Broken billing is an existential problem. Fix it before it kills the business.
Subscription billing bugs cause users to lose access when they shouldn't, or keep access when they shouldn't. Sync issues between Stripe and your database, failed payment handling, and plan change edge cases are the common failure modes. Getting the billing state machine correct.
Subscription billing with bugs — users losing access incorrectly, payment states out of sync, or plan changes not applying correctly
Subscription billing has a state machine with more states than most teams initially account for:
Subscription states:
trialing— in free trialactive— paid and currentpast_due— payment failed, in retry windowunpaid— retry window exhaustedcanceled— explicitly canceledincomplete— payment required to activateincomplete_expired— never activated
The most common bugs:
Access on past_due: User's payment failed. Their subscription is past_due while Stripe retries. Should they have access? Most products: yes, for 7-14 days. Apps that cut access immediately on first payment failure have a high false-positive rate (many failed payments succeed on retry).
Access after cancellation: User cancels. Stripe sets cancel_at_period_end = true. The subscription is active until the end of the billing period. Apps that revoke access immediately on cancellation event are wrong — the user paid for the rest of the period.
Plan change not applied: User upgrades from Basic to Pro. Stripe updates the subscription. The webhook fires. The application doesn't update the user's plan in the database. User is on Pro in Stripe but Basic in the app.
The correct pattern:
Stripe is the source of truth. Never store billing state locally without a Stripe confirmation. On every API request that requires access check: verify against the database subscription state, which is synced from Stripe webhooks.
access_check:
status in ['trialing', 'active'] → allow
status = 'past_due' AND within grace period → allow with warning
status = 'canceled' AND within current period → allow
otherwise → deny
Correct subscription state machine with Stripe as the source of truth, reliable webhook sync, and proper handling of all billing edge cases
Subscription state audit
map all states to access decisions
Webhook handler fixes
all relevant events handled correctly
Access control middleware
correct gate logic for each state
Grace period
handling for past_due subscriptions
Cancel flow
with correct period-end access
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
Correct subscription state machine with Stripe as the source of truth, reliable webhook sync, and proper handling of all billing edge cases
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Billing fix scope is the state machine audit and the specific bugs identified. Fixed-price from the audit.
Related engagements.
Questions, answered.
Use Stripe Billing. The complexity of subscription billing (proration, plan changes, trials, coupons, tax, dunning) is enormous. Stripe Billing handles it. Your application manages entitlements, Stripe manages money.
The Stripe API supports fetching the current subscription state: `stripe.subscriptions.retrieve(subscriptionId)`. For critical access decisions, fetch from Stripe directly rather than trusting the cached state.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.