-08-27
. The Stripe API version will be updated on minor releases in order to make use of new Stripe features and improvements.
You can add it to your Gemfile with:
gem 'reji'
Run the bundle command to install it.
To ensure Reji properly handles all Stripe events, remember to set up Reji's webhook handling.
After you install Reji, you need to run the generator:
rails generate reji:install
The Reji install generator:
- Creates an initializer file to allow further configuration.
- Creates migration files that add several columns to your
users
table as well as create a new subscriptions
table to hold all of your customer's subscriptions.
Database Migrations
Remember to migrate your database after installing the gem. The Reji migrations will add several columns to your users
table as well as create a new subscriptions
table to hold all of your customer's subscriptions:
rails db:migrate
Stripe recommends that any column used for storing Stripe identifiers should be case-sensitive. Therefore, you should ensure the column collation for the stripe_id
column is set to, for example, utf8_bin
in MySQL. More info can be found in the Stripe documentation.
Configuration
All Reji configuration can be found in config/initializers/reji.rb
file. You can change directly or update corresponding environment variables.
Reji.configure do |config|
config.key = ENV['STRIPE_KEY']
config.secret = ENV['STRIPE_SECRET']
config.webhook = {
secret: ENV['STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET'],
tolerance: ENV['STRIPE_WEBHOOK_TOLERANCE'] || 300,
}
config.model = ENV['REJI_MODEL'] || 'User'
config.model_id = ENV['REJI_MODEL_ID'] || 'user_id'
config.currency = ENV['REJI_CURRENCY'] || 'usd'
end
Billable Model
Before using Reji, add the Billable
concern to your model definition. This concern provides various methods to allow you to perform common billing tasks, such as creating subscriptions, applying coupons, and updating payment method information:
class User < ApplicationRecord
include Reji::Billable
end
Reji assumes your Billable model will be the User
class. If you wish to change this you can specify a different model by setting the REJI_MODEL
environment variable:
REJI_MODEL=User
REJI_MODEL_ID=user_id
If you're using a model other than User
model, you'll need to publish and alter the migrations provided to match your alternative model's table name.
API Keys
Next, you should configure your Stripe keys in your environment variables. You can retrieve your Stripe API keys from the Stripe control panel.
STRIPE_KEY=your-stripe-key
STRIPE_SECRET=your-stripe-secret
Currency Configuration
The default Reji currency is United States Dollars (USD). You can change the default currency by setting the REJI_CURRENCY
environment variable:
REJI_CURRENCY=eur
Quickstart
With Reji, subscriptions will be much simpler in your Rails application:
class Api::SubscriptionController < ApplicationController
def store
begin
current_user.new_subscription('default', params[:stripe_plan]).add
rescue Stripe::InvalidRequestError => e
render json: { stripe_plan: e.error.message }, status: 422
end
end
def update
begin
current_user.subscription('default').swap(params[:stripe_plan])
rescue Stripe::InvalidRequestError => e
render json: { stripe_plan: e.error.message }, status: 422
end
end
def destroy
current_user.subscription('default').cancel
end
end
Customers
Retrieving Customers
You can retrieve a customer by their Stripe ID using the Reji.find_billable
method. This will return an instance of the Billable model:
user = Reji.find_billable(stripe_id)
Creating Customers
Occasionally, you may wish to create a Stripe customer without beginning a subscription. You may accomplish this using the create_as_stripe_customer
method:
stripe_customer = user.create_as_stripe_customer
Once the customer has been created in Stripe, you may begin a subscription at a later date. You can also use an optional options
array to pass in any additional parameters which are supported by the Stripe API:
stripe_customer = user.create_as_stripe_customer(options)
You may use the as_stripe_customer
method if you want to return the customer object if the billable entity is already a customer within Stripe:
stripe_customer = user.as_stripe_customer
The create_or_get_stripe_customer
method may be used if you want to return the customer object but are not sure whether the billable entity is already a customer within Stripe. This method will create a new customer in Stripe if one does not already exist:
stripe_customer = user.create_or_get_stripe_customer
Updating Customers
Occasionally, you may wish to update the Stripe customer directly with additional information. You may accomplish this using the update_stripe_customer
method:
stripe_customer = user.update_stripe_customer(options)
Billing Portal
Stripe offers an easy way to set up a billing portal so your customer can manage their subscription, payment methods, and view their billing history. You can redirect your users to the billing portal using the billing_portal_url
method from a controller:
def billing_portal
redirect_to user.billing_portal_url
end
By default, when the user is finished managing their subscription, they can return to the root /
url of your application. You may provide a custom URL the user should return to by passing the URL as an argument to the billing_portal_url
method:
def billing_portal
redirect_to user.billing_portal_url('/billing')
end
Payment Methods
Storing Payment Methods
In order to create subscriptions or perform "one off" charges with Stripe, you will need to store a payment method and retrieve its identifier from Stripe. The approach used to accomplish differs based on whether you plan to use the payment method for subscriptions or single charges, so we will examine both below.
