Introduction
I'm going to explain how to build a free plan for your Laravel Spark Next application.
I will be using Paddle as the payment gateway, but the steps are almost identical with Stripe.
Best of all? No credit card required for the free plan.
Before we start
Preface
You should know that Laravel Spark is built on top of Laravel Cashier, so know that the process is very similar with both.
Requirements
- Laravel 8 with Spark Next
Laravel Spark installation
Before starting the tutorial, you should have followed the official installation guide.
Laravel Spark plan configuration
Let's imagine that we are building a new application which offers a free plan and a paid plan.
- The "Free" plan will have a limit of 1 project.
- The "Paid" plan will have a limit of 5 projects.
We need to configure both plans in the config/spark.php file, like so:
'plans' => [
[
'name' => 'Free',
'short_description' => 'This is the free plan',
'monthly_id' => 1000,
'features' => [
'1 Project',
],
'options' => [
'projects' => 1,
],
'archived' => true,
],
[
'name' => 'Paid',
'short_description' => 'This is the paid plan',
'monthly_id' => 999990,
'yearly_id' => 999991,
'yearly_incentive' => 'Save 20%!',
'features' => [
'5 Projects',
],
'options' => [
'projects' => 5,
],
'archived' => false,
],
]
As you can see, the limits are actually set in the options array.
It's important that the "Free" plan is set to archived to prevent users from selecting that plan on the billing page.
The "Free" plan has to have a random monthly_id, so the plan can be used internally.
It doesn't need to be a working product ID, nor do you have to create it on Paddle/Stripe.
Modify User model
Now that we have created a "Free" plan, we need to modify the User model to add a getPlan method.
This method will get the current users plan, or the "Free" plan if the user has no active plan.
public function getPlan()
{
$plan = $this->sparkPlan();
if ($plan !== null) {
return $plan;
}
$plan = Spark::plans('user')->firstWhere('name', '=', 'Free');
return $plan;
}
Note: As mentioned in the steps before, you need to add a monthly_id to the "Free" plan, otherwise it will be skipped by the Spark::plans('user') call and will not be found.
The ID can be random, don't worry.
Getting the User's plan
Through your application you can access a user plan and limits like so:
$user = User::find(1);
$plan = $user->getPlan();
$plan->name;
$plan->options['projects'];
End
As you can see, what we actually do is fallback to the "Free" plan if the user has no active plan.
And this plan doesn't actually go through the payment process, so you don't need to ask the users with a credit card.
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Conclusion
Congratulations, today you have learned how to build a free plan in Laravel Spark.
Let me know if the tutorial was useful to you in the comments!
