Pax8 Subscriptions

Pax8 Subscription Lifecycle Management

Overview

Subscriptions in Pax8 represent active cloud product licenses assigned to a client company. When an order is placed and provisioned, it creates a subscription. Subscriptions are the core ongoing entity that MSPs manage -- adjusting seat counts as clients hire or leave, upgrading plans, or cancelling when a product is no longer needed. Every subscription is tied to a company and a product, with a quantity (seat count), billing term, and status.

Anti-triggers

• Licences bought through Sherweb — the other CSP marketplace in this marketplace. Same concepts, different account, no shared IDs; use sherweb-subscriptions. A client's licences may sit in either, or split across both, so establish which distributor holds the product before reasoning about seat counts.
• A licence assigned to a named user — Pax8 tracks what the MSP purchased; who it is assigned to lives in the tenant. Use m365-licensing or cipp-licenses. Purchased seats and assigned seats legitimately differ, and reconciling them is a cross-tool comparison.
• Changing a seat count — no tool here does it. This surface is read-only; quantity changes and cancellations happen in the Pax8 portal. See pax8-api-patterns for the full read-only scope.
• The purchase event rather than the resulting licence — use pax8-orders; an order is the transaction, a subscription is what it created.

MCP Tools

Available Tools

List Subscriptions

Call pax8-list-subscriptions with optional parameters:

• Filter by company: Set companyId to a company UUID
• Filter by status: Set status to one of the allowed values (see below)
• Filter by billing term: Set billingTerm to monthly, annual, two-year, three-year, one-time, trial, or activation
• Filter by product: Set productId to a product UUID
• Paginate: Set page (0-based) and size (up to 200)

Example: List all active subscriptions for a company:

• pax8-list-subscriptions with companyId=a1b2c3d4-..., status=Active, size=200

Example: List all trial subscriptions:

• pax8-list-subscriptions with status=Trial, size=200

Example: List all annual subscriptions:

• pax8-list-subscriptions with billingTerm=annual, status=Active, size=200

Get a Single Subscription

Call pax8-get-subscription-by-uuid with the uuid parameter.

Example:

• pax8-get-subscription-by-uuid with uuid=s1u2b3s4-c5r6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890

Key Concepts

Subscription Lifecycle

Order Placed --> Provisioning --> Active --> [Modify/Cancel] --> Cancelled
                     |                          |
                 PendingManual            ActivePendingChange
                 PendingAutomated         PendingCancel
                 WaitingForDetails

Subscription States

Billing Terms

Quantity Management

The quantity field represents the number of licenses (seats, devices, or units depending on the product). Changing quantity triggers a billing adjustment:

• Increase: Additional seats are prorated for the current billing period
• Decrease: Seat reduction may be restricted by vendor commitment terms
• Annual plans: Seat decreases may only be allowed at renewal

Field Reference

Subscription Fields

Usage Summary Fields

Common Workflows

Check Subscriptions for a Company

1. Find the company UUID using pax8-list-companies with company_name
2. Call pax8-list-subscriptions with companyId and status=Active
3. For each subscription, optionally call pax8-get-product-by-uuid with the productId to get product names

License Optimization Across All Clients

This is one of the most valuable MSP workflows -- finding unused or underutilized licenses:

1. Call pax8-list-companies with size=200 to get all companies
2. For each company, call pax8-list-subscriptions with companyId and status=Active
3. Build a list of all subscriptions with company name, product, quantity, billing term, and monthly cost (quantity * price)
4. Sort by monthly cost descending to surface the biggest savings opportunities
5. Flag subscriptions with very low seat counts or monthly billing that could switch to annual

Subscription Status Report by Company

1. Find the company with pax8-list-companies or pax8-get-company-by-uuid
2. Call pax8-list-subscriptions with companyId and size=200 (no status filter to get all)
3. Group results by status and calculate total monthly cost for active subscriptions

Renewal Management

1. Call pax8-list-subscriptions with status=Active and billingTerm=annual
2. Review each subscription's endDate to find upcoming renewals
3. For renewals within the next 30 days, prepare a review list with company name, product, seat count, and pricing

Get Usage Data for a Subscription

For usage-based products (e.g., Azure):

1. Call pax8-get-usage-summary with subscriptionId (required)
2. Optionally filter by resourceGroup or companyId
3. For detailed line-item usage, call pax8-get-detailed-usage-summary with the usageSummaryId

Response Examples

Subscription:

{
  "id": "s1u2b3s4-c5r6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "companyId": "a1b2c3d4-e5f6-7890-abcd-ef1234567890",
  "productId": "f9e8d7c6-b5a4-3210-fedc-ba0987654321",
  "quantity": 25,
  "startDate": "2025-06-01",
  "endDate": "2026-05-31",
  "createdDate": "2025-05-28T14:30:00.000Z",
  "billingStart": "2025-06-01",
  "status": "Active",
  "billingTerm": "Annual",
  "price": 17.10
}

Error Handling

Common Errors

State Transition Errors

Best Practices

1. Check state before modifying - Always verify the subscription is in Active state before making changes
2. Understand commitment terms - Annual subscriptions restrict quantity decreases
3. Optimize regularly - Review subscriptions monthly to find unused licenses
4. Use company filter - Always filter by companyId when checking a specific client's subscriptions
5. Monitor pending states - Subscriptions in pending states need attention
6. Plan renewals - Track end dates and plan renewal conversations with clients
7. Batch operations carefully - When checking multiple companies, respect rate limits (1000/min)
8. Document changes - Note why quantities were changed in your PSA or documentation
9. Use billing term filter - Filter by billingTerm=monthly to quickly find candidates for annual commitment savings

Related Skills

• Pax8 API Patterns - MCP tools reference and connection info
• Pax8 Companies - Company management
• Pax8 Products - Product catalog and pricing
• Pax8 Orders - Creating new subscriptions via orders
• Pax8 Invoices - Billing for subscriptions