Pausing temporarily stops billing on a customer's subscription or payment plan. It is useful when a customer is not available to be billed for a while, for example while they are traveling, between seasons of your program, or working through a hardship, and you would rather hold their spot than cancel and ask them to purchase again.
You can pause indefinitely and resume manually, or set a date and let Kajabi resume billing automatically.
Pausing from Kajabi is available for subscriptions and payment plans processed through Kajabi Payments or Stripe. If your customer paid through PayPal, you will not see the pause option. Pause a PayPal subscription manually instead.
This article covers pausing a subscription or payment plan yourself. Your customers can also pause their own subscriptions if you enable that, and a pause a customer starts behaves differently. See How this differs from a pause your customer starts.
Choose indefinite or duration pausing
Pause type | What happens | When to use it |
Indefinite | Billing stops until you resume it yourself. | You do not know yet when the customer will be ready to start paying again. |
Duration | Billing stops and resumes automatically on the date you choose. | You and the customer have agreed on a return date. |
A set duration pause saves you from tracking the return date yourself and remembering to resume. You can tell the two apart at a glance: a paused subscription or plan shows a Resuming on badge with the date when it is a set duration pause. A pause with no resume date shown is indefinite.
Pause a subscription or payment plan
You can start a pause from any of these places:
The subscription detail page
The payment plan detail page
Sales > Subscriptions
Sales > Payment Plans
Pause from a customer's profile
Open Contacts from your Dashboard
Select your customer, then Open full profile
Open the Purchases tab
Select the subscription or payment plan you want to pause
Open the More Actions menu (…)
Select Pause Payments
Choose Pause until you manually resume this subscription or Pause until a specific date
If you chose a set period, pick the resume date in the calendar
Confirm to apply the pause
What happens during a pause
A pause you start takes effect immediately. From that point until the pause ends:
Payments that come due are voided. Kajabi does not attempt to charge the customer while the pause is active.
Voided payments do not count toward a payment plan's total. If a customer has a six payment plan and one payment falls inside the pause, they still owe six payments. Only paid installments count, so the plan finishes later rather than for less.
The billing date does not shift. The billing anchor stays where it was, so billing picks up on the customer's normal schedule when the pause ends.
There are no catch-up charges. Nothing is collected retroactively for the paused period. Billing simply resumes.
Note: If there is a past due invoice at the time you pause, pausing does not stop that payment from being retried. Pausing only stops future payments that would come due after the pause begins.
Tip: If a customer wants to skip a single charge and keep their schedule otherwise, updating the billing date moves the next charge without voiding it. Pausing voids the payments inside the pause window. Pick based on whether you want to collect that payment later or not at all.
Resume or change a pause
A paused subscription or payment plan gives you two options: resume it now, or change when it resumes.
Resume now
Open the paused subscription or payment plan
Open the More Actions menu (…)
Click Resume Payments
Confirm to resume
Billing restarts on the customer's normal schedule. This works for both indefinite and set duration pauses, so you can always end a pause early.
Change the pause duration
If a customer needs more or less time, you do not have to resume and pause again.
Open the paused subscription or payment plan
Open the More Actions menu (…)
Click Resume Payments
In the modal, click Modify Pause Duration
Adjust the resume date, or switch between indefinite and a set duration
Confirm to save
The modal opens with the current pause settings already selected, so you only need to change what is different.
How this differs from a pause your customer starts
If you turn on customer self-pause, your customers can pause their own subscriptions from their Billing page. The two mechanisms are not interchangeable, and the differences matter when you are looking at a paused subscription and trying to work out what will happen next.
A pause you start | A pause your customer starts | |
When it takes effect | Immediately | At the end of the customer's current billing cycle |
Applies to | Subscriptions and payment plans | Subscriptions only |
Length | Any date you choose, or indefinite | Counted in billing intervals, up to a maximum you set |
Product access | Your choice on payment plans, using Revoke access | Always ends when the pause begins |
Ending it early | You resume from the More Actions menu | The customer resumes from their Billing page, and is charged immediately |
The effect on your revenue is the same either way: payments inside the pause are voided and never collected.
See Let customers pause their own subscriptions to turn it on and set limits.
Notifications
When you pause a subscription or payment plan, the email address on your account receives a notification confirming the pause. For a set duration pause, that email includes the resume date and whether product access was revoked.
Your customer receives the User Paused Subscription email when the pause begins and the User Resumed Subscription email when billing restarts. For a set-duration pause, these show the resume date. You can customize both templates in your automated email notification settings.
Kajabi does not send your customer a reminder before an automatic resume.
A pause your customer starts sends different emails. See Let customers pause their own subscriptions.
Where paused subscriptions and plans appear
On the subscription or payment plan detail page, a set duration pause shows a badge with the resume date, and the upcoming payment date accounts for the pause. An indefinite pause shows the standard paused status with no resume date.
Paused subscriptions and plans also appear with a Paused status in your Sales > Subscriptions and Sales > Payment Plans tables, and in the Subscription status by offer and Payment plan status by offer reports.
Pause a PayPal subscription manually
PayPal subscriptions cannot be paused from Kajabi. Suspend the subscription in PayPal, then revoke product access in Kajabi if you want to remove access during the pause.
Suspend the subscription in PayPal
Log into your PayPal Business or Premier account
Click Activity in the top menu
Open the All transactions dropdown menu
Select Subscription payments
Locate the subscription and click the subscription name
Click Suspend
Confirm and click Suspend Profile
Suspend and reactivate a subscription in PayPal has PayPal's full instructions.
Revoke product access in Kajabi
Skip this if you want the customer to keep access while billing is suspended.
Open Contacts from your Dashboard
Select your customer, then Open full profile
Open the Purchases tab
Select the offer, then click Revoke all products
Confirm by clicking Yes, revoke access
Reactivate a PayPal subscription
Log into your PayPal Business or Premier account
Click Activity in the top menu
Open the All transactions dropdown menu
Select Subscription payments
Locate the subscription and click the subscription name
Click Reactivate
Confirm and click Reactivate Profile
Then return to the customer's profile in Kajabi and click Resume all products to restore product access.
Tip: Use Tags to keep track of customers you have paused in PayPal, so you can find them again when it is time to reactivate.
Frequently asked questions
Does pausing cancel the subscription?
No. The subscription or payment plan stays in place and billing restarts when the pause ends. Pausing is the alternative to cancelling for a customer you expect to keep.
Will my customer owe less on a paused payment plan?
No. Payments voided during a pause do not count toward the plan, so the customer still owes the full number of payments. The plan finishes later than originally scheduled.
Can I pause a subscription processed through PayPal?
Not from Kajabi. Suspend it in PayPal instead.
What happens if I need to extend a pause?
Use Modify Pause Duration to move the resume date. You do not need to resume and pause again.
Why is a subscription paused when I did not pause it?
If you have turned on customer self-pause, your customers can pause their own subscriptions. A pause a customer starts does not begin immediately; it begins at the end of their current billing cycle. See Let customers pause their own subscriptions.
Can I pause a payment plan on my customer's behalf if they cannot do it themselves?
Yes. Payment plans can only be paused by you. Customer self-pause applies to subscriptions only, so a customer with a payment plan will need to ask you.