Product Subscription Plans

Recharge Product Subscription Plans provide increased flexibility and control over the subscription creation and management experience. Offer percentage-based subscription discounts for each order interval or frequency, set default frequencies, filter products, and more. 

This guide covers how to configure, manage, and utilize subscription plans as well as an overview of the products page. 

How it works

Product Subscription Plans allow you flexibility and control when creating and managing the subscription experience. With Product Subscription Plans you can:

• Efficiently locate products in the Recharge merchant portal using the updated search and filter options
• Access product and variant information such as SKU and price in the Recharge merchant portal
• Set unique percentage-based subscription discounts for each order interval/frequency

In the past, subscription rules were added at the product level. With Product Subscription Plans, subscription rules are managed at the plan level, allowing for additional customizations and detailed configurations. Recharge plans to add future support for:

• Multiple pre-paid frequencies for one product
• Fixed-amount subscription discount options
• Drag and drop functionality for frequency options on the subscription widget and the product details page
• Channel-specific display options that let you reward customers depending on where they shop

Convert to Product Subscription Plans

Your store must meet the standard requirements before you can convert to Product Subscription Plans. Review the conversion requirements to confirm your store is prepared to convert.

After ensuring your store meets the necessary requirements and you have reviewed limitations, you can convert to Product Support Plans: 

1. Navigate to the Products tab in your Recharge merchant portal.
2. An in-app pop-up will appear, prompting you to update your store to Product Subscription Plans. Select Update my experience to convert to using Product Subscription Plans.

All of your Shopify products will be available on the Product page in Recharge once the conversion process is successful. From there, you can start creating plans for your products. 

Conversion requirements

Your store must meet the following requirements to use Product Subscriptions Plans:

1. You must use the Shopify Checkout
2. You must have the Affinity customer portal theme enabled

Store requirement: You must use the Shopify Checkout

Product Subscription Plans are only compatible with the Shopify Checkout Integration. Review Identifying your store's Recharge checkout platform to confirm your store’s platform.

Merchants using the Recharge Checkout on Shopify must convert to the Shopify Checkout Integration to use Product Subscription Plans.

Store requirement: You must have the Affinity customer portal theme enabled

Product Subscription Plans are only compatible with the Affinity customer portal theme at this time. Review Using the Affinity customer portal theme for more information on the portal’s benefits, and installation steps.

Create a Product Subscription Plan

After you've added a product on Shopify and installed Recharge, Product Subscription Plans will automatically display your products in Recharge. 

You can create up to 100 plans for each product. Adjust the order interval or frequency for each plan, assign it a unique discount, and add additional plans with their own order intervals or frequencies and unique discounts.

As an example, if you sell skin care products, you may want to offer a steeper discount on one subscription frequency or interval offering. With Product Subscription Plans, you can create a plan with a 15% discount on your 4-week subscription offering and a 5% discount on your 8-week subscription offering. This can incentivize your customers to subscribe to the 4-week plan.

To create a Product Subscription Plan: 

1. Click Products in the Recharge merchant portal. Select the product you want to make a plan for and click Create plans at the bottom of the product page.
   
2. Click Add another plan. 
3. Select the plan type, then update the frequency and plan name. The plan name is displayed to customers when they view the widget on your storefront.
    
4. Enter a discount amount if you wish to offer customers a discount when they purchase a subscription product. 
5. Optionally, select the Advanced settings dropdown to add charge and cut-off schedule.
6. Select Done when you're finishing configuring the plan. 
   
7. After the first plan is created, you can choose to Duplicate the plan or follow steps 2-5 to Add another plan. Once you are finished making changes, confirm by selecting Save plans. 
   

Drag and drop your plans to set the display order for customers interacting with the widget on your storefront product page. 

Variant-level plans 

Variant-level plans allow you to sell variants at different frequencies and discounts as well as exclude specific variants from subscriptions. To configure variant-level plans, a product must have at least one plan configured.

To manage variant-level plans:

1. Navigate to the Products page in your merchant portal.
2. Select a specific subscription and you will be directed to the product details page.
3. Select Manage variant plans. 
   
4. Assign plans to specific variants by selecting the appropriate checkbox.
5. Click Save changes to confirm.

Once variant-level plans have been configured for your store, the areas impacted by this selection are:

• The storefront widget, where once a customer selects a specific variant, only the applicable Plans for that variant are shown.
• The merchant portal where you can add a specific variant as a subscription to a customer's address.
• The customer portal where a customer can add a new subscription.

Offer product as a one-time purchase

Product Subscription Plans allow you to offer products as one-time purchases only. 

To offer a product as a one-time purchase:

1. Navigate to the Products page in your merchant portal.
2. Remove any filters that are active so that you can view all products by clicking the X next to Plan types. 
   
3. Select the specific product and you will be directed to the product details page.
4. Enable the Available as a one-time product setting and ensure no subscription plans are active for the product. Optionally, to offer the product as a one-time purchase and subscription, you can add a subscription plan to the product.
   

This will allow you to add the product to a subscription for your customers, or for your customers to purchase the product from their customer portal. 

View product details

After creating a plan, you can view the product details in the Recharge merchant portal by selecting Products and clicking into a specific product. The product details page displays your product, product variants, one-time settings, and subscription plans on one page.

If you have more than one Product Subscription Plan, you will see each one listed separately in the Subscription plans section. The first plan listed is considered the default plan, and the discount associated with the first plan in the hierarchy will be the discount displayed on your customer portal.

Import existing plans

You can import existing plans by selecting Import existing plans on the product details page. Once you've selected the plans to import, click Import plans. 

Manage existing plans

You can edit or duplicate existing plans, and manage them by clicking on the Manage plans link on the merchant portal product details page. 

When editing and managing plans, you can update order intervals or frequencies, plan names, discounts, and other advanced settings. You can also add additional plans or remove plans from this page.

Navigate the Products page

The Products page displays your products in one view allowing you to visualize the SKU, number of plans the product has, the plan type(s) of the product, and when the product was last updated. Access this page by clicking Products in the merchant portal. Search for products by product or variant title and SKU.

Additionally, you can click on Filters to filter your products by price, publish status, or plan type. 

The following actions can be done from the Products page by clicking the ellipsis:

• Manage plans
• Add or remove products from a collection
• View the product on your storefront

Limitations

There are some limitations to consider:

• Multiple prepaid subscription plans per product are not supported yet. If there is a prepaid plan on a product, you cannot have a subscription plan or one-time plan. 
• Once you have opted into Product Subscription Plans, it is not possible to move back to the former state, or use Prima and Novum themes.
• You must be using the Affinity customer portal theme. Prima and Novum themes will not be available if you are using Product Subscription Plans. 
  • Theme engine compatibility is coming soon. 
• You cannot bulk update plans at this time. 
• Products page filtering is limited to price and product publish status filtering at this time.
• Some third-party integrations may not be compatible with Product Subscription Plans. The Product team is working with partners to ensure compatibility. Consider waiting to upgrade if you have a custom widget implementation or use any of the following third-party apps:

  • Carthook

  • Corso

  • EcoCart

  • Honeycomb

  • Octane AI

  • One Click Upsell

  • Rebuy

  • Relo

  • Ultimate Upsell

  • Route

  • Tapcart