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Last updated on Aug 29, 2026
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Offer usage-based pricing while collecting payment from the Customer up front, instead of billing in arrears.
A Prepaid Subscription maintains a prepayment balance, and usage is deducted from that balance in real time as it's reported to Advanced Billing. This reduces revenue risk and improves cash flow predictability, since Customers fund the Subscription before usage occurs.
You can configure a Prepaid Subscription with:
Prepaid Subscriptions are available on sites using Relationship Invoicing architecture (Invoice-Centric Billing), with the Prepaid Subscriptions feature enabled for your site. You select the prepaid collection method during Subscription setup.
Payments for Prepaid Subscriptions are collected via credit card only; each Prepaid Subscription must have a valid credit card on file, and its payment method can't be changed to any other type.
A Prepaid Subscription is created in an active state once the initial prepayment is successfully processed.
The prepayment balance equals total prepayments collected during the current billing period minus recorded usage. For example, if a Subscription has a $100 prepayment and $50 in recorded usage, the remaining balance is $50.
Auto-refill is triggered when the balance drops below the configured minimum balance. As usage increases, the remaining balance decreases and the Usage This Period value increases.
If auto-refill is enabled, the credit card on file is charged to restore the balance to the refill amount. The Usage This Period value continues to increase throughout the billing period, and both the current balance and usage are displayed at the top of the Prepayments tab and available via the API.
Unlike other Subscription types in Advanced Billing, where metered Components are billed at the end of the billing period, Prepaid Subscription usage is deducted from the prepayment balance in real time.
At renewal, an Invoice is generated summarizing all usage recorded during the billing period.
You can view total usage for the current period on the Subscription's Prepayments tab.
Prepaid Subscriptions support two funding configurations, controlled by four key settings. You can update these settings at any time, including enabling or disabling auto-refill and changing the refill amount or minimum balance.
The Initial Charge is the prepayment amount collected at signup from the credit card associated with the Subscription.
This value may be $0 when importing Prepaid Subscriptions. In that case, the Subscription is created in a suspended state.
If auto-refill is enabled, the Initial Charge must be greater than the minimum balance.
Auto-refill (the API field name is auto_replenish) automatically collects additional funds when the balance drops below the minimum balance, with no manual action required.
The minimum balance defines the threshold that triggers auto-refill. It must:
When the balance drops below the minimum balance, Advanced Billing charges the amount required to restore the balance to the refill amount.
Prepaid Subscriptions:
Prepaid and event-based (metered) Components generally work the same way on Multi-Frequency and Term Subscriptions as on standard ones, with a few interaction rules to know:
On each renewal date, Advanced Billing generates an Invoice summarizing activity for the billing period, including:
No payment is due at renewal, since usage is already covered by the prepayment balance. Applicable tax is still calculated on the Invoice.
Prepaid Subscriptions have a configurable dunning process. If an auto-refill payment fails, Advanced Billing retries the charge based on your configured dunning strategy, once per day for the number of days defined in your settings. You can also enable email notifications using customizable templates.
While dunning is active, the Subscription remains active until the balance is depleted; it's never marked past due. Instead, it displays the status (In Prepaid Dunning), which you can use as a filter.
If the prepayment balance reaches $0 or below, the Subscription automatically transitions to suspended. A Subscription may become suspended if:
A suspended Subscription can be:
If you cancel a Prepaid Subscription immediately, the remaining balance is automatically refunded to the Customer. Prepaid Subscriptions can't be scheduled to cancel at the end of a period; cancellation is always immediate.
For the Purchase Prepaid Units flow for setting Custom Pricing on a Prepaid Usage Product, see Configure Custom Pricing for Products.
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