Learn how to set up products and prices, customize pricing based on your business needs, and manage product offerings in Solidgate.
What are products and prices?
Products define what your business offers, which can be goods or services, and how they are charged. There are two types of products:
- One-time product
A one-time product is purchased and paid for once without any ongoing charges. Once the transaction is completed, the product is delivered to the customer, and no further payments are required. These products are ideal for goods or services that do not need to be renewed or repeated. - Recurring product
A recurring product is associated with an ongoing payment schedule, a subscription. Customers are billed regularly at specified intervals for continued access to the product or service. This type of product is suitable for services, memberships, or any offering where ongoing use or access is required.
Each product gets a unique ID, known as product_id, which serves as the identifier for the product and is used in operations such as:
- One-time sales: Can be used for upsells or additional service sales. You can create orders for one-time products and provide access once paid. For one-time sales, use the One-time product API request model.
- Subscriptions: Available for recurring products only. Once a subscription is paid and active, you can provide user access to the product. For subscriptions, switch to the Subscription API request model.
Additionally, you can assign a tax category to each product to ensure proper tax handling. The tax category determines the appropriate tax rate based on the product type and location. By specifying the tax category when creating the product, you allow the tax calculation process and ensure the correct tax is applied during purchases, enhancing compliance with varying tax laws in multiple regions.
Prices determine the cost of products, based on different currencies and locations. Solidgate’s pricing functionality allows merchants to serve a global customer base by offering products in multiple currencies. Merchants can assign different currencies to product prices in specific regions, simplifying the purchasing process in the currency preferred by customers.
For multi-currency products, it is important to include geo_country and currency parameters.
The main goal of this pricing functionality is to help merchants reach a global audience by offering products in multiple currencies, improving the shopping experience, and making purchases easier for customers worldwide.
Manage product
You can handle the product details via API or HUB. For example, you might create a new product for your customers or edit the existing one to make sure it has relevant settings.
Create product
Creating a product involves specifying key details, such as the product name, status, type, description, and others. The process can be carried out through the API or HUB, with each offering a way to define the product’s essential settings.
Once created, the response includes the product unique identifier, creation date, and other relevant information.
To create a product and set its price
- Go to Billing > Products.
- Click on + Create product.
- Complete the product settings by specifying:
- Product type (one-time or recurring)
- Product status and name
- Description
- Optionally, add a public description to appear on a customer's bank statement
- Default price
- Settle interval
- Configure taxes by specifying:
- Tax profile and tax type
- Tax category for the US tax calculations
- Click on Create product to save your new product.
If you create a recurring product, set billing details, including price, currency, and billing period. You can also define Guide
Solidgate provides a feature of smart retrying failed subscription payments, which helps our merchants to recover revenue and decrease the involuntary churn rate of the customers. retry strategy for failed payments, expiration rules, and trial options if applicable.
Additionally, the Expired subscription setting defines the maximum number of billing periods for a subscription. When this limit is reached, the subscription is automatically cancelled with the error code Guide
The subscription was created for a limited time and reached its expiration date. 8.08 Subscription has expired .
Solidgate processes recurring payments in two steps auth + settle , and there are specific statuses that indicate the outcome:
- auth_ok - funds are successfully reserved
- auth_failed - reservation of the funds failed
- settle_ok - funds are successfully settled
- void_ok - operation of fund reservation is voided
Customers often request refunds within the first week after payment. Temporarily holding funds in the cardholder’s account helps prevent chargebacks by making transactions non-disputable. You can adjust the time between authorization and settlement to delay fund transfer, keeping the funds in the customer’s account for a set period.
And if the customer is dissatisfied with the product or service, they have two options:
- contact their issuing bank to request an unfreeze of funds, after which the funds are transferred to merchant support
- contact the merchant support team to initiate a refund ( void ) for the transaction
Edit product
Just as you create products, you can also edit them through the API or HUB.
To edit a product and its price
- Go to Billing > Products.
- Find the needed product and click on it.
- On the product details page, click on Edit.
- Once you finish editing, click on Save changes.
The ability to edit a product depends on the product type and whether a product with a recurring type has an active subscription. For one-time products and recurring products without an active subscription, all relevant fields, except for type, can be updated the same way as when you create it. However, for products with one or more active subscriptions, you can only make changes to the following fields:
- Product name
- Product description and its public description
- Settle interval, which defines the time between settlement periods
- Retry strategy
- Tax profile, meaning you can add a new profile and with included type only
- Tax category, meaning you can only add a tax category once if no category is specified
- Currencies and locations, meaning you can only add new ones
Certain fields, such as status, price, billing period, and term length, cannot be updated for products with an active subscription. Additionally, you cannot add or remove a trial.
Retrieve product details
Get a product by id API endpoint is used to obtain a single existing product by its identifier. The response returns product information that depends on the product type, including product ID, name, status, and more.
Get product list API endpoint allows you to retrieve products by applying filters such as product ID, type, or status. Pagination is supported to manage the result sets. With the provided query parameters, you can specify the desired filters and control the number of items to return.
Archive product
Archived products are not permanently deleted. Instead, they become historical data that you can easily find, view, and, if necessary, duplicate to create a new offer.
To archive a product
- Go to Billing > Products.
- Find the product you need to archive.
- Click on the product to go to the product details page.
- In the top-right corner, click on the Archive️ button.
- Click on Confirm to save changes.
Once you archive a product, it will be assigned the Archived️ status, which can be used for filtering purposes.
Manage price
Just like with products, you can regulate the product price via the Solidgate HUB or via the Solidgate API . For instance, you might need to specify different currencies for customers from various regions or update the product price by editing it.
Moreover, you can set the trial price to any desired amount in the smallest currency unit. For example, if you want to offer the recurring product for less than $1 during the trial period, you can set the price to $0.99 or any other preferred amount. This flexibility empowers you to create attractive trial offers and promotions, potentially increasing customer acquisition and engagement.
In some cases, customers may be charged an amount different from the initially expected price. Being aware of factors affecting your product pricing is crucial for managing customer expectations and resolving pricing queries more effectively. There are two main situations when the amount charged can differ from the product price:
- Currency differences
The default price of a product may differ from the price set for specific product currencies. This means customers in different countries could be charged varying amounts due to currency conversion rates and regional pricing strategies. - Product change
If the product details are changed after the initial subscription setup, the customer may be charged based on the new product configuration. To verify this, view the Event log in the Account settings. Check if there was a Change product event and compare the purchase dates with the dates of the product change.
Create price
Once you add the price, you get a response containing the price identifier, creation and update timestamps, default status, price values, currency, and country. In case of any issue, the response contains the corresponding error code.
To create a price with new currency
- Go to Billing > Products.
- Find the needed product and click on it.
- On the product details page, click on + Add price️ and specify:
- Currency
- Amount
- Location
- Click on Save changes to confirm.
Edit price
Upon successful update, you receive a response containing the updated price identifier, creation and update timestamps, default status, price values, currency, and country. In case of any issue, the response contains the corresponding error code.
To edit the product price
- Go to Billing > Products.
- Find the needed product and click on it.
- In the Product section, click on Edit.
- Find the Default price and change it.
- Click on Save changes to confirm.
The ability to edit an existing product and price in Solidgate depends on the product type and whether the price is associated with the product subscription.
If the price does not have any subscriptions, you have the flexibility to modify all fields associated with it. This means you can make changes to all parameters just like when you initially created it.
However, if the price has one or more subscriptions, currently, you cannot modify any fields.
Retrieve price details
Upon a successful request, the API responds with a JSON object containing an array of product data and pagination information.