Contracts are usually used to move an account to a different plan on a defined schedule.
This is useful for setting up a time-limited introductory offer, e.g. low prices for the first 6 months. For example, let’s suppose you have two plans: Plan A and Plan B. You could define a contract with two contract periods:
- Plan A for 6 months
- Plan B for 12 months
You can choose how long each contract period lasts when you set up the contract. In this example, the account would be billed under Plan A for 6 months, the under Plan B for the next 12 months.
The number of invoices issued depends on the billing frequency of the plans. For example, if Plan A and Plan B both bill monthly, then a total of 18 invoices will be issued under this contract.
When you set up the contract, you also choose what happens at the end of the last contract: stop billing, or continue with the final plan.
If you just want to limit the length of a subscription (for example, have it automatically cancel after 9 months), then you could consider one of these options:
- Create a fixed-term plan with a length of X months. Every subscription for this plan will cancel after a set amount of time.
- Create a contract with only one contract period, for the amount of time you want. When you create the contract, you should set it to stop invoicing when it reaches the end date.
As always, sandbox is a great place to try this out to make sure it behaves as you expect.