One customer created two SaaS subscriptions: choose what to keep

Two subscriptions with the same email address can be a mistake or a valid purchase for different workspaces. Ask the customer which business, team and service each subscription covers. Compare creation times, account identifiers, product entitlements and the accepted terms. Do not cancel the older record automatically; it may hold the production workspace and the customer's usable history.

Check whether separate employees purchased independently or whether a checkout retry created another contract. Record the customer's authorized decision about which subscription should continue. If different legal entities paid, obtain the relevant approvals before moving balances or service between them. A shared email domain does not establish that one entity may use the other's credit.

List all invoices, successful payments, open balances and pending adjustments for both subscriptions. Compare their service periods to locate any overlapping charge. Mark each payment method and transaction reference so the refund can be traced to the actual receipt. Include a manual payment or support credit that may already have resolved part of the duplicate charge.

A hypothetical customer might have paid $300 on each subscription but already received a $100 credit on one. The unresolved commercial amount must be calculated from the approved correction and the treatment of that credit, not from a quick refund of every visible payment. Have a second reviewer check any case with several refunds or changes across billing periods.

Review the cancellation options against the customer's agreed resolution. Stripe distinguishes immediate cancellation, end-of-period cancellation and final invoice handling. Pending charges can require separate attention. Confirm the resulting invoice and credit state after the unwanted subscription is canceled instead of assuming cancellation has settled every financial item.

Coordinate product access before changing either record. If entitlements attach to the subscription being removed, the systems owner may need a controlled transfer to the retained account. Preserve the customer's documents and approved access. Give the customer the retained subscription reference and next renewal amount so future messages can be matched to the correct record.

Before canceling either record, identify which subscription is connected to the customer's active workspace, negotiated terms, payment history and access rules. The older record is not automatically the right one to keep. A later subscription may contain an approved amendment, while the earlier one may still hold invoices that must remain available for reconciliation.

Write a retention decision linking both identifiers and explaining where the continuing service will live. Have the product owner verify that the change preserves the intended access and data. Finance should then confirm the retained price, quantity and renewal date against the customer's agreement. This prevents a correct refund from being followed by an incorrect plan or an avoidable interruption.

Stripe offers controls that can redirect existing subscribers to manage an existing subscription instead of creating another one. Evaluate whether such a control fits the business model; a company selling multiple legitimate workspaces needs a more specific rule than one subscription per email. Use stable account identity and the actual purchase entitlement when designing the check.

Reproduce the duplicate purchase path in a test environment and verify the intended result for both an existing subscriber and a legitimate second workspace. Finance should then reconcile the retained and canceled records to the ledger, including every approved adjustment. Close the support case with the final invoice statement and confirmation that the next renewal will occur only for the service the customer chose to keep.