Stripe coupon without requiring a credit card?

Question

I'm working with a client that wants to create 100% off a subscription coupon codes. They don't want users to have to enter a credit card if they have one of these coupon codes. Is this possible in Stripe?

I'm using Laravel Spark and it appears that Stripe responds saying payment details are missing when a user tries to enter a coupon without CC information.

I know I can create a workaround e.g create non stripe coupons and bypass Stripe and sign a user up to a plan.

If I can get away without having to get an additional budget to build a second coupon code system that would be great!

Cheers

Answer 1

Stripe's API itself does support creating subscriptions for customers without payment sources, as long as there is nothing to bill immediately (e.g. because of a 100% off coupon, a trial period, or invoice items with negative values).

I'm not familiar with Laravel Spark so I don't know if the framework supports this though. I took a quick glance at their docs here and there is a "No Credit Card Up Front" paragraph, but it appears to only apply to trial periods and not to 100% off coupons.

One possible workaround would be to manage those 100% off "coupons" entirely on your end, i.e. you would not use Stripe's coupons and instead create subscriptions with trial periods.