Payment Methods For Subscriptions
When storing credit cards to a customer for future use, the Stripe Setup Intents API must be used to securely gather the customer's payment method details. A "Setup Intent" indicates to Stripe the intention to charge a customer's payment method. Reji's Billable
concern includes the create_setup_intent
to easily create a new Setup Intent. You should call this method from a controller that will render the form which gathers your customer's payment method details:
@intent = user.create_setup_intent
render 'update-payment-method'
After you have created the Setup Intent and passed it to the view, you should attach its secret to the element that will gather the payment method. For example, consider this "update payment method" form:
<input id="card-holder-name" type="text">
<div id="card-element"></div>
<button id="card-button" data-secret="<%= intent.client_secret %>">
Update Payment Method
</button>
Next, the Stripe.js library may be used to attach a Stripe Element to the form and securely gather the customer's payment details:
<script src="https://js.stripe.com/v3/"></script>
<script>
const stripe = Stripe('stripe-public-key');
const elements = stripe.elements();
const cardElement = elements.create('card');
cardElement.mount('#card-element');
</script>
Next, the card can be verified and a secure "payment method identifier" can be retrieved from Stripe using Stripe's confirmCardSetup
method:
const cardHolderName = document.getElementById('card-holder-name');
const cardButton = document.getElementById('card-button');
const clientSecret = cardButton.dataset.secret;
cardButton.addEventListener('click', async (e) => {
const { setupIntent, error } = await stripe.confirmCardSetup(
clientSecret, {
payment_method: {
card: cardElement,
billing_details: { name: cardHolderName.value }
}
}
);
if (error) {
} else {
}
});
After the card has been verified by Stripe, you may pass the resulting setupIntent.payment_method
identifier to your Rails application, where it can be attached to the customer. The payment method can either be added as a new payment method or used to update the default payment method. You can also immediately use the payment method identifier to create a new subscription.
If you would like more information about Setup Intents and gathering customer payment details please review this overview provided by Stripe.
Payment Methods For Single Charges
Of course, when making a single charge against a customer's payment method we'll only need to use a payment method identifier a single time. Due to Stripe limitations, you may not use the stored default payment method of a customer for single charges. You must allow the customer to enter their payment method details using the Stripe.js library. For example, consider the following form:
<input id="card-holder-name" type="text">
<div id="card-element"></div>
<button id="card-button">
Process Payment
</button>
Next, the Stripe.js library may be used to attach a Stripe Element to the form and securely gather the customer's payment details:
<script src="https://js.stripe.com/v3/"></script>
<script>
const stripe = Stripe('stripe-public-key');
const elements = stripe.elements();
const cardElement = elements.create('card');
cardElement.mount('#card-element');
</script>
Next, the card can be verified and a secure "payment method identifier" can be retrieved from Stripe using Stripe's createPaymentMethod
method:
const cardHolderName = document.getElementById('card-holder-name');
const cardButton = document.getElementById('card-button');
cardButton.addEventListener('click', async (e) => {
const { paymentMethod, error } = await stripe.createPaymentMethod(
'card', cardElement, {
billing_details: { name: cardHolderName.value }
}
);
if (error) {
} else {
}
});
If the card is verified successfully, you may pass the paymentMethod.id
to your Rails application and process a single charge.
