Skip to main content

​
Create your first Contract

This guide walks you through creating a contract to subscribe a customer to a plan.
What are contracts? Contracts are the active billing relationships between customers and plans. Learn more about contracts →

​
Prerequisites

  • A Monk account with dashboard access
  • At least one plan created
  • A customer in Monk

​
Steps

​
1. Navigate to the Customer

  1. Open your Monk dashboard
  2. Click Customers in the navigation
  3. Select the customer (or create one first)

​
2. Create the Contract

Click Create Contract and configure:
FieldValueNotes
PlanProSelect from your plans
Start DateTodayWhen billing begins
End Date(Leave empty)Optional for fixed-term contracts
Create contract modal showing customer, plan, and date fields

​
3. Review Auto-Pay

If the plan is Net 0 (due on receipt), you’ll see the auto-pay toggle:
  • Enabled: Customer charged automatically when invoice is due
  • Disabled: Customer pays manually
For auto-pay, ensure the customer has a saved payment method in Stripe.

​
4. Create

Click Create. Monk immediately:
  1. Creates the contract
  2. Generates invoices for upcoming billing periods
  3. Sets up line items based on the plan

​
5. Verify

View the contract details:
Customer page showing contracts table with plan and status
Invoice preview showing line items and totals

​
Creating via API

curl -X POST "https://api.monk.com/v1/contracts" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer mk_live_your_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "planId": "plan_abc123",
    "customerId": "cust_xyz789",
    "startDate": "2026-03-01"
  }'

​
Next Steps

Contracts Concepts

Learn about contract lifecycle and billing cycles

Send Events

Start tracking usage