Want to add a subscription-based service to your Store? With recurring subscriptions, you can charge your customers on a repeated schedule for products and services.
Any service or product can be sold with help of recurring subscriptions - club memberships or beauty boxes, you name it! You can also choose a billing cycle: daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc. On top of that, you can enable recurring subscriptions along with the standard payment options.
Please note: you need Stripe payment method to set up recurring subscriptions.
Adding recurring subscriptions
Before you add recurring subscriptions to your Store, make sure that it meets the following requirements:
- Stripe should be one of the payment methods in your store.
- The rules for using recurring subscriptions should be listed in your store’s Terms & Conditions. It is best to include any payment-related information, describe non-refundable fees, restrictions on use, and termination of subscriptions.
Now we can turn on subscriptions in your Online Store settings and add subscription-based products. Here is how to do it:
- Go to the Online Store admin> Settings> General> Cart & Checkout.
- In the Subscriptions section, turn on the Allow subscriptions toggle. Click Save.
- Go to Catalog> Products.
- Create a new product or select an existing one.
- In the Pricing section, click Manage pricing options> Sell by subscription.
- In the Billing period field, click on the dropdown menu to select how often you want to charge your customers for this product.
- If you want your customers to choose between one-time purchase and subscription, tick the Allow purchase without subscription box. Otherwise, they will only be able to buy a product with a subscription.
- Click Save.
Now your customers can buy this product on a subscription basis.
How it works for you
You can manage subscriptions in the My sales> Subscriptions section of your Store admin. There you will see all the subscriptions in your Store. There are four types of subscriptions: active, canceled, subscriptions with failed charges, and ones that need payment confirmation:
You can use the Filter option to find a specific subscription. For example, click Filter> Next Charge Date> This quarter and you will see all the subscriptions that will be renewed in this quarter so you can start packing the orders beforehand:
How it works for customers
For items with subscriptions, your customers will see a price along with a period of the subscription in your storefront:
To make a purchase, they need to pay for the subscription through Stripe. Once they subscribe to your product or service, they will be charged automatically according to the subscription period.
Customers can have one or multiple subscriptions in your store and manage them through their accounts. They simply need to sign in to their account with help of the respective button in the Online Store block:
In their account, they can change card details, cancel subscriptions and check the delivery address:
Ordering process
Whenever someone places a subscription-based order in your Store, you will receive an email with all the details. Each time a customer is charged for their subscription period, you will also receive an email.
Each new subscription order is placed automatically. In case there is an issue with charging or the subscription is canceled, you will receive an email about it.
Your customers will also receive email notifications if payment confirmation is required, if a charge has failed, or if the subscription is canceled. You can edit the email templates for these automated notifications. To learn how, review this tutorial.
Canceling recurring subscription
There are three ways to cancel a subscription:
- If you cancel the subscription manually. This can be done by going to My Sales> Subscriptions> Select the needed subscription> Actions → Cancel subscription.
- If a customer cancels their subscription through their account.
- If a charge can’t be made ( the card period has expired or there are insufficient funds). In this case, if a customer will not add a valid card to their account, the subscription will be canceled within 7 days.
After a subscription is canceled, orders won't be placed automatically, and the customer won’t be charged any further.