Pruning expired subscriptions

The subscriptions:prune artisan command soft-deletes subscriptions that ended a long time ago. It is the only built-in maintenance command.

Usage

php artisan subscriptions:prune              # soft-delete subs ended > 30 days ago
php artisan subscriptions:prune --days=90    # custom threshold
php artisan subscriptions:prune --force      # skip the confirmation prompt

What it does

For every PlanSubscription where ends_at < now()->subDays($days) and that isn't already soft-deleted, set deleted_at = now(). The associated plan_subscription_usage rows are not touched -- they cascade-soft-delete via the model's relationship.

The original rows stay in the table; you can restore() them or query withTrashed(). To remove them permanently, run a separate query:

PlanSubscription::onlyTrashed()
    ->where('ends_at', '<', now()->subYear())
    ->forceDelete();

Scheduling

Run it daily from the scheduler:

// routes/console.php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command('subscriptions:prune --force')->daily();

--force is required for scheduled runs since the prompt would otherwise hang the scheduler.

Tuning the threshold

30 days is the default. Pick the threshold based on:

• How long do you keep customer history visible in admin tools? Soft-deleted subs disappear from default queries.
• Compliance constraints. Some regimes require retaining subscription history for N years -- in that case, run prune with --days=2555 (7 years) or skip pruning entirely.
• Database size. If plan_subscriptions is approaching a million-row regime, more aggressive pruning helps query performance.

Auditing what would be pruned

There is no --dry-run flag. To preview, query directly:

$count = PlanSubscription::where('ends_at', '<', now()->subDays(30))
    ->whereNull('deleted_at')
    ->count();

echo "Would prune {$count} subscriptions.\n";