Users selling subscriptions in the US are impacted by FTC and California law changes on subscription cancellations. Stripe Billing provides a Manage Subscription email link option in Billing Settings so users can effectively and compliantly manage subscription cancellations.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a final subscription rule ("the Final Rule") in October 2024 concerning the use of negative options, specifically related to cancellation practices for subscription businesses. Negative options refer to situations where customers are automatically enrolled in a service or subscription unless they explicitly opt out or cancel.
In September 2024, California laws mandated that businesses make subscription cancellation as easy as enrollment for consumers. A prominent "click to cancel" button allowing the user to cancel via the same methods used as enrollment, such as phone or email, must be included.
Effective from July 14, 2025, the FTC mandates that subscription businesses should implement a self-serve cancellation flow, allowing customers to easily cancel their subscriptions.
To comply with FTC and California laws, Stripe Billing will implement a "near one-click cancellation" process, simplifying how customers manage their subscriptions directly through billing emails and the Customer Portal.
To achieve this, we are introducing new global settings for Email Notifications and Customer Management within the Billing settings, allowing all email settings to be managed in one place.
Users can select the billing emails they wish to enable for their customers and configure redirection settings, including:
Stripe Billing has the option to add a Manage Subscription link within certain billing emails using Billing Settings. This link redirects customers to a Stripe-hosted Customer Portal or your own subscription management page, ensuring a compliant cancellation experience per the new regulatory requirements.
You must enable Subscription Management to include links in your billing emails to avoid compliance risks.
Yes, you can configure the Manage Subscription link to redirect to a Stripe-hosted Customer Portal or your own custom URL for subscription management. You can't mix and match Stripe-hosted and your custom URL for different emails. Once you configure:
Yes, billing emails for existing subscriptions will display Manage Subscription links once Subscription Management is configured in Billing Settings.
To maintain backward compatibility, global settings within Billing Settings allows you to keep your existing configurations for payment method updates. However, making any new changes requires transitioning to the new global settings.
These changes are expected in early May 2025, ahead of the FTC compliance deadline on July 14, 2025 and California law compliance deadline on July 1, 2025.