Understand Billing Dates
The "Next Invoice" date in a user's account isn't always processed instantly. Our system relies on scheduled payment scripts that run at specific times daily to handle payments.
📝 NOTE: The invoice date and time specified simply indicate when the invoice is added to the payment script's queue for processing.
Immediate Payment
When users purchase one-time content or bundles (TVOD), the payment is processed immediately, upon completion of the checkout flow.
Recurring Payment
For subscription charges (SVOD), our payment scripts run twice per day at 9 AM and 8 PM EST. To keep everything fair to your customer, we look at the exact time set for their next charge date and roll it into the next time the script runs.
Example scenario
If a user's next payment is scheduled for today at 10 PM EST, their payment won't be processed until 9 AM EST the next day.
This is because their billing date fell after the 8 PM payment script ran, so the invoice was queued for the subsequent run.
ℹ️ INFO: This ensures your customers get their full trial periods and are not billed before their full subscription cycle has been completed, which is a requirement of payment processors.
Billing Cycles
For monthly plans, the renewal date typically falls on the same date each month. Our system automatically adjusts for months with different numbers of days to ensure fair billing.
Reattempt Schedule
When an On Hold user, whose invoice is Unpaid, updates their payment details, the system may sometimes try to capture the payment immediately, but in most cases, it follows the schedule of the payment scripts.
In-app Subscriptions
For in-app subscriptions, all charges are handled solely by the app marketplaces (App Store, Google Playstore, etc.), not Uscreen.
Unlike subscriptions purchased directly through the website, where Uscreen manages the billing process with scheduled payment scripts, in-app purchases are entirely managed by the respective app stores.
📝 NOTE: While billing details for an in-app purchase might be visible on the website, the app store controls the actual billing process and its schedule.