How do I use subscription holds?

Last updated: September 8, 2026
Applies to: Owner / Manager / Staff
PLUS Feature: No
Plan: All

Overview
Holds cannot be changed after you apply them
What a hold does
If you watched the tutorial video
Before you place a hold
How to place a hold
If you need to change, cancel, or end a hold early
End and recreate: what carries over
After the hold ends
Plan settings
Troubleshooting
FAQ
Related Articles

Overview

Use a subscription hold when a student on a recurring, appointment-based plan is taking a break and you want to keep the enrollment, so they return to the same subscription afterward. Typical cases are a summer or winter break with a known return date, a planned family trip, or a short medical or school-conflict leave.

A hold is not the same as ending a subscription. Ending stops the enrollment; a hold keeps the subscription and pauses it for the dates you enter.

Location: Client profile → Subscriptions → Hold on that enrollment

Requires: Staff, Manager, or Owner. The payment plan must allow holds, and Limited Staff cannot place them.

⚠️ Not to be confused with appointment holds. A subscription hold pauses a monthly private-lesson subscription. An appointment hold reserves a single slot for a specific client who is still deciding whether to enroll. Subscription holds are not available on group class enrollments, drop-in plans, or one-time plans.

The tutorial video below covers the summer-break walkthrough, and the screens and the cannot-be-undone warning still match the product. Some of the narration predates a March 2026 change to how holds are stored, so check If you watched the tutorial video before relying on what it says about payroll, refunds, or prepaid invoices. Where the video and this article differ, the article is current.

Holds cannot be changed after you apply them

Treat the hold dates as final the moment you click Place On Hold.

Opus1 does not let you:

Edit the start or end date
Extend a hold
Shorten a hold
End a hold early because the student is ready to come back
Cancel a hold a staff member scheduled by mistake
Undo a hold after the family changes their mind
Place a second hold while one is already scheduled or in progress

Once the hold is saved, the subscription row shows Hold Scheduled or On Hold and the Hold button is disabled. There is no later screen to revise the dates, and support cannot edit them either.

That is why most "can you change this hold?" questions have the same answer: you keep the dates as they are, or you end this subscription and create a new one. The section If you need to change, cancel, or end a hold early covers that path, including what carries over and what you have to set again.

Do this before you confirm:

Agree the exact start and return dates with the family, in writing if possible
Open the student's invoices and check what is already paid against what is still open
Confirm the teacher expects that window off, and whether Count appointments on hold? is on for that staff rate
Only then click Place On Hold

A hold starting today and a hold starting next month are equally locked in. Fixing the dates later is not an option on this enrollment.

What a hold does

For the dates you enter, Opus1 does all of the following.

1. Lessons

Appointments falling during the hold are cancelled and marked On Hold. Opus1 does not issue service credits (makeups) for them, because a hold is a planned pause rather than a cancellation you then make up.

Lessons after the hold end date stay on the calendar, and the student is expected to return to that series.

If the hold runs longer than 90 days, the return dates often do not appear on the main client profile schedule. Those lessons are still on the calendar and under See all schedule — it is a display limit on the profile, not a sign the student was unenrolled.

2. Billing

Invoices whose period overlaps the hold are recalculated using that plan's proration settings: daily proration on many flat monthly plans, per-visit math on visit-based plans using price per visit where the plan has it.

A full billing month inside the hold is often discounted to $0 and closed.
A partial month is discounted for the hold days only.
Some payment types do not prorate on a hold at all, and the hold window warns you.

Paid and closed invoices are not reopened and not refunded to the card. They are still recalculated. If the family already paid more than the new amount, Opus1 issues a monetary credit to the payer — not a service or makeup credit. See How do I add monetary credits to a client's account? for how those behave, and Reporting: Credits to find them.

Review Invoices and Credits both before and after you place a hold. Background on the billing cycle is in How are invoices generated from subscriptions?.

3. Payroll

Held lessons carry their own On Hold status, and by default they are not payable.

Two staff rate settings are easy to mix up, and only one of them matters here:

Setting on the staff rate	Effect on held lessons
Count appointments on hold?	This is the one. Defaults off, so hold lessons are unpaid unless your school turns it on
Count client cancellations?	No effect. On-hold visits are not client cancellations, so this setting will never explain hold payroll

If payroll looks wrong after a hold, check Count appointments on hold? on that teacher's rate. Changing the cancellation setting will not affect it. See Staff Payroll.

4. Client notification

By default the family can be notified. Turn on Do not notify the client to place the hold without sending that email. There is no automatic "your hold has ended" email when the return date arrives.

5. What a hold does not do

It does not let you edit payment plan details on that subscription while the hold is in effect. Opus1 returns "Payment plan details cannot be changed while on hold."
It does not keep the Hold button available for a second pass at the dates.
It does not restore cancelled lessons if you later wish the hold had been shorter.

If you watched the tutorial video

Use the video for where to click and for the summer-break story. Come back here when the family has already paid, when payroll looks wrong, or when someone asks you to change the dates.

Holds used to be stored as ordinary client cancellations. In March 2026 they became their own On Hold status with separate payroll handling, which is why parts of the narration no longer match.

