Recurring Application Charges

The Shopify billing API lets you create a recurring charge on a shop owner’s account, letting them pay you for using your application. There are pros and cons to using the Shopify billing API versus a service like Stripe, BrainTree or PayPal.

I’ve put together a small guide called Shopify Billing 101: A Developer’s Guide To Getting Paid For Your Apps, and you can get for free by joining the mailing list for Mastering Shopify Development (a training course for building Shopify apps with C# and ASP.NET).

Just head over here to get your free guide to the Shopify billing API.

Note that recurring charges are activated immediately after a user accepts them. At one time it was necessary to activate the charge after it was accepted, but Shopify has changed this behavior and it’s no longer required or possible.

Create a recurring charge

var service = new RecurringChargeService(myShopifyUrl, shopAccessToken);
var charge = new RecurringCharge()
{
    Name = "Lorem Ipsum Plan",
    Price = 12.34,
    Test = true, //Marks this charge as a test, meaning it won't charge the shop owner.
    TrialDays = 21
}

charge = await service.CreateAsync(charge);

Retrieve a recurring charge

var service = new RecurringChargeService(myShopifyUrl, shopAccessToken);

var charge = await service.GetAsync(chargeId);

Listing recurring charges

var service = new RecurringChargeService(myShopifyUrl, shopAccessToken);

IEnumerable<RecurringCharge> charges = await service.ListAsync();

Deleting a charge

Charges cannot be deleted unless they’ve been activated. Shopify automatically deletes pending charges after 48 hours pass without activation.

await service.DeleteAsync(chargeId);