Retrieving Payment Methods
The payment_methods
method on the Billable model instance returns a collection of Reji::PaymentMethod
instances:
payment_methods = user.payment_methods
To retrieve the default payment method, the default_payment_method
method may be used:
payment_method = user.default_payment_method
You can also retrieve a specific payment method that is owned by the Billable model using the find_payment_method
method:
payment_method = user.find_payment_method(payment_method_id)
Determining If A User Has A Payment Method
To determine if a Billable model has a default payment method attached to their account, use the default_payment_method?
method:
if user.default_payment_method?
end
To determine if a Billable model has at least one payment method attached to their account, use the payment_method?
method:
if user.payment_method?
end
Updating The Default Payment Method
The update_default_payment_method
method may be used to update a customer's default payment method information. This method accepts a Stripe payment method identifier and will assign the new payment method as the default billing payment method:
user.update_default_payment_method(payment_method)
To sync your default payment method information with the customer's default payment method information in Stripe, you may use the update_default_payment_method_from_stripe
method:
user.update_default_payment_method_from_stripe
The default payment method on a customer can only be used for invoicing and creating new subscriptions. Due to limitations from Stripe, it may not be used for single charges.
Adding Payment Methods
To add a new payment method, you may call the add_payment_method
method on the billable user, passing the payment method identifier:
user.add_payment_method(payment_method)
To learn how to retrieve payment method identifiers please review the payment method storage documentation.
Deleting Payment Methods
To delete a payment method, you may call the delete
method on the Reji::PaymentMethod
instance you wish to delete:
payment_method.delete
The delete_payment_methods
method will delete all of the payment method information for the Billable model:
user.delete_payment_methods
If a user has an active subscription, you should prevent them from deleting their default payment method.
Subscriptions
Creating Subscriptions
To create a subscription, first retrieve an instance of your billable model, which typically will be an instance of User
. Once you have retrieved the model instance, you may use the new_subscription
method to create the model's subscription:
user = User.find(1)
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_premium').create(payment_method)
The first argument passed to the new_subscription
method should be the name of the subscription. If your application only offers a single subscription, you might call this default
or primary
. The second argument is the specific plan the user is subscribing to. This value should correspond to the plan's price identifier in Stripe.
The create
method, which accepts a Stripe payment method identifier or Stripe PaymentMethod
object, will begin the subscription as well as update your database with the customer ID and other relevant billing information.
Passing a payment method identifier directly to the create
subscription method will also automatically add it to the user's stored payment methods.
Quantities
If you would like to set a specific quantity for the plan when creating the subscription, you may use the quantity
method:
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_monthly')
.quantity(5)
.create(payment_method)
Additional Details
If you would like to specify additional customer or subscription details, you may do so by passing them as the second and third arguments to the create
method:
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_monthly').create(payment_method, {
:email => email,
}, {
:metadata => {:note => 'Some extra information.'},
})
To learn more about the additional fields supported by Stripe, check out Stripe's documentation on customer creation and subscription creation.
Coupons
If you would like to apply a coupon when creating the subscription, you may use the with_coupon
method:
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_monthly')
.with_coupon('code')
.create(payment_method)
Adding Subscriptions
If you would like to add a subscription to a customer who already has a default payment method set you can use the add
method when using the new_subscription
method:
user = User.find(1)
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_premium').add
Checking Subscription Status
Once a user is subscribed to your application, you may easily check their subscription status using a variety of convenient methods. First, the subscribed
method returns true
if the user has an active subscription, even if the subscription is currently within its trial period:
if user.subscribed('default')
end
If you would like to determine if a user is still within their trial period, you may use the on_trial
method. This method can be useful for displaying a warning to the user that they are still on their trial period:
if user.subscription('default').on_trial
end
The subscribed_to_plan
method may be used to determine if the user is subscribed to a given plan based on a given Stripe Price ID. In this example, we will determine if the user's default
subscription is actively subscribed to the monthly
plan:
if user.subscribed_to_plan('price_monthly', 'default')
end
By passing an array to the subscribed_to_plan
method, you may determine if the user's default
subscription is actively subscribed to the monthly
or the yearly
plan:
if user.subscribed_to_plan(['price_monthly', 'price_yearly'], 'default')
end
The recurring
method may be used to determine if the user is currently subscribed and is no longer within their trial period:
if user.subscription('default').recurring
end
Cancelled Subscription Status
To determine if the user was once an active subscriber, but has cancelled their subscription, you may use the cancelled
method:
if user.subscription('default').cancelled
end
You may also determine if a user has cancelled their subscription, but are still on their "grace period" until the subscription fully expires. For example, if a user cancels a subscription on March 5th that was originally scheduled to expire on March 10th, the user is on their "grace period" until March 10th. Note that the subscribed
method still returns true
during this time:
if user.subscription('default').on_grace_period
end
To determine if the user has cancelled their subscription and is no longer within their "grace period", you may use the ended
method:
if user.subscription('default').ended
end
Subscription Scopes
Most subscription states are also available as query scopes so that you may easily query your database for subscriptions that are in a given state:
subscriptions = Reji::Subscription.active
subscriptions = user.subscriptions.cancelled
A complete list of available scopes is available below:
Reji::Subscription.active
Reji::Subscription.cancelled
Reji::Subscription.ended
Reji::Subscription.incomplete
Reji::Subscription.not_cancelled
Reji::Subscription.not_on_grace_period
Reji::Subscription.not_on_trial
Reji::Subscription.on_grace_period
Reji::Subscription.on_trial
Reji::Subscription.past_due
Reji::Subscription.recurring
Incomplete and Past Due Status
If a subscription requires a secondary payment action after creation the subscription will be marked as incomplete
. Subscription statuses are stored in the stripe_status
column of Reji's subscriptions
database table.
