When Does The Subscription Cancellation Action Set Run?

Question: If the user cancels the subscription from PayPal, does the cancellation actionset run immediately or at end of billing cycle?

Answer: The action set runs immediately.

You can ‘handle’ cancellation in 3 ways:

1. Cancel immediately with no pro-rating
2. Cancel immediately with pro-rating
3. Cancel at then end of the billing period

No Prorating of Charges

State in the terms and conditions that cancellation is immediate and there is no pro-rating of charges – this places the onus on the subscriber to cancel at the end of the billing period. This is by far the easiest solution.

Prorating of Charges And Manual Refunds

State in the terms and conditions that cancellation is immediate and enable pro-rating of charges on Infusionsoft. It would then be manual procedure to examine the Infusionsoft invoice then go in to PayPal and do a partial refund – this would be a real pain to manage.

Cancel At the End Of The Billing Period

Run the cancellation at then end of the billing period. The cancellation action set run by SubscriptionBoss would just set a ‘CancelSubscriptionBeforeNextBill’ tag, as well as email the subscriber to confirm the cancellation. There would also be a follow-up sequence that would need to run the day before billing which can check the tag and if necessary cancel the subscription and remove access to the service/membership site.

Having a follow up sequence run before billing may be a good idea in any case, especially if you are billing less frequently then monthly. You can use the sequence to send out a reminder to the subscriber that billing will take place in the next few days and also takes the opportunity to remind the subscriber of the benefits the will accrus by continuing the subscription.

Cancellation Action Set

The process needs to:

• cancel the order
• withdraw access to the membership service
• send an email to the subscriber to confirm the subscription has been cancelled

You will probably want to use the Campaign Builder for the subscription cancellation process. In this case, all the Action set called by SubscriptionBoss will do is set a tag that is an entry point for “Subscription Cancellation Campaign”.