Creating subscription rules

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Understanding subscription rules

Subscription rules control everything about how a subscription functions, such as:

• The products you want to offer for subscription.
• How often the customer will be charged.
• How often the product will be shipped.
• Discounts for subscribing.
• Specific days for charges.
• Cut-off windows when subscribing.
• Automatic expiration after a set amount of time.

Subscription rules are set directly on the product-level on a one-to-one basis and allow for greater flexibility.

Step 1 - Add product

To get started offering subscriptions, you will need to create a product in your eCommerce platform (see instructions for Shopify or instructions for BigCommerce). Once you have at least one product, go to your Recharge Dashboard and select Rulesets > Products or Products.

Select Add products to get started.

Once started, a popup will appear listing all of the products available through your eCommerce platform that have not been assigned a subscription rule. Click the checkbox next to the product(s) you want to offer as a subscription and select Add products. 

Step 2 - Select subscription type

You will need to select the subscription type you would like to apply to the product:

Choose one of the three options:

• One-time & subscription: This option is used for products where you wish for the customer to have a choice between purchasing the item only once or subscribing to it. This could be something like a specific blend of coffee or a specific scented lotion or a certain bag of dog treats. Something where you want the customer to be able to choose between just receiving the product once or entering into a subscription (perhaps with an additional discount incentive, if you choose).
• Subscription Only: This is the option you will want to use if you're doing something like a box of items each month (for example, Chocolates of the Month Box). For this rule, you would only want people to have the option to subscribe to the product without being given a choice to only purchase it once.
• Pre-paid subscription only: This option is used if you want customers to pay upfront for a set number of shipments. This is often used when offering gift subscriptions, as a customer can pay the total amount and the gift recipient will receive shipments. For example, if you offer a 6-month prepaid gift option, the customer would pay for 6 months upfront and receive $0 shipment orders in subsequent months.

Optional - Adding a discount

You can offer a discount to entice customers to subscribe instead of purchasing your products as a one-off. To do that, tick the box and then specify the percentage discount that you would like to offer.

Step 3 - Set your order schedule

The order schedule is where you can specify how often you charge for and ship your subscription products. You can include multiple frequencies to choose from by clicking the Add frequency button.

Recharge will charge your customer and then send the shipment order to your eCommerce platform for the fulfillment process to be carried out on your store’s end. 

Selecting the pre-paid subscription option will change the interface slightly, as you cannot enter multiple frequency options with pre-paid subscriptions. 

Optional - Charge customer on a specific day of the week or month

You can specify the specific day of the week that you wish your customers to be charged using the drop-down option. For example, if you have your frequencies set to weeks, you may want to charge your customers every Monday. If you have your frequencies set to months, you could select the option to charge your customers on the 15th of every month. 

Leaving it as When they sign up means they will be charged on the same day of the week or month they originally signed up.

Optional - Set subscription to expire after a set number of charges

If your product is a gift subscription, you can set it to expire after one charge. Since gift subscriptions are only purchased once, they will show up in your Recharge Dashboard as being canceled/expired automatically. 

Step 4 - Check your work

Once you have everything set up, scroll down to the bottom, and hit Save.

Once you hit Save at the bottom, Recharge will then sync the product you have chosen to your store. Depending on the type of subscription, there may be a new subscription widget on the product page:

The subscription widget looks a little different with the Recharge Checkout on BigCommerce, but has identical functionality: 

We suggest going through the test order process to ensure everything works on your side before going live.

If you run into any issues or have any questions, please reach out to our support team and we'll be happy to help out.

Manage products

You can manage your products in Recharge by clicking Rulesets and selecting Products from the dropdown in Shopify or selecting Products in BigCommerce on your top toolbar.

• Product - Lists the title of the product. Clicking the product will take you to the product summary page.

• Ruleset - Lists the current ruleset. If the product has been imported into Recharge and rules applied directly to the product, then it will list No ruleset.

• Subscription type - This only applies to Shopify stores. It reflects the rules set on the product or within the ruleset. At this time, the column will reflect One-time & subscription, Pre-paid subscription only, or Subscription only. In the future, it will include One-time Only and Inactive.

• Order schedule - Shows the shipping and charge date frequency for products. Note that this column is not sortable.

• Last synced - Displays the date and time that the product was last synced to the database.

• Actions - Menu that allows merchants to perform a number of tasks to the product:

  • Sync - Pulls in product data from their eCommerce platform.

    • This option is only available to merchants using the Recharge Checkout on Shopify. BigCommerce automatically sends all product changes to Recharge without you needing to sync those changes.

  • Remove from ruleset - If the product exists in a ruleset, you can remove the product from the ruleset. Note that the product will still display in Recharge in the Products section.

    • This option is only available to merchants using the Recharge Checkout on Shopify and have products organized in rulesets. 

  • Remove from Recharge - The button will delete the product from Recharge and it will no longer displays in Products or Rulesets. It will not impact existing customers who are subscribed to the product.