Similarly, if a secondary payment action is required when swapping plans the subscription will be marked as past_due
. When your subscription is in either of these states it will not be active until the customer has confirmed their payment. Checking if a subscription has an incomplete payment can be done using the incomplete_payment?
method on the Billable model or a subscription instance:
if user.incomplete_payment?('default')
end
if user.subscription('default').incomplete_payment?
end
When a subscription has an incomplete payment, you should direct the user to Reji's payment confirmation page, passing the latest_payment
identifier. You may use the latest_payment
method available on subscription instance to retrieve this identifier:
<a href="/stripe/payment/<%= subscription.latest_payment.id %>">
Please confirm your payment.
</a>
If you would like the subscription to still be considered active when it's in a past_due
state, you may use the keep_past_due_subscriptions_active
method provided by Reji:
Reji.keep_past_due_subscriptions_active
When a subscription is in an incomplete
state it cannot be changed until the payment is confirmed. Therefore, the swap
and update_quantity
methods will throw an exception when the subscription is in an incomplete
state.
Changing Plans
After a user is subscribed to your application, they may occasionally want to change to a new subscription plan. To swap a user to a new subscription, pass the plan's price identifier to the swap
method:
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default').swap('provider-price-id')
If the user is on trial, the trial period will be maintained. Also, if a "quantity" exists for the subscription, that quantity will also be maintained.
If you would like to swap plans and cancel any trial period the user is currently on, you may use the skip_trial
method:
user.subscription('default')
.skip_trial
.swap('provider-price-id')
If you would like to swap plans and immediately invoice the user instead of waiting for their next billing cycle, you may use the swap_and_invoice
method:
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default').swap_and_invoice('provider-price-id')
Prorations
By default, Stripe prorates charges when swapping between plans. The no_prorate
method may be used to update the subscription's without prorating the charges:
user.subscription('default').no_prorate.swap('provider-price-id')
For more information on subscription proration, consult the Stripe documentation.
Executing the no_prorate
method before the swap_and_invoice
method will have no affect on proration. An invoice will always be issued.
Subscription Quantity
Sometimes subscriptions are affected by "quantity". For example, your application might charge $10 per month per user on an account. To easily increment or decrement your subscription quantity, use the increment_quantity
and decrement_quantity
methods:
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default').increment_quantity
user.subscription('default').increment_quantity(5)
user.subscription('default').decrement_quantity
user.subscription('default').decrement_quantity(5)
Alternatively, you may set a specific quantity using the update_quantity
method:
user.subscription('default').update_quantity(10)
The no_prorate
method may be used to update the subscription's quantity without prorating the charges:
user.subscription('default').no_prorate.update_quantity(10)
For more information on subscription quantities, consult the Stripe documentation.
Please note that when working with multiplan subscriptions, an extra "plan" parameter is required for the above quantity methods.
