Prepaid subscriptions allow customers to pay for multiple orders upfront, while still ensuring that they receive their product on a regular cadence. You can also set up prepaid gift subscriptions, which include an expiration to ensure it expires after a certain number of charges.

This guide provides a breakdown of resources and information for managing prepaids.

Creating prepaid subscriptions

Review the Configuring a prepaid subscription guide for instructions to setup prepaid subscriptions for your site. You can also create prepaid gift subscriptions to setup a non-renewable subscription that automatically expires after the initial prepaid cycle. 

There are some considerations to keep in mind when creating prepaid subscriptions:

Product price

The price of the product should reflect the total cost of all the shipments upfront and should be multiplied by the number of prepaid months you plan to offer. For example, if you want to charge customers every three months for a product that typically costs $10 a month, set the prepaid product price at $30 to account for all three shipments. This ensures that customers are charged the amount upfront to cover future prepaid shipments. 

Notifications

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

Shipping

Costs related to prepaid subscriptions, such as shipping and taxes, are only charged when the initial order is processed. It is important to offer a shipping rate that covers the cost of shipping the product for each shipment included in the prepaid cycle.

To ensure accurate shipping is charged, you may want to set the weight of this product to equal the weight of the individual product multiplied by the number of shipments that will be sent. Refer to the chart below, and visit Shipping by Weight to learn more about this shipping setup.  

Adjusting the prepaid order frequency

The order frequency setting manages how often the customer receives their prepaid subscription. Review Adjusting the order schedule for details. 

Add shipment and manage prepaid orders

There are two methods to add a shipment to a prepaid subscription.

Method 1 - View charge details

1. Navigate to the subscription details page of your customer's prepaid order.
2. Click the dropdown of the prepaid order to update and select View charge details.
   
3. Click Add prepaid order.
   
4. Add a date for the new shipment and select Add order.
   

Method 2 - Renewal order

1. Navigate to the subscription details page of your customer's prepaid order.
2. Identify the renewal charge for the prepaid order and expand using the dropdown.
3. Select Add shipment.
   
4. Add a date for the new shipment and select Add order.

See the prepaid subscription details page quick reference guide for more information on managing prepaid subscriptions and common prepaid order actions.

Adjusting order and charge dates

You can adjust prepaid order dates to customize the order schedule. Review Editing prepaid shipment dates for details.

Adjust the charge date to change when the next prