Restrictions

Customer restrictions let you block a specific customer from making payments. You can block new payment attempts made by the customer (CIT — customer-initiated transactions), block recurring subscription charges (MIT — merchant-initiated transactions), or both.

Restrictions are separate from the Blacklist. Restrictions target a customer by their ID and can be turned on or off independently per transaction type. The Blacklist targets customers by email address and is described in the Blacklist section below.

Prerequisites

• A secret API key with the customer:manage_restrictions permission. To work with the Blacklist through the API, the key also needs customer_blacklist:read, customer_blacklist:create or customer_blacklist:delete, depending on the request.
• The customer ID you want to restrict (cus_…).

Apply a Restriction

Send a POST /v2/customers/{id}/restrictions request with the restriction flags you want to enable:

{
  "customer": "cus_2R0uWz4tu9wxTMBXxj9CJfSE9vV",
  "restrictCit": true,
  "restrictMit": true,
  "restrictReason": "Account suspended pending fraud review"
}

Set restrictCit to block customer-initiated payments, restrictMit to block merchant-initiated payments, or both. The optional restrictReason stores a free-text explanation on the record. Setting only one flag allows the other transaction type to proceed normally.

See the POST /v2/customers/{id}/restrictions reference for the full parameter list.

Example

To block a customer from making new checkout payments without stopping their active subscriptions, set only restrictCit:

{
  "customer": "cus_2R0uWz4tu9wxTMBXxj9CJfSE9vV",
  "restrictCit": true,
  "restrictMit": false
}

Apply a Restriction via the Dashboard

1. Open the Customers section and select the customer.
2. The customer detail page shows a red Restricted chip next to the customer name when a restriction is already active.
3. Click the Actions button (top right of the customer card) and select Restrict customer.
4. In the dialog, fill in the Restrict reason field (optional).
5. Toggle Restrict customer initiated to block CIT payments, and/or Restrict merchant initiated to block MIT payments.
6. Click Restrict to save.

Remove a Restriction

To lift all restrictions, send the same endpoint with both flags set to false:

{
  "customer": "cus_2R0uWz4tu9wxTMBXxj9CJfSE9vV",
  "restrictCit": false,
  "restrictMit": false
}

To remove only one type of restriction, set its flag to false while leaving the other unchanged.

Via the Dashboard, follow the same steps as applying a restriction, but toggle the relevant switches off before clicking Restrict.

The isRestricted Field

The customer object includes an isRestricted boolean field. It is true when at least one of restrictCit or restrictMit is true. It is false only when both flags are false.

You can use isRestricted as a single check when you do not need to know which type of restriction is active.

warning

The restrictCit, restrictMit, restrictReason, and isRestricted fields are only visible when authenticated with a secret key or accessed through the Dashboard. They are not returned to a checkout key.

Automatic Restrictions from Chargebacks

Recording a chargeback adds the customer's email to the Blacklist while Blacklist customer on chargeback is on, which it is by default. With the setting off, set blacklistCustomer to blacklist the customer for one chargeback. Blacklisting does not change the customer's restrictCit or restrictMit flags; set those with customerRestrictions in the same request. See Handling Chargebacks for details.

The Blacklist

The Blacklist is a separate mechanism that blocks customers by email address rather than by customer ID. When a customer whose email is on the Blacklist attempts a new payment, the payment is rejected regardless of whether their customer record has restrictCit set.

View the Blacklist

Navigate to the Blacklist page in the Dashboard to see all blacklisted email addresses, their reason (if provided), and the date they were added.

Check whether an email is blacklisted

Filter the Blacklist by email:

GET /v2/blacklist?email[eq]=user@example.com

An empty data array means the email is not on the Blacklist. Emails are stored and compared in lowercase, so the case you send does not matter.

Add an Entry to the Blacklist

You can add an email address to the Blacklist through the Dashboard or the API.

Dashboard: Click the Add button on the Blacklist page, enter the customer's email address, add an optional reason, and click Submit.

API: Send a POST /v2/blacklist request:

{
  "email": "user@example.com",
  "reason": "Fraudulent activity detected"
}

Blacklisting cancels the customer's subscriptions

When you add an email to the Blacklist, ODUS also cancels immediately every active subscription of every customer with that email. Their invoices are not changed: an invoice whose payment is already in progress is settled by that payment, and no new charge is attempted, because the Blacklist refuses it. This applies however the entry is added: from the Dashboard, through the API, or by recording a chargeback with blacklistCustomer. The cancellations follow within moments of the entry being added, not in the response to the request that added it.

Each subscription sends a subscription.cancelled event and carries cancellationReason: "customer_blacklisted". Removing the entry later does not restore them; create a new subscription instead.

Adding an email that is already on the Blacklist changes nothing.

Remove an Entry from the Blacklist

Dashboard: On the Blacklist page, click the delete action next to the entry you want to remove and confirm.

API: Send a POST /v2/blacklist/{id}/delete request using the blacklist entry ID (bl_…). No request body is required.

note

Removing an entry from the Blacklist does not automatically remove restrictCit or restrictMit flags from the customer record. Use POST /v2/customers/{id}/restrictions to clear those independently if needed.

CIT vs MIT: Key Distinction

Flag	Blocks
restrictCit	New payment attempts initiated by the customer (e.g. checkout sessions, one-time purchases)
restrictMit	Recurring charges triggered by the merchant (e.g. scheduled subscription renewals)

The two flags operate independently. A customer with only restrictMit set can still make new purchases; a customer with only restrictCit set will still be charged for their active subscriptions.