Multiplan Subscriptions
Multiplan subscriptions allow you to assign multiple billing plans to a single subscription. For example, imagine you are building a customer service "helpdesk" application that has a base subscription of $10 per month, but offers a live chat add-on plan for an additional $15 per month:
user = User.find(1)
user.new_subscription('default', [
'price_monthly',
'chat-plan',
]).create(payment_method)
Now the customer will have two plans on their default
subscription. Both plans will be charged for on their respective billing intervals. You can also use the quantity
method to indicate the specific quantity for each plan:
user = User.find(1)
user.new_subscription('default', ['price_monthly', 'chat-plan'])
.quantity(5, 'chat-plan')
.create(payment_method)
Or, you may dynamically add the extra plan and its quantity using the plan
method:
user = User.find(1)
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_monthly')
.plan('chat-plan', 5)
.create(payment_method)
Alternatively, you may add a new plan to an existing subscription at a later time:
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default').add_plan('chat-plan')
The example above will add the new plan and the customer will be billed for it on their next billing cycle. If you would like to bill the customer immediately you may use the add_plan_and_invoice
method:
user.subscription('default').add_plan_and_invoice('chat-plan')
If you would like to add a plan with a specific quantity, you can pass the quantity as the second parameter of the add_plan
or add_plan_and_invoice
methods:
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default').add_plan('chat-plan', 5)
You may remove plans from subscriptions using the remove_plan
method:
user.subscription('default').remove_plan('chat-plan')
You may not remove the last plan on a subscription. Instead, you should simply cancel the subscription.
Swapping
You may also change the plans attached to a multiplan subscription. For example, imagine you're on a basic-plan
subscription with a chat-plan
add-on and you want to upgrade to the pro-plan
plan:
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default').swap(['pro-plan', 'chat-plan'])
When executing the code above, the underlying subscription item with the basic-plan
is deleted and the one with the chat-plan
is preserved. Additionally, a new subscription item for the new pro-plan
is created.
If you want to swap a single plan on a subscription, you may do so using the swap
method on the subscription item itself. This approach is useful if you, for example, want to preserve all of the existing metadata on the subscription item.
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default')
.find_item_or_fail('basic-plan')
.swap('pro-plan')
Proration
By default, Stripe will prorate charges when adding or removing plans from a subscription. If you would like to make a plan adjustment without proration, you should chain the no_prorate
method onto your plan operation:
user.subscription('default').no_prorate.remove_plan('chat-plan')
Quantities
If you would like to update quantities on individual subscription plans, you may do so using the existing quantity methods and passing the name of the plan as an additional argument to the method:
user = User.find(1)
user.subscription('default').increment_quantity(5, 'chat-plan')
user.subscription('default').decrement_quantity(3, 'chat-plan')
user.subscription('default').update_quantity(10, 'chat-plan')
When you have multiple plans set on a subscription the stripe_plan
and quantity
attributes on the Subscription
model will be null
. To access the individual plans, you should use the items
relationship available on the Subscription
model.
Subscription Items
When a subscription has multiple plans, it will have multiple subscription "items" stored in your database's subscription_items
table. You may access these via the items
relationship on the subscription:
user = User.find(1)
subscription_item = user.subscription('default').items.first
stripe_plan = subscription_item.stripe_plan
quantity = subscription_item.quantity
You can also retrieve a specific plan using the find_item_or_fail
method:
user = User.find(1)
subscription_item = user.subscription('default').find_item_or_fail('chat-plan')
Subscription Taxes
To specify the tax rates a user pays on a subscription, implement the tax_rates
method on your billable model, and return an array with the Tax Rate IDs. You can define these tax rates in your Stripe dashboard:
def tax_rates
['tax-rate-id']
end
The tax_rates
method enables you to apply a tax rate on a model-by-model basis, which may be helpful for a user base that spans multiple countries and tax rates. If you're working with multiplan subscriptions you can define different tax rates for each plan by implementing a plan_tax_rates
method on your billable model:
def plan_tax_rates
{
'plan-id' => ['tax-rate-id'],
}
end
The tax_rates
method only applies to subscription charges. If you use Reji to make "one off" charges, you will need to manually specify the tax rate at that time.
Syncing Tax Rates
When changing the hard-coded Tax Rate IDs returned by the tax_rates
method, the tax settings on any existing subscriptions for the user will remain the same. If you wish to update the tax value for existing subscriptions with the returned tax_tax_rates
values, you should call the sync_tax_rates
method on the user's subscription instance:
user.subscription('default').sync_tax_rates
This will also sync any subscription item tax rates so make sure you also properly change the plan_tax_rates
method.
Tax Exemption
Reji also offers methods to determine if the customer is tax exempt by calling the Stripe API. The not_tax_exempt?
, tax_exempt?
, and reverse_charge_applies
methods are available on the billable model:
user = User.find(1)
user.tax_exempt?
user.not_tax_exempt?
user.reverse_charge_applies
These methods are also available on any Reji::Invoice
object. However, when calling these methods on an Invoice
object the methods will determine the exemption status at the time the invoice was created.
