Sell subscriptions

Offer products on a recurring plan – weekly or monthly – with a subscriber discount and predictable repeat revenue.

Some products get bought again and again: coffee, supplements, pet food, refills. Subscriptions let a customer set that up once and have it arrive on schedule – which means predictable revenue for you and one less errand for them.

Turn it on

Open Settings → Modules and enable Product Subscriptions. A Subscriptions section appears in your sidebar with two pages:

Create a plan

A plan describes how often the product ships and what the subscriber gets for committing.

Then attach the plan to the products it applies to. One plan can cover many products, and a product can offer several plans so shoppers pick the rhythm that suits them.

Tip: Two or three plans is plenty. "Every month" and "Every two months" is an easy choice; six options is a decision shoppers postpone.

Pick a discount that works

The subscriber discount is what makes committing worthwhile. A small, honest saving – often 5–15% – is usually enough, because the real draw is convenience. Be sure the discounted price still leaves you a margin you're happy to service every month.

Reward subscribers who stay

A plan can step its discount up as a subscriber keeps renewing. Click Add step under the first discount and fill in each later one, for example 10%, then 15% from order 2, then 20% from order 3. The first order is charged at 10%, the first renewal at 15% and every renewal from the third order on at 20%. Pick later orders, like from order 4, to keep a discount for longer.

Shoppers see every step on the product page and again at checkout, the order confirmation email lists them, and the customer's account shows the price of their next delivery. If a later step gives a smaller discount than the one before, the plan editor warns you: the subscriber pays more from that order on. The charge in Stripe moves to the new price on its own each time the order before a step is paid, so what the page promises and what the customer pays always match. Remove every step for one discount on every order. A customer keeps the steps of the plan they signed up on, even if you change the plan later.

Add a free gift to a renewal

A plan can include a free product with one renewal order – a sample with the third parcel, say. Under Free gift, search for the product, pick it and set with order to the order it should ship with: 2 is the first renewal, 3 the second, and so on. The first order is paid at checkout, so a gift always rides on a renewal.

On that renewal the order gets an extra line for the gift at 0, so it shows up in your order list and fulfilment like any other item, and the customer is charged exactly the usual renewal price. The product page, checkout, the order confirmation email and the customer's account tell subscribers which order brings the gift.

The gift only ships from stock. If it is out of stock when that renewal is paid, or you have deleted its product, the renewal goes ahead without it and the order shows up under Issues so you can send the gift by hand.

To keep the gift a surprise, tick Keep it a surprise under the gift picker. Shoppers then never see which product the gift is. The product page, checkout, the order confirmation email and the customer's account say Surprise gift with order 3 instead of Free product name with order 3. The renewal order that carries the gift lists it like any other line, because that is what ships. Your dashboard always shows the real gift product, and removing the gift turns the setting off.

During a promotion, a subscriber pays the lower of the promotional price and the plan price – never both discounts together. To keep a sale for one-time buyers only, set the promotion's Purchase type to One-time purchases only; subscribers then get just their plan discount.

Several subscriptions in one cart

A shopper can put any number of subscription products, on any plans, in the same cart next to one-time items, and pay once. Products on the same schedule (say, every month) are grouped into one delivery. Shipping is charged once at checkout, and each delivery then ships and bills on its own schedule.

When one schedule is a multiple of the other in the same unit – every 4 weeks and every 8 weeks, or monthly and every 2 months – the products share one delivery too, and renewals that fall on the same day ship as one order. In the first example:

Each product keeps its own plan discount steps and gift. Schedules that don't line up – every 2 and every 3 weeks, or weekly and monthly – still become separate deliveries, started right after payment with the same card and first renewing one interval later, so they ship and bill apart. Combined renewals apply to new checkouts; subscriptions bought before keep renewing separately.

In the customer's account, each delivery is one card listing its products. They can pause or resume a whole delivery, remove a single product from it while it has more than one, or cancel it. A delivery that mixes schedules shows each product's own schedule and quotes the price of the next renewal. If the customer removes the product on the shorter schedule, the delivery's shipping moves to the remaining product's schedule, so shipping isn't charged on dates with nothing to ship. On the Customers page, cancelling a product in a multi-product delivery stops only that product. If a later delivery can't be set up (for example, a declined card), the first order still stands and an error appears under Issues – contact the shopper, because that schedule was paid once but won't renew.

Manage subscribers

The Customers page shows who's subscribed, which plan they're on, and where they are in their cycle. Renewals are charged through Stripe on the schedule the plan defines, and each renewal creates an order you fulfill like any other.

Tip: Keep stock healthy for anything you sell on subscription. A missed renewal shipment is the fastest way to lose a subscriber – see Manage inventory.

FAQ

What's next

• Keep repeat buyers happy with Run a loyalty program.
• Track stock for recurring shipments in Manage inventory.
• Turn other features on in Modules.