What the video says	What Opus1 does now
Closed paid invoices are not recalculated or refunded	They are not reopened and not refunded to the card, but they are recalculated. If the new amount is lower than what was paid, Opus1 issues a monetary credit to the payer — not a makeup credit. Check Invoices and Credits after placing the hold
No refunds when an invoice is paid or partially paid	Same: no card refund. A monetary credit can be issued when proration leaves the invoice overpaid, and a partial payment can simply leave a smaller remaining balance
Full months with no lessons go to $0 and close	True for full billing months on plans that prorate holds. A partial month is discounted rather than zeroed, and some plan types do not prorate at all — the hold window warns you
Lessons cancelled by a hold are not counted in payroll	Correct by default, but not guaranteed. Held lessons are payable when Count appointments on hold? is on for that teacher's rate. The demo teacher was on the default

The rest of the video still matches: lessons cancel inside the window, no service credits are issued, open invoices recalculate, first-month holds are blocked, the Hold starts now / Do not notify / cancel-appointments toggles work as shown, dates are inclusive, a timezone difference can make August 31 display as September 1, return lessons stay on the calendar, and you can manually collect the return month's invoice if your school wants it prepaid.

Before you place a hold

Check	Why it matters
Monthly private-lesson plan	Only monthly appointment subscriptions can be held. Group classes and non-monthly plans are rejected
Plan allows holds	On the service payment plan: Can the subscription be put on hold?
Not the first billing month	A hold cannot start in the same calendar month the subscription started. Enrolled in May means the earliest hold start is June
Start is not in the past	Start today with Hold starts now, or pick a future date
End is after start	The end date is the last day of the pause, so the return is the day after
Within the plan's max hold length	The plan can cap how long a hold may last
Within the subscription	You cannot hold dates after the subscription already ends
Invoices and credits	Note which bills are open and which are paid. Paid invoices are not refunded to the card, though a monetary credit may appear if proration leaves them overpaid
Teacher slot	Confirm you want that recurring time held for the student's return

How to place a hold

1. Open the client profile

Go to the student, or the household member who holds the enrollment.

2. Find the subscription

Scroll to Subscriptions and use Hold on the specific enrollment you are pausing, since one student can have more than one.

If the row shows Hold Scheduled or On Hold with the button disabled, a hold is already in place and cannot be changed here.

3. Set the window

Hold starts now — pause beginning today
Or pick a Start date, which must be after today unless you use starts now
Pick an End date after the start

4. Optional settings:

Cancel appointments during hold — leave this on in almost every case
Do not notify the client — skip the family email
Count location closures — on some visit-based plans only, counting closures as paid visits for the proration math

Dates use the subscription timezone, and the modal warns you when that differs from yours. Timezone differences can make a hold ending August 31 display as September 1.

5. Confirm

Read the dates once more, then click Place On Hold.

A success message appears and the row shows On hold from [start] – [end]. Upcoming visits in that window move to On Hold, and open invoices in the window recalculate. There is no further step to save edits — the hold is already locked.

If you need to change, cancel, or end a hold early

You cannot fix this on the existing hold, and support cannot edit the dates. The in-product remedy is to end this subscription and enroll the student again.

Which approach to use

What you need	What to do	Apply a hold on the new enrollment?
End the hold early, or they changed their mind	End the current subscription as of the day they should resume, or End now. Re-enroll starting that day and rebook the series	No. The new subscription is their return
Cancel a hold that has not started yet	End the current subscription, re-enroll with the original start or today, and rebook any visits the hold already cancelled	No, unless they still want a different pause later
Extend a hold that has not started yet	End and re-enroll, then place a new hold with the longer dates	Yes, subject to the first-month rule below
Extend a hold that already started	You cannot add days to a running hold. End the subscription and start the new enrollment on the new return date	Usually no — the gap until the new start date is the extra time off
Wrong dates, hold already saved	As above, depending on whether the pause should still exist	Only if they still need a pause, and only subject to the first-month rule
The hold already ended and they want another break	No recreate needed. Once a hold's end date passes, the hold clears and Hold is available again on the same subscription	Place a new hold on this enrollment

Ending a subscription is permanent in its own way: once you set an end date you can only move it sooner, never later. See How do I end a subscription?.

End and recreate (private lessons)

The cleanest path is to book a new recurring appointment, which can end the old subscription and start a new one in one flow.

Open Book Appointment for that student, from the calendar or the profile.
Choose the service, teacher, and time you want them to return to, or a new slot.
Set the new series start to the day lessons should resume.
When Opus1 offers to end the current subscription and start a new one, confirm the old end date. Turn on Transfer associated service credits to the new subscription if they have makeups worth keeping.
Complete checkout — plan, payer, autopay, discounts.
Note that the invoice on the old subscription is not prorated or refunded, because you replaced it. Handle any open invoices on the old enrollment separately.
If they still need a pause, open the new subscription and place a hold, after checking the first-month rule.

You can instead click End on the old subscription and book the new series as a second step. Use Do not notify the client on both if you are correcting a staff mistake and do not want the family to receive two emails.

The first-month rule when you re-apply a hold

A hold cannot start in the first calendar month of the subscription it sits on.

End a May enrollment and create a new subscription starting in September, and you cannot put that new subscription on hold in September — the earliest hold start would be October.

This is why extending an active hold by recreating and re-applying the same hold usually fails. For a pause that has already started, start the new enrollment on the return date instead of trying to copy the hold onto a brand-new subscription.

End and recreate: what carries over

A new subscription is a new enrollment. Opus1 does not copy the old hold, and it does not copy most of the old subscription's settings.

Carries over	You must set again	Does not come back
The client and payer records — cards on file, household, tags	Payment plan and price at checkout	The hold dates
Card or bank on the payer, though you still turn autopay on for the new enrollment	Autopay, reminders, secondary payer	Cancelled and on-hold lessons from the old window — rebook them if they should happen
Service credits, if you turn on Transfer associated service credits	Recurring discounts typed on the old subscription	Paid invoices, which stay on the old subscription with no automatic card refund
Household or multi-student discounts your school policy applies to new enrollments	Recurring invoice notes	Open invoices on the old subscription due after the end date, which can be voided when you end it
Terms and conditions templates, though the family may need to accept again	Teacher, time, room, and location on the new series	Custom plan edits made only on the old subscription

Credits when you end: the End modal can expire credits tied to the old subscription after a number of days. If you plan to transfer them onto the new enrollment, do not expire them first — use the transfer toggle at booking.

Billing difference from a hold: ending stops new invoices after the end date and can void later open invoices, but it does not reverse a hold that already prorated bills. Replacing a subscription also does not prorate or refund the old invoice, so if the family is owed money, issue a refund or monetary credit as a separate step.

After the hold ends

On the hold end date, the subscription leaves hold on its own. There is nothing to click to resume it.

Lessons after that date should already be on the calendar
Invoicing follows the normal subscription cycle again
Hold becomes available on that subscription, so you can place a later break if needed

If the profile still looks empty, check See all schedule or the calendar, especially when the pause ran longer than 90 days.

Plan settings

On the appointment service payment plan:

Can the subscription be put on hold? — must be on
How many times and how long — the maximum hold length Opus1 will allow

Price per visit, on plans that prorate by visit, is also used for invoices during subscription holds, so set it to what you want to charge for a partial month. Details are in Setting up payment plans for your appointment-based services.

Clients cannot place themselves on hold from self-booking.

Troubleshooting

The Hold button is missing or disabled. A hold is already scheduled or in progress on that subscription, the plan does not allow holds, or the enrollment is a group class rather than an appointment subscription. Limited Staff do not get the button at all.

Opus1 will not let me start the hold this month. Holds cannot start in the first calendar month of the subscription. Wait for the next calendar month.

A paid invoice did not go down on the card. Paid invoices stay closed and are not refunded. They are still recalculated, and money already collected above the new amount becomes a monetary credit on the payer. Check the Credits section after placing the hold.

A held lesson is showing on the teacher's payroll. Count appointments on hold? is on for that staff rate. Turn it off if you do not pay for hold windows. Count client cancellations? does not affect on-hold visits.

The return lessons are not on the client profile. Holds longer than 90 days often hide return dates on the main profile. Open See all schedule or the calendar.

I cannot change the plan price while the student is on hold. Payment plan details cannot be changed until the hold has ended.

A staff member put the wrong student on hold. End that subscription and enroll the student again, then rebook the cancelled visits. Use Do not notify to avoid sending the family end and enroll emails, and review invoices and credits afterward.

FAQ

Can hold dates be changed after they are applied? No. Holds cannot be edited, extended, shortened, or cancelled in Opus1, and support cannot change them either. The only path is to end the subscription and enroll the student again.

The family wants to come back next week instead of next month. Can I turn the hold off? No. End the subscription as of the new return date, re-enroll starting that day, and rebook the series. Do not apply a hold on the new enrollment — the new subscription is their return.

Will the student get makeup credits for lessons during the hold? No. Holds do not issue service credits in Opus1. If they had already paid an invoice that the hold then discounted, they may receive a monetary credit instead.

Why is a held lesson on the teacher's payroll? Count appointments on hold? is turned on for that staff rate. Turn it off if you do not pay for hold windows. If you have read elsewhere that this depends on whether you pay for client cancellations, that is out of date — since March 2026, on-hold visits are not client cancellations, and Count client cancellations? has no effect on them.

Can I put a group class student on hold? No. Opus1 rejects group class subscriptions — the Hold button is hidden. For a class pause, unenroll or transfer the client to another group class for the break, then enroll them again when they return.

Instead of a hold

How do I end a subscription? — stopping an enrollment rather than pausing it
How do I transfer a client to another group class? — the group class equivalent
What are appointment holds? — reserving a single slot, a different feature

Billing during and after a hold

Configuration

Setting up payment plans for your appointment-based services
Staff Payroll — the Count appointments on hold setting
How do I add a recurring discount to a subscription?
How do I batch update my clients' subscriptions?
Reporting: Subscriptions — where Batch Hold lives