Subscription Anchor Date
By default, the billing cycle anchor is the date the subscription was created, or if a trial period is used, the date that the trial ends. If you would like to modify the billing anchor date, you may use the anchor_billing_cycle_on
method:
user = User.find(1)
anchor = Time.current.at_beginning_of_month.next_month
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_premium')
.anchor_billing_cycle_on(anchor.to_i)
.create(payment_method)
For more information on managing subscription billing cycles, consult the Stripe billing cycle documentation
Cancelling Subscriptions
To cancel a subscription, call the cancel
method on the user's subscription:
user.subscription('default').cancel
When a subscription is cancelled, Reji will automatically set the ends_at
column in your database. This column is used to know when the subscribed
method should begin returning false
. For example, if a customer cancels a subscription on March 1st, but the subscription was not scheduled to end until March 5th, the subscribed
method will continue to return true
until March 5th.
You may determine if a user has cancelled their subscription but are still on their "grace period" using the on_grace_period
method:
if user.subscription('default').on_grace_period
end
If you wish to cancel a subscription immediately, call the cancel_now
method on the user's subscription:
user.subscription('default').cancel_now
Resuming Subscriptions
If a user has cancelled their subscription and you wish to resume it, use the resume
method. The user must still be on their grace period in order to resume a subscription:
user.subscription('default').resume
If the user cancels a subscription and then resumes that subscription before the subscription has fully expired, they will not be billed immediately. Instead, their subscription will be re-activated, and they will be billed on the original billing cycle.
Subscription Trials
With Payment Method Up Front
If you would like to offer trial periods to your customers while still collecting payment method information up front, you should use the trial_days
method when creating your subscriptions:
user = User.find(1)
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_monthly')
.trial_days(10)
.create(payment_method)
This method will set the trial period ending date on the subscription record within the database, as well as instruct Stripe to not begin billing the customer until after this date. When using the trial_days
method, Reji will overwrite any default trial period configured for the plan in Stripe.
If the customer's subscription is not cancelled before the trial ending date they will be charged as soon as the trial expires, so you should be sure to notify your users of their trial ending date.
The trial_until
method allows you to provide a Time
instance to specify when the trial period should end:
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_monthly')
.trial_until(Time.current + 10.days)
.create(payment_method)
You may determine if the user is within their trial period using either the on_trial
method of the user instance, or the on_trial
method of the subscription instance. The two examples below are identical:
if user.on_trial('default')
end
if user.subscription('default').on_trial
end
Defining Trial Days In Stripe / Reji
You may choose to define how many trial days your plan's receive in the Stripe dashboard or always pass them explicitly using Reji. If you choose to define your plan's trial days in Stripe you should be aware that new subscriptions, including new subscriptions for a customer that had a subscription in the past, will always receive a trial period unless you explicitly call the trial_days(0)
method.
Without Payment Method Up Front
If you would like to offer trial periods without collecting the user's payment method information up front, you may set the trial_ends_at
column on the user record to your desired trial ending date. This is typically done during user registration:
user = User.create({
:trial_ends_at => Time.current + 10.days,
})
Reji refers to this type of trial as a "generic trial", since it is not attached to any existing subscription. The on_trial
method on the User
instance will return true
if the current date is not past the value of trial_ends_at
:
if user.on_trial
end
You may also use the on_generic_trial
method if you wish to know specifically that the user is within their "generic" trial period and has not created an actual subscription yet:
if user.on_generic_trial
end
Once you are ready to create an actual subscription for the user, you may use the new_subscription
method as usual:
user = User.find(1)
user.new_subscription('default', 'price_monthly').create(payment_method)
Extending Trials
The extend_trial
method allows you to extend the trial period of a subscription after it's been created:
subscription.extend_trial(
Time.current + 7.days
)
subscription.extend_trial(
Time.zone.at(subscription.trial_ends_at) + 5.days
)
If the trial has already expired and the customer is already being billed for the subscription, you can still offer them an extended trial. The time spent within the trial period will be deducted from the customer's next invoice.
Handling Stripe Webhooks
You may use the Stripe CLI to help test webhooks during local development.
Stripe can notify your application of a variety of events via webhooks. By default, a route that points to Reji's webhook controller is configured. This controller will handle all incoming webhook requests.
