One-Time Payments

Commet sells a one-time purchase in two ways:

Option	Use it for	How
Lifetime access	Access the customer keeps forever	A price with the `one_time` interval
A period without renewal	A month, a year, or several periods that end on their own	A recurring price with `cancelAtPeriodEnd: true`

A one-time price charges the customer once at checkout and never bills again for the plan base. Use it for lifetime deals or any plan where recurring billing doesn’t apply.

This page covers one-time charges billed as a plan. To charge a customer once with no subscription or plan — a standalone invoice with tax and receipt — use Accept One-Time Payments instead.

One-time plans behave like any other plan — they support add-ons and all consumption models. One-time prices can’t have a trial or an intro offer. The other differences are:

Aspect	Behavior
Billing	Plan base charged once at checkout. Overage billed at each billing cycle.
Cancellation	Not allowed — the subscription stays active permanently
Interval changes	Not allowed — cannot switch from one-time to a recurring interval

Configure in the dashboard

In the dashboard, go to Plans, edit a plan, and add a price with interval One-time (lifetime). You can combine one-time prices with recurring intervals on the same plan — each price has its own interval.

Create a one-time subscription

const subscription = await commet.subscriptions.create({
  customerId: 'user_123',
  planCode: 'pro',
  billingInterval: 'one_time',
})

if (!subscription.checkoutUrl) {
  throw new Error('Commet did not return a checkout URL')
}

redirect(subscription.checkoutUrl)

subscription = commet.subscriptions.create(
    customer_id='user_123',
    plan_code='pro',
    billing_interval='one_time',
)

if not subscription.checkout_url:
    raise RuntimeError('Commet did not return a checkout URL')

redirect(subscription.checkout_url)

planCode := "pro"
billingInterval := "one_time"
subscription, err := client.Subscriptions.Create(ctx, &commet.CreateSubscriptionParams{
    CustomerID:      "user_123",
    PlanCode:        &planCode,
    BillingInterval: &billingInterval,
})
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}
if subscription.CheckoutURL == nil {
    log.Fatal("Commet did not return a checkout URL")
}
http.Redirect(w, r, *subscription.CheckoutURL, http.StatusSeeOther)

CreateSubscriptionParams params = CreateSubscriptionParams.builder()
    .customerId("user_123")
    .planCode("pro")
    .billingInterval("one_time")
    .build();
var subscription = commet.subscriptions().create(params);
if (subscription.checkoutUrl() == null) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("Commet did not return a checkout URL");
}
redirect(subscription.checkoutUrl());

$result = $commet->subscriptions->create(
    customerId: 'user_123',
    planCode: 'pro',
    billingInterval: 'one_time',
);

if ($result->checkoutUrl === null) {
    throw new RuntimeException('Commet did not return a checkout URL');
}
redirect($result->checkoutUrl);

curl -X POST https://commet.co/api/v1/subscriptions \
  -H "x-api-key: $COMMET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "customerId": "user_123",
    "planCode": "pro",
    "billingInterval": "one_time"
  }'

The billingInterval must be one_time and the plan must have a one-time price configured. If the plan’s default price is already one-time, you can omit the billingInterval parameter.

Invoicing

The initial invoice includes the plan base price as a one-time charge. After that, subsequent billing cycles only generate invoices for overage — the plan base is never charged again.

Invoice	What’s included
Initial	`plan_base` (once)
Subsequent cycles	`feature_overage`, `feature_seats`, `addon_base` — only if charges exist

If there’s no overage or additional charges at a billing cycle, no invoice is generated.

Customer portal

In the Customer Portal, one-time subscriptions display the interval as Lifetime. The cancel button is hidden since cancellation is not allowed. Customers can still change plans if the plan belongs to a Plan Group.

Sell a period without renewal

To sell a month, a year, or any period of access that ends on its own, create the subscription on a recurring price with cancelAtPeriodEnd: true. The customer pays once at checkout, and the subscription ends after the paid period without renewing with any payment method.

curl -X POST https://commet.co/api/v1/subscriptions \
  -H "x-api-key: $COMMET_API_KEY" \
  -H "commet-version: 2026-08-27" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"customerId":"user_123","planId":"pln_xxx","cancelAtPeriodEnd":true}'

To cover several periods in that payment, such as 6 months, add prepaidPeriods. Pay in Advance explains how each period is priced.

curl -X POST https://commet.co/api/v1/subscriptions \
  -H "x-api-key: $COMMET_API_KEY" \
  -H "commet-version: 2026-08-27" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"customerId":"user_123","planId":"pln_xxx","prepaidPeriods":6,"cancelAtPeriodEnd":true}'

The cancellation is scheduled from creation: the response already shows cancelAtPeriodEnd: true and cancellation before the customer pays.
The purchase keeps ending even if the customer saves a card through a payment method update link, and the Customer Portal doesn’t offer Keep subscription for it.
Free trials don’t combine with it: customTrialDays above 0 returns 400 and the price’s trial is skipped.
When the purchase ends, Commet emits subscription.canceled.

To make it renew, reverse the scheduled cancellation through the API with POST /v1/subscriptions/{id}/uncancel. If the customer paid with a method Commet can’t charge again, such as OXXO, and has no saved card, the request returns 409 subscription_uncancel_failed.

Quickstart

Learn

Resources

Plugins

One-Time Payments

Configure in the dashboard

Create a one-time subscription

Invoicing

Customer portal

Sell a period without renewal