Billing Cycle

A billing cycle is the recurring interval over which a subscription is invoiced and charged — monthly, yearly, weekly, or any other cadence its price defines. Each cycle produces one invoice and one payment attempt, and the pattern repeats until the subscription is canceled.

How a billing cycle works

Two things define the cycle: the interval (from the subscription's price, e.g. month or year) and the anchor — the moment Stripe uses to line up every future period. If a customer subscribes on the 5th of the month, their anchor is the 5th, so they're billed on the 5th every month going forward.

• Period start and end — Stripe tracks current_period_start and current_period_end on the subscription; the invoice for a period is generated at its start.
• Billing anchor — you can set a fixed anchor date so, for example, every customer bills on the 1st regardless of when they signed up.
• Trials shift the first cycle — a trial period delays the first paid period until the trial ends.

What resets each cycle

• Recurring charges — the plan price is re-billed at the start of each period.
• Metered usage — usage-based billing totals reset to zero and are invoiced for the period that just closed.
• Included allotments — any per-period entitlements refresh.

Why it matters

The billing cycle is the heartbeat of recurring revenue: it determines when cash arrives, when MRR is realized, and when a failed charge will surface. Changing a plan mid-cycle triggers proration so the customer only pays for what they used. Aligning cycles across customers (for example, all billing on the 1st) makes revenue easier to forecast and reconcile.