Clarification Needed: Prorata Billing and “Total Due Today” Calculation

[Tasfin]

Hi Everyone,

I’ve run into a situation with Prorata Billing that is confusing both me and my customers, and I’d appreciate some clarification or guidance.

Here’s my setup:

• Product: Shared Hosting ($14.95/month)

• Prorata Billing: Enabled

• Prorata Date: 1

• Charge Next Month: 0

• Setup Fee: $0.00

On the order form, the Order Summary displays:

Order Summary

Plus CloudShared Hosting

Plus Cloud$14.95 USD

Setup Fees:$0.00 USD

Monthly:$14.95 USD

$29.40 USDTotal Due Today

https://prnt.sc/HC87BycBYwE8

https://prnt.sc/um6mQzTBCEVf

This is unexpected. Based on my configuration, I would have assumed the “Total Due Today” would match the product’s first-month charge (or a prorated portion), i.e., around $14.95, not double that amount.

This creates confusion for customers because the itemized prices don’t add up to the “Total Due Today” they see.

My questions:

1. Is this behavior expected with prorata billing?

2. If yes, is there a way to display prorata billing details more clearly in the order summary, so the customer understands why the amount due today differs from the per-item totals?

3. Ideally, I’d like “Total Due Today” to equal the sum of each item’s displayed amount, or at least include a line that explains the prorated calculation.

Thanks in advance for any advice or workarounds to make this clearer for end-users.

 

[efisher]

First of all, I'm going to assume that when you took the screenshots you did that on the 1st because the first month is a full month.  Second, take a look at the Charge Next Month option.  By specifying '0', I believe that is saying that on the date that it is ordered, also include the following month, regardless of the day ordered.  The idea for this setting is that you don't end up charging for just a few days on a new service.  Since you have the Prorata date set to the 1st, then if this was ordered on the 27th, then you could end up with just 3 or 4 days of service being changed (27th-1st).  For us, we have found a healthy balance is to set the prorata date to the 1st and then set then charge next month to the 20th.  I have spoken with others that think that 15 is a better answer so that you will never get less than half of a month of service on the order.  Your mileage may vary and may want a bigger payment for the first month of service, but for us that means that if they order on the 21st, then we get a full month, plus the last 9 days of the month, otherwise it would just be 9 days.

I hope that helps.

-Eric

[Tasfin]

Thank you