Contracts

Orb now empowers teams working with enterprise clients to create bespoke contracts in just a few clicks. Streamline your path to revenue with flexible, native contract modeling that reflects how your customers actually buy.

Contracts are ideal for subscriptions that don’t fit into your standard plan templates and require offering more versatility for one-off or highly customized agreements.

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Creating a contract

A contract can be created from either the Orb UI or API

In the UI, navigate to the subscription creation page for a customer. Choose the contract option to build your subscription.

Create a contract with new price configurations, or use your price book to include existing prices that can then be overridden.

In the Orb API, create a contract via subscription creation.

{
    "customer_id": "customer_id",
    "name": "ACME EMEA Expansion Contract FY25",
    "currency": "EUR",    
    "start_date": "2025-01-01",
    "end_date": "2027-01-01",
    "net_terms": 0,
    "add_prices": [
        {
            "start_date": "2025-01-15",
            "end_date": "2026-01-01",
            "price": { ... }
        },
        {
            "start_date": "2026-01-01",
            "price": { ... }
        }
    ],
}

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Choosing a subscription creation approach

Many business end up using plan-derived subscriptions and contracts simultaneously. A subscription can be created from a plan template and a contract can be templatized into a plan.

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Create a subscription from a plan template

Subscriptions generated from plan templates are suited for businesses with an established RevOps strategy where product experiences and revenue streams are predictable. They function well for when you have clear customer segmentation and standarized enterprise terms. Additionally, executing a price change via plan versions can be a safer way to release features to customer subscriptions that share the same plan.

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Create a subscription as a contract

Consider building a subscription from scratch when your product is highly customizable, moving upmarket to new customer segments, or expanding your product lines. Contracts are ideal for experimentation and trying to understand what the market might bear outside of your existing plan configurations.

As a result, these contracts are independent of each other and have no shared lineage. This means that it not possible to use subscription mutations that are plan based such as scheduling a plan change or migrating to a different plan version

For additional guidance on when to create a subscription via a contract or plan template, reach out to your Orb representative.

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FAQ

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How do contracts differ from my existing plan subscriptions?

Contracts are subscriptions that do not have a plan linkage. These means you can add price intervals directly to the subscription without needing a plan intermediary.

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Can I run any plan-related mutations on a contract?

Since the contract has no plan linkage, mutations such as scheduling a plan change or migrating a subscription to a different version of a plan are not possible operations.

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Can I amend my contract duration or terms after it has been created?

Contracts are often backed by signed agreements with strict terms. Orb allows for a contract can be terminated early but does not permit changing the contract duration. Terms can be modified by adding or editing the subscription price intervals.

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Can I renew my contract?

Currently, a contract cannot be renewed. Create a new contract to represent the renewal terms.