Members with more than one subscription

Sometimes one reader ends up paying for two subscriptions at once. When that happens, Members shows a yellow notice at the top of the list:

It’s worth fixing quickly: those readers are being charged twice for the same access, and double charges are a common reason for refund requests and disputes.

What counts as a duplicate

A member is counted when their email address is linked to two or more Stripe customers that each have an active subscription that isn’t already set to cancel. A member with one subscription that’s due to end, plus a new one, isn’t counted.

How it happens

Your site refuses a second checkout from a member who already pays, so duplicates are rare. They usually come from outside that check:

• The reader started two checkouts at almost the same time, for example in two tabs or on two devices, and completed both.
• Someone created a subscription for them by hand in your Stripe dashboard.
• A member import linked a Stripe customer to someone who already had a different one with its own subscription.

1. Find the members

1. 1Open Members.
2. 2In the notice, select View members. The list now shows only the members with more than one active subscription, and the notice stays while you’re looking at them.
3. 3Select a member to open their profile. Their subscriptions are listed one under another, each with its tier, price and start date.

2. Keep one subscription, cancel the other

1. 1Decide which to keep. Usually that’s the older one, or the one on the tier and price the reader meant to choose. If in doubt, ask the reader.
2. 2On the subscription you’re not keeping, open the … menu and select Cancel subscription. It stops renewing and ends at the close of the period already paid for; the member keeps access through the subscription you kept.
3. 3To refund the duplicate payment, select View Stripe subscription from the same menu and refund the latest payment in Stripe. Refunding doesn’t cancel anything on its own, so do both.
4. 4If you’d rather end the duplicate today instead of at the end of its period, cancel it immediately in Stripe instead.

Once a duplicate is set to cancel it no longer counts, so the member drops off the list and the notice’s number goes down.

Dismissing the notice

Select × on the notice to hide it. It’s hidden only for you, and it comes back if the number of affected members goes up. Hiding it doesn’t fix anything for the readers being charged twice.

Good to know

• The notice only appears on a site with Stripe connected, on the full members list (not while you’re searching or using another filter).
• Gift subscriptions and complimentary access aren’t Stripe subscriptions, so they never count as duplicates.
• If the same person has two different email addresses, they appear as two members and aren’t flagged. Check by name if a reader says they’re paying twice.
• A reader can see what they pay for, and get receipts, under Billing info & receipts in their account. See payment methods.