Overview

This guide shows you how to implement the Update Next Billing Date API endpoint to extend the free trial by delaying the subscription’s next billing event.

Use Case

Extend a trial period in a free trial subscription as a strategy to retain customers.

A Cloudify customer is nearing the end of a 14-day free trial and wants to cancel before being charged. Cloudify offers to extend the free trial by 30 days. If the customer accepts, Cloudify uses the Update Next Billing Date endpoint to move the subscription’s next billing date into the future. The customer will only be billed once the updated trial period ends.

Considerations

Before extending a free trial, keep the following in mind:

The customer must provide consent before extending the trial or delaying billing
The customer must have provided payment details during checkout for a trial-to-paid subscription flow

Update Next Billing Date via API

Before you start

Make sure that:

The subscription's status is Active.
You know the subscription’s current NextBillingDate
You have the new target date you want to set for NextBillingDate
The new NextBillingDate is set at least 1 minute into the future (not equal to “right now”)

🚧
Important
Get the customer's consent for changes to subscriptions. To avoid chargebacks and customer inquiries, it is also essential that you coordinate all price increases with Client Experience.
In the European Economic Area (EEA), Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is required for recurring electronic payments when the amount changes. This means that some of your customers will have to authenticate their payment, which in turn might impact the renewal success rate.
For more information, see Best Practices: Obtain Customer Consent.

Parameters

In the call to the Update Next Billing Date API endpoint, pass the following two parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Example	Notes
SubscriptionId	str	Yes	S67203942	The unique identifier of the subscription.
NextBillingDate	str	Yes	2025-03-14T23:20:50.52Z	The next billing date of the subscription.

Diagram

flowchart LR
  classDef mainColor fill:#ffffff,color:#96C34B,stroke:#96C34B,stroke-width:2px;

  A(["&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>Customer wants to cancel before the end of free trial&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>&nbsp;"]):::mainColor
    --> B(["&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>Cloudify offers 30-day free trial extension<br/>using <i>Update Next Billing Date</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>&nbsp;"]):::mainColor
    --> C(["&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>Customer is billed only after the extended trial ends&nbsp;&nbsp;<br/>&nbsp;"]):::mainColor