Issue trying to use PaymentLinks API to create subscriptions from a website

JeffSmith — Sun, 16 Nov 2025 20:19:51 GMT

Created a paymentlink via API for a subscription.

Got link.

Redirected user to the URL

Filled in / paid for it ($1 test subscription since sandbox sucks and can't test in sandbox)

Square Support has told me multiple times that I probably have invalid card data. It's the right card, it works, I even get the preauth approval notices from my bank.

If I do the subscription manually through the square dashboard, it works and goes through with the same exact card.

So user gets this message on the screen:

"Sorry. Your order didn't go through. Please try again".

Trying again doesn't work.

In Chrome developer tools, I can see this error appearing:

Failed to load resource: the <url here> server responded with a status of 422

Full URL:

https://checkout.square.site/api/soc-platform/merchant/<removed>/location/<removed>/order/<removed>/subscribe

Again - note that I am not calling that endpoint, I've redirected the user to the paymentlink URL, so this is all hosted/happening on Square's servers at this point.

Digging further into it, it appears to be getting this response from the subscribe endpoint. This is the CHECKOUT page calling this and generating this error, so I have no idea what I did wrong to get this to not work right....

{

"error": "Client error: `POST https:\/\/connect.squareup.com\/v2\/subscriptions` resulted in a `400 Bad Request` response:\n{\"errors\": [{\"code\": \"CONFLICTING_PARAMETERS\",\"detail\": \"Phases with RELATIVE pricing type must have phases on the subsc (truncated...)\n"

}

Can anyone explain what RELATIVE pricing type and phases on the subscription is? The subscription plan works fine when I manually create a subscription through the website, so what am I supposed to pass into the payment link API to create a checkout for the subscription?

Yes, I'm sure the itemvariationcatalogid variable is set properly.

price variable is 1 ($1 for a testing since we have to test this in production since the sandbox sucks and can't do this)

.NET Code:

// Create Order Lines

var lineItem = new OrderLineItem

{

Quantity = "1",

CatalogObjectId = itemvariationcatalogid,

BasePriceMoney = new Money { Amount = (long)price * 100, Currency = square.SquareCurrency }

};

var lineItems = new List<OrderLineItem>();

lineItems.Add(lineItem);

// Create Order

var orderMetadata = new Dictionary<string, string?>();

orderMetadata.Add("UserId", vm.User.Id);

orderMetadata.Add("UserName", vm.User.UserName);

orderMetadata.Add("UserEmail", vm.User.Email);

orderMetadata.Add("SubscriptionTier", vm.Tier);

orderMetadata.Add("SubscriptionPrice", vm.Price.ToString());

orderMetadata.Add("SubscriptionCredits", vm.Credits.ToString());

string referenceId = System.Guid.NewGuid().ToString();

var order = new Order

{

CustomerId = squareCustomer.Id,

LocationId = square.SquareLocationId,

LineItems = lineItems,

Metadata = orderMetadata,

ReferenceId = referenceId

};

// Create Payment Link

string redirectUrl = String.Format("{0}://{1}/Credits/PaymentProcessed/{2}", Request.Scheme, Request.Host, referenceId);

var paymentRequest = new CreatePaymentLinkRequest

{

IdempotencyKey = squareIdempotencyKey,

Order = order,

CheckoutOptions = new CheckoutOptions

{

SubscriptionPlanId = planccatalogid,

RedirectUrl = redirectUrl,

MerchantSupportEmail = SundaySolved.Constants.kSupportEmail

}

};

var response = await squareClient.Checkout.PaymentLinks.CreateAsync(paymentRequest);

return Redirect(response.PaymentLink.Url);

Re: Issue trying to use PaymentLinks API to create subscriptions from a website

JJ_ — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:28:44 GMT

Hello, @JeffSmith

Since this question is API related, I recommend that you post it in our Developer Forums. I am confident you will find the right audience to assist with this issue there.

You're more than welcome to leave this post here in case any of our Sellers have experience with the Payment Links API.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

thread Re: Issue trying to use PaymentLinks API to create subscriptions from a website in Payments Troubleshooting

Issue trying to use PaymentLinks API to create subscriptions from a website

Re: Issue trying to use PaymentLinks API to create subscriptions from a website