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You can add contract terms to plans to control when customers may cancel and when subscriptions automatically end:
  • A minimum commitment prevents customers from cancelling too early.
  • A maximum commitment automatically stops the subscription after a set period.
  • A fixed term contract uses the same period for both.

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Enable Contract Terms for Plans

For order-based projects, first enable plan contract terms:
  1. Go to New Features in your project sidebar
  2. Enable Contract Terms for Plans
Once enabled, you can configure contract terms when creating or editing a plan.

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Configure Contract Terms on a Plan

Set a commitment period in days, weeks, months, or years. When maximum billing-cycle commitments are enabled for your project, you can also set a maximum number of billing cycles.

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Minimum Commitment

When a customer signs up for a plan with a minimum commitment (for example, 6 months), they will not be able to cancel their subscription within that period after their subscription is activated. Only someone from your team will be able to force cancel a committed subscription during this period. Customers become eligible to cancel their subscription 2 weeks prior to the end of their minimum commitment period, providing a cancellation window before the next billing cycle.

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Maximum Commitment

A maximum commitment automatically stops a subscription after the configured period. For calendar units, the period starts when the subscription is activated. For Billing cycles, Firmhouse counts the paid initial subscription invoice as the first cycle, followed by each fully paid recurring billing-cycle invoice. Failed invoices do not count until they are paid, and payment retries for the same invoice do not add another cycle. Manually created and one-off invoices do not count. When a maximum commitment is reached, Firmhouse stops the subscription and cancels its Shopify subscription contract when applicable.

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Fixed Term Contract

Set the minimum and maximum commitment to the same period. The customer cannot cancel before that period ends, and the subscription automatically stops afterward.

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Allowing Cancellation Requests During Commitment

If you want to allow customers to request cancellation even while they are still in their minimum commitment period, you can enable the Cancellation Strategy feature. With the “Cancel at the end of the billing period” strategy, customers can start their cancellation process at any time, and the cancellation will be scheduled for the end of their commitment period.

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Cancellation via Self Service Center

The Self Service Center takes any minimum commitment terms into account. If you’re using the built-in Self Service Center, customers will automatically see their commitment status on their dashboard and will be informed when they are eligible for cancellation.

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Viewing a Customer’s Commitment Details

You can view a customer’s current commitment details in the Plan section of the Subscription detail page in your admin portal.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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When does the minimum commitment start?

The minimum commitment period starts once the subscriber is activated, not when they sign up.

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Do changes to plan settings apply to existing subscribers?

No, changes to contract term settings only apply to new subscribers signing up after the change. Existing subscribers keep their original commitment terms.

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Does switching plans affect minimum commitment?

If you manually switch a customer’s plan, their commitment terms won’t change and will continue as they would if you didn’t switch the plan.