Setting up a prepaid subscription

You have the option of configuring a prepaid subscription when creating subscription rules for your products in Recharge. Prepaid subscriptions allow customers to pay for multiple orders upfront, while still ensuring that they receive their product on a regular cadence. This guide explains how to configure prepaid subscription products in the Recharge admin. 

Before you start

• A subscription product can only have one frequency configured at a given time. You can create multiple products on your eCommerce platform if you wish to offer multiple prepaid options with different frequencies and prices.

Step 1 - Create your product through your eCommerce platform

Begin by creating a new product in your eCommerce platform. These steps will vary depending on the platform you are using.

• Add a product in BigCommerce
• Add a product in Shopify

Pay attention to the product price when creating the product. The price of the product should reflect the total cost of all the shipments upfront. For example, if you want to charge customers every 3 months for a product that typically costs $10 a month, set the prepaid product price at $30 to account for all three shipments. 

Multiple prepaid frequencies

Prepaid subscriptions can be a great way to offer further subscribe and save incentives to your customers. Where one monthly subscription may cost $10, purchasing a 3-month prepaid subscription might only cost $25, and a 6-month subscription may only cost $50. That way customers can prepay for their subscriptions and save, while your business benefits from increased customer retention. 

You must first create a separate product on your eCommerce platform for every prepaid subscription option you wish to offer to customers. This is because only one order schedule can be set when configuring a prepaid subscription rule in Recharge. Additionally, each product can only have one set of subscription rules added to it in Recharge, meaning that one product cannot be offered as both a 3-month and a 6-month prepaid subscription. 

Creating individual products allows you to offer customers alternative prepaid frequency options, as you can set a different order schedule for each product once added to Recharge.

For example, you would need to create a total of three subscription rules for three separate products if you were to offer a monthly subscription, as well as a 3-month prepaid subscription and a 6-month prepaid subscription. 

Step 2 - Add the product to Recharge

Products tab

1. In the Recharge Dashboard, select Products.
2. Select the Add products button.
3. Search and select the prepaid product you wish to add to Recharge.
4. Select Add product.

Rulesets tab

1. In the Recharge Dashboard, select Rulesets and click Create ruleset.
2. Name your Ruleset. This is only visible internally so feel free to give the ruleset a descriptive name, especially if you have multiple rulesets.
3. Click Add products.
   
   
4. Search and select the prepaid product you wish to add to Recharge.
5. Click Add products once you have selected your products.

Step 3 -  Configure the subscription rules for the product

Use the subscription rules settings page to define the subscription type, as well as any order schedules that should apply to the subscription.

Subscription type

Set the Subscription type to Prepaid subscription only to charge customers on a different frequency than their order shipments. 

Set order schedule

Configure the order schedule to reflect when you would like to charge customers upfront for their scheduled shipments, and when you would like to ship those orders to your customers. 

For example, you would use the following settings if you wanted customers to receive a product monthly, and pay once every three months:

• Ship product every: 1 month. This ensures that customers receive one order every month.
• Charge customer every: 3 months. This ensures that customers are charged for their monthly shipment once every 3 months.

Charge customers on a specific day of the month

You can also configure subscriptions to charge customers on a specific day of the week or month. 

Step 4 - Configure shipping settings

Costs related to prepaid subscriptions, such as shipping and taxes, are only charged depending on the order schedule configured. For example, with a 3-month prepaid subscription, customers receive an order every month but are only charged every 3 months. As such, it's important to offer a shipping rate that covers the cost of shipping the product on months where customers have already prepaid. 

You may want to consider setting different weights for prepaid products and then use weight conditions to charge the correct shipping rate depending on the product ordered. 

Prepaid orders in your eCommerce platform

When a customer purchases a prepaid subscription, they will be charged the amount of the prepaid subscription upfront. Subsequent orders in the subscription will be submitted to your eCommerce platform at $0.00. This allows you to fulfill the order, without charging customers again. 

Shopify notifications

If you also sell one-time products and recurring subscription products, you may also want to adjust your Shopify notifications so as to not confuse customers when they receive an invoice for a $0 shipment order. For information on how to adjust your notification, visit Adjust Shopify notification for $0 prepaid orders.

Customer changes to prepaid subscriptions

If a customer makes a change to their prepaid subscription, it will only affect the next charge and not the scheduled shipments of their current prepaid cycle. You will need to manually update the remaining orders in the already processed set of shipments by referencing this guide. For more information, visit Changing variants or products for prepaid subscriptions.