By default, this controller will automatically handle cancelling subscriptions that have too many failed charges (as defined by your Stripe settings), customer updates, customer deletions, subscription updates; however, as we'll soon discover, you can extend this controller to handle any webhook event you like.
To ensure your application can handle Stripe webhooks, be sure to configure the webhook URL in the Stripe control panel. By default, Reji's webhook controller listens to the /stripe/webhook
URL path. The full list of all webhooks you should configure in the Stripe control panel are:
customer.subscription.updated
customer.subscription.deleted
customer.updated
customer.deleted
Make sure you protect incoming requests with Reji's included webhook signature verification.
Defining Webhook Event Handlers
Reji automatically handles subscription cancellation on failed charges, but if you have additional webhook events you would like to handle, extend the Webhook controller. Your method names should correspond to Reji's expected convention, specifically, methods should be prefixed with handle
and the "snake case" name of the webhook you wish to handle. For example, if you wish to handle the invoice.payment_succeeded
webhook, you should add a handle_invoice_payment_succeeded
method to the controller:
class WebhookController < Reji::WebhookController
def handle_invoice_payment_succeeded(payload)
end
end
Next, define a route to your Reji controller within your config/routes.rb
file. This will overwrite the default shipped route:
post 'stripe/webhook', to: 'webhook#handle_webhook', as: 'webhook
Failed Subscriptions
What if a customer's credit card expires? No worries - Reji's Webhook controller will cancel the customer's subscription for you. Failed payments will automatically be captured and handled by the controller. The controller will cancel the customer's subscription when Stripe determines the subscription has failed (normally after three failed payment attempts).
Verifying Webhook Signatures
To secure your webhooks, you may use Stripe's webhook signatures. For convenience, Reji automatically includes a filter which validates that the incoming Stripe webhook request is valid.
To enable webhook verification, ensure that the STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET
environment variable is set. The webhook secret
may be retrieved from your Stripe account dashboard.
Single Charges
Simple Charge
The charge
method accepts the amount you would like to charge in the lowest denominator of the currency used by your application.
If you would like to make a "one off" charge against a subscribed customer's payment method, you may use the charge
method on a billable model instance. You'll need to provide a payment method identifier as the second argument:
stripe_charge = user.charge(100, payment_method)
The charge
method accepts an array as its third argument, allowing you to pass any options you wish to the underlying Stripe charge creation. Consult the Stripe documentation regarding the options available to you when creating charges:
user.charge(100, payment_method, {:custom_option => value})
You may also use the charge
method without an underlying customer or user:
stripe_charge = User.new.charge(100, payment_method)
The charge
method will throw an exception if the charge fails. If the charge is successful, an instance of Reji::Payment
will be returned from the method:
begin
payment = user.charge(100, payment_method)
rescue => e
end
Charge With Invoice
Sometimes you may need to make a one-time charge but also generate an invoice for the charge so that you may offer a PDF receipt to your customer. The invoice_for
method lets you do just that. For example, let's invoice the customer $5.00 for a "One Time Fee":
user.invoice_for('One Time Fee', 500)
The invoice will be charged immediately against the user's default payment method. The invoice_for
method also accepts an array as its third argument. This array contains the billing options for the invoice item. The fourth argument accepted by the method is also an array. This final argument accepts the billing options for the invoice itself:
user.invoice_for('Stickers', 500, {
:quantity => 50,
}, {
:default_tax_rates => ['tax-rate-id'],
})
The invoice_for
method will create a Stripe invoice which will retry failed billing attempts. If you do not want invoices to retry failed charges, you will need to close them using the Stripe API after the first failed charge.
Refunding Charges
If you need to refund a Stripe charge, you may use the refund
method. This method accepts the Stripe Payment Intent ID as its first argument:
payment = user.charge(100, payment_method)
user.refund(payment.id)
Invoices
Retrieving Invoices
You may easily retrieve an array of a billable model's invoices using the invoices
method:
invoices = user.invoices
invoices = user.invoices_including_pending
You may use the find_invoice
method to retrieve a specific invoice:
invoice = user.find_invoice(invoice_id)
Displaying Invoice Information
When listing the invoices for the customer, you may use the invoice's helper methods to display the relevant invoice information. For example, you may wish to list every invoice in a table, allowing the user to easily download any of them:
<table>
<% invoices.each do |invoice| %>
<tr>
<td><%= invoice.date %></td>
<td><%= invoice.total %></td>
<td><a href="/user/invoice/<%= invoice.id %>">Download</a></td>
</tr>
<% end %>
</table>
Generating Invoice PDFs
From within a controller, use the download_invoice
method to generate a PDF download data of the invoice:
class InvoicesController < ApplicationController
before_action :authenticate_user!
def download
response = current_user.download_invoice(params[:id], {
:vendor => 'Your Company',
:product => 'Your Product',
})
send_data response[:data],
:disposition => "inline; filename=#{response[:filename]}.pdf",
:type => 'application/pdf'
end
end
The download_invoice
method also allows for an optional custom filename as the third parameter. This filename will automatically be suffixed with .pdf
for you:
response = current_user.download_invoice(params[:id], {
:vendor => 'Your Company',
:product => 'Your Product',
}, 'my-invoice')
Handling Failed Payments
Sometimes, payments for subscriptions or single charges can fail. When this happens, Reji will throw an IncompletePaymentError
exception that informs you that this happened. After catching this exception, you have two options on how to proceed.
First, you could redirect your customer to the dedicated payment confirmation page which is included with Reji. This page already has an associated route that is registered via Reji's service provider. So, you may catch the IncompletePaymentError
exception and redirect to the payment confirmation page:
begin
subscription = user.new_subscription('default', plan_id).create(payment_method)
rescue Reji::IncompletePaymentError => e
redirect_to "/stripe/payment/#{e.payment.id}?redirect=/"
end
On the payment confirmation page, the customer will be prompted to enter their credit card info again and perform any additional actions required by Stripe, such as "3D Secure" confirmation. After confirming their payment, the user will be redirected to the URL provided by the redirect
parameter specified above. Upon redirection, message
(string) and success
(integer) query string variables will be added to the URL.
Alternatively, you could allow Stripe to handle the payment confirmation for you. In this case, instead of redirecting to the payment confirmation page, you may setup Stripe's automatic billing emails in your Stripe dashboard. However, if a IncompletePaymentError
exception is caught, you should still inform the user they will receive an email with further payment confirmation instructions.
Payment exceptions may be thrown for the following methods: charge
, invoice_for
, and invoice
on the Billable
user. When handling subscriptions, the create
method on the SubscriptionBuilder
, and the increment_and_invoice
and swap_and_invoice
methods on the Subscription
model may throw exceptions.
There are currently two types of payment exceptions which extend IncompletePaymentError
. You can catch these separately if needed so that you can customize the user experience:
- `PaymentActionRequiredError`: this indicates that Stripe requires extra verification in order to confirm and process a payment.
- `PaymentFailureError`: this indicates that a payment failed for various other reasons, such as being out of available funds.
Incomplete and Past Due State
When a payment needs additional confirmation, the subscription will remain in an incomplete
or past_due
state as indicated by its stripe_status
database column. Reji will automatically activate the customer's subscription via a webhook as soon as payment confirmation is complete.
For more information on incomplete
and past_due
states, please refer to our additional documentation.
Stripe SDK
Many of Reji's objects are wrappers around Stripe SDK objects. If you would like to interact with the Stripe objects directly, you may conveniently retrieve them using the as_stripe
method:
stripe_subscription = subscription.as_stripe_subscription
stripe_subscription.application_fee_percent = 5
stripe_subscription.save
You may also use the update_stripe_subscription
method to update the Stripe subscription directly:
subscription.update_stripe_subscription({:application_fee_percent => 5})
Testing
When testing an application that uses Reji, you may mock the actual HTTP requests to the Stripe API; however, this requires you to partially re-implement Reji's own behavior. Therefore, we recommend allowing your tests to hit the actual Stripe API. While this is slower, it provides more confidence that your application is working as expected and any slow tests may be placed within their own testing group. You also should only focus on testing the subscription and payment flow of your own application and not every underlying Reji behavior
You will need to set the Stripe testing secret environment variable in order to run the Reji tests.
STRIPE_SECRET=sk_test_<your-key> rake spec
Whenever you interact with Reji while testing, it will send actual API requests to your Stripe testing environment. For convenience, you should pre-fill your Stripe testing account with subscriptions / plans that you may then use during testing.
In order to test a variety of billing scenarios, such as credit card denials and failures, you may use the vast range of testing card numbers and tokens provided by Stripe.
License
Reji is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.