Recurring & Subscription invoices
Use recurring invoices when you bill the same client on a schedule — monthly retainer, yearly hosting, quarterly maintenance, etc. Easy Invoice Pro generates each new invoice automatically via WordPress cron and (optionally) emails it to the client.
Recurring vs Subscription — what's the difference?
| Feature | Recurring | Subscription |
|---|---|---|
| Triggers | New invoice on a schedule | New invoice on a schedule, with trial and cycle cap |
| Best for | "Send me the bill, I'll pay it" | "Bill me and just charge my card" |
| Charges the card on file | Yes, when enabled (see Card on file) | Yes, when enabled — the same mechanism |
| Requires gateway support | No — works with all gateways | Card on file needs Stripe; otherwise works with all gateways |
| Trial period | No | Yes |
| Maximum cycles | Yes (optional cap) | Yes (optional cap) |
| Client-side review | No — auto-generated | Optional — client can edit amount each cycle |
Enable each module independently:
- Recurring → Easy Invoice → Settings → Invoice → Enable Recurring Invoices
- Subscription → set in the per-invoice subscription section (requires Pro license tier that includes it)
1. Enable the engine
Open Easy Invoice → Settings → Invoice and tick Enable Recurring Invoices. Save.
This unlocks the Recurring section inside each invoice's builder.
2. Make any invoice recurring
- Build a normal invoice (see Invoices walkthrough).
- Inside the builder, find the Recurring section.
- Tick Enable Recurring.
- Configure:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Frequency | day / month / year |
| Interval | Number of frequency units — e.g. Frequency=month, Interval=3 ⇒ every 3 months (quarterly). |
| Start Date | First generation date. Defaults to today. |
| End Date / Max Cycles | (Optional) Stop after N invoices or a specific date. |
| Auto-send to client | Email each new generated invoice automatically. |
| Status | active / paused / cancelled (set later from the Recurring list). |
- Publish the invoice. From now on, the cron generates new child invoices on the schedule.
3. The Recurring dashboard
Open Easy Invoice → All Invoices and filter by Recurring (a star icon in the title indicates parent invoices). You can:
- Pause — stop generation until you resume
- Resume — restart
- Cancel — stop permanently
- Manual trigger — generate the next child invoice now (useful for testing)
Each parent invoice keeps a history of every child invoice it has created.
4. Subscription invoices
Same idea as Recurring but with auto-charging the client's card. Setup:
Open Easy Invoice → Settings → Invoice → Subscription Invoices (visible only with a compatible Pro license tier and after enabling subscriptions globally).
On the invoice builder, find the Subscription section. Configure:
- Frequency + Interval
- Trial enabled + Trial days + Trial amount (e.g. $0 for 14 days)
- Variable amount — let the client review and edit each cycle's amount before charge
- Maximum cycles — stop after N successful charges
Each cycle generates a full invoice from the parent — same lines, client, tax and currency — with a fresh number. A trial cycle bills the trial amount as a single line. Turn on Card on file (below) to have each cycle charged automatically.
Why two engines instead of one? Recurring is the plain schedule. Subscription adds a trial period, a client-review step and a cycle cap on top of it. Both hand each generated invoice to the same card-on-file charge, so the choice is about the billing shape, not about how the money is collected.
Card on file — automatic charging PRO 2.3+
Recurring and Subscription invoices generate on schedule; on their own they still wait for the client to click Pay. With a card on file, the cycle is charged the moment it is generated.
How a card gets on file. On the Stripe payment form the client sees an unticked box — keep this card for future invoices — that says exactly what will happen. Only if they tick it, and the payment succeeds, is the card kept — at Stripe, not on your site. Easy Invoice stores Stripe's customer and payment-method identifiers plus the brand, last four digits and expiry for display; never the card number.
Turn it on. Settings → Invoice → Charge recurring invoices to the card on file automatically. Off by default: nothing is ever charged without a click until you switch this on.
What happens on each cycle
| Outcome | What the client sees | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| Charged | Invoice arrives already Paid | Payment record with the Stripe id |
| Bank requires the cardholder (3-D Secure) | Email asking them to pay in person | Invoice stays open; card flagged needs attention |
| Card declined | Same email | Same; the card is not retried |
| No card on file | Normal invoice email | Logged as skipped |
A flagged card is cleared automatically the next time the client pays successfully. The client's record (All Clients → View) shows the card on file with a Remove control, and Stripe's own dashboard can revoke it at any time.
Stripe is the only gateway that supports card on file. Sites without a Stripe webhook configured still work: the card is saved from the payment confirmation itself.
5. Cron — make sure it runs
Recurring + Subscription rely on WordPress cron firing at least once per day. WordPress runs cron on each page hit by default, which is unreliable on low-traffic sites.
For reliability:
- In
wp-config.phpadd:define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true); - Add a real server cron job hitting
https://yoursite.com/wp-cron.phpevery 15 minutes:*/15 * * * * curl -s https://yoursite.com/wp-cron.php > /dev/null
Otherwise, recurring invoices may generate hours or days late.
6. Tips for new users
- Test with a +1 day Interval first. Make a fake recurring invoice with Frequency=day, Interval=1, then check tomorrow that a new child invoice was created.
- Auto-send is powerful — and risky. Don't enable auto-send until you've manually triggered at least one child invoice and confirmed it looks right.
- Pause before cancelling. Cancelling is permanent. Pausing keeps history and lets you resume next month.
Combining with other Pro features
| Combined with | Effect |
|---|---|
| Partial payments | Each generated invoice supports installments. |
| Deposit invoices | Each cycle creates a deposit + balance pair. |
| Payment reminders | Reminders apply to every generated child. |
| Client portal | Clients see all generated invoices in one place. |