Stripe - adding new customers to an existing plan? - php

Question

I have a simple form that registers users. The form also uses Stripe to process payments. Stripe's API is super clean but for some reason I can't seem to figure this out. Please tell me if i'm doing something wrong here.
Right now I'm in a test account with Stripe, but every time I register a user in stripe it keeps creating a new plan. I know in my code below I have "Stripe\Plan::create" that's because I don't know how to add a new customer to an existing plan. Is this normal the way I'm doing this currently?
In the screenshot below you will see that it will create a new plan for that customer and assign them to it. Is it possible to just keep adding new customers to an existing plan?
// Include configuration file
require_once 'stripe/config.php';
// Include Stripe PHP library
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
$payment_id = $statusMsg = $api_error = '';
$ordStatus = 'error';
// Check whether stripe token is not empty
if(!empty($_POST['stripeToken'])){
// Retrieve stripe token, card and user info from the submitted form data
$token = $_POST['stripeToken'];
$users_email = $_POST['email'];
$first_name = $_POST['first_name'];
$last_name = $_POST['last_name'];
$full_name = $first_name.' '.$last_name;
// Set API key
\Stripe\Stripe::setApiKey(STRIPE_API_KEY);
// Add customer to stripe
$customer = \Stripe\Customer::create(array(
'email' => $users_email,
'name' => $full_name,
'source' => $token
));
// Create a plan
try {
$plan = \Stripe\Plan::create([
'amount' => 3000,
'currency' => 'usd',
'interval' => 'month',
// 'product' => ['name' => 'Standard Plan'],
'product' => 'prod_ktItFVvqgr4edf',
]);
}catch(Exception $e) {
$api_error = $e->getMessage();
}
if(empty($api_error) && $plan){
// Creates a new subscription
try {
$subscription = \Stripe\Subscription::create(array(
"customer" => $customer->id,
"items" => array(
array(
"plan" => $plan->id,
),
),
));
}catch(Exception $e) {
$api_error = $e->getMessage();
}
if(empty($api_error) && $subscription){
// Retrieve subscription data
$subsData = $subscription->jsonSerialize();
// Check whether the subscription activation is successful
if($subsData['status'] == 'active'){
// Subscription info
$subscrID = $subsData['id'];
$custID = $subsData['customer'];
$planID = $subsData['plan']['id'];
$created = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", $subsData['created']);
$status = $subsData['status'];
// Insert into database
// Insert into database
}else{
$statusMsg = "Subscription activation failed!";
}
}else{
$statusMsg = "Subscription creation failed! ".$api_error;
}
}else{
$statusMsg = "Plan creation failed! ".$api_error;
}
}else{
$statusMsg = "Error on form submission, please try again.";
}

Answer 1

To create a subscription with an existing plan, simply pass in that older plan's ID when creating the subscription instead of creating a new plan for each customer. In your // Create a plan block, either retrieve an existing plan and use that to create the subscription or create a new plan if needed. Or better yet, store the plan ID's in your own database for easier retrieval.