Auto-renew products overview

When you create a subscription rule on the Recharge Checkout on Shopify, Recharge creates a hidden auto-renew product in your store to work alongside the single-use product. The auto-renew product is a duplicate of the one-time product to manage the subscription discount and default to hidden as they are only used by Recharge. This guide provides an overview of how auto-renew products work and tips on organizing the products in Shopify.

Background

Merchants often provide a discount for subscription products to encourage customers to purchase them on a recurring basis. In this scenario, the price of the subscription product differs from the one-time purchase price. Before Shopify was able to support subscriptions on the Shopify Checkout Integration, this type of configuration required a unique variant and product ID for each price. This requires the Recharge Checkout on Shopify to use hidden auto-renew products to set the subscription price at checkout.

Original products vs. auto-renew products

The original product is the standard product you offer. This is the product that is visible on your Shopify product page and when selecting products in the customer portal.

The auto-renew product acts as a copy of the original product. Auto-renew products have their own product ID and, when applicable, a different price than one-time purchase products. Auto-renew products retain almost all of the original product data, including inventory and weight settings except for product tags. This product remains hidden on all channels and is only used by Recharge to process the first order. To differentiate from the original product, it includes auto-renew in the title and has asubscription tag in Shopify.

When a customer makes a subscription purchase in the checkout, Recharge reduces the inventory from the original product even though the auto-renew product is used for this initial order.

If making changes to your products, update the original product and sync your subscription product in Recharge.

Rename the product title

For products at checkout

Change the name of the auto-renew product, as it appears at checkout, directly in Shopify.

Note: When syncing your products, the auto renew product must be renamed again.

For current subscribers

To change the title of an auto-renew product for current subscribers, use the Recharge Bulk Updater Tool or complete a bulk update using a CSV file.

Remove auto-renew products

Follow the steps below to delete all auto-renew products and resync your products.

1. In the Shopify Admin, go to Products and search for 'auto renew' and delete all the products.
   
2. In the merchant portal, select Products.
3. Next to the subscription product, select the Actions drop-down and click Sync.

Troubleshooting

For more help, visit Troubleshooting auto-renew products.