Database design/normalisation query

[Hatter The Mad]

I am designing a database of orders. An order can either be a monthly subscription type thing, or a pay-once type thing. This means that each order will have different properties depending on the type.

Order properties = columns

Is it best practice to create one order table with all of the columns for order properties of all types, or to create an entirely separate order table for each order type, with specific columns for properties as appropriate?

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Actually, is there really any difference between pre-pay and pay monthly orders beyond how/when they pay? It's still an order, they still have a subscription start and end date, just one will have many "payments" over the subscription period and the other will only have a single payment at the beginning. They are both still "ordering" the same thing, it's the payments that will be recorded differently.

Yes, because 'pre-pay' is actually 'pay once and then optionally renew to get the latest version'