Service plans and subscriptions

A service plan is recurring work that bills and schedules itself: quarterly window cleaning, monthly gutter checks, a maintenance contract. It's the difference between chasing new customers every month and having revenue that turns up on its own.

Plans attach to a customer from their record.

1. Create Subscription

In Quick Actions on the customer, click Create Subscription.

There's a second route worth knowing: on a completed job, Make this job recurring turns that one-off into a plan without retyping the services. If a customer just had good work done, that's the moment to ask.

2. Build the plan

The plan carries the services, the price and the frequency. You can start from a subscription template if you've built one, which is the sensible approach once you're selling the same plan repeatedly.

What you need first

Two things, or the plan can't bill:

1. Stripe connected, in Settings > Payments.
2. A saved card on the customer. The card prompt on their record reads "Save a card to charge invoices or set up subscriptions later". That's not a suggestion, it's the requirement.

Get the card while you have them on the phone agreeing to the plan. Chasing it afterwards is how plans die before they start.

3. Watching your plans

Reports > Subscriptions shows Active, Pending and All counts, with revenue broken down by billing frequency.

Pending is the number to watch. A pending subscription is one that's been set up but isn't billing yet, usually because there's no payment method on file. A growing Pending count is money you think you have and don't.

Managing a plan

Plans can be paused, resumed, have their amount changed, or be cancelled. Pausing is better than cancelling for seasonal work: a customer who stops in winter and restarts in spring should be paused, so you keep the plan and the history.

Tips and gotchas

• Card on file first. No card, no billing, and the plan sits in Pending.
• "Make this job recurring" is the easiest sale you'll make. Ask right after good work.
• Pause seasonal customers, don't cancel them. Cancelling loses the plan.
• Watch the Pending count. It's the gap between sold and billing.
• Templates keep pricing consistent once you're selling the same plan repeatedly.

Next up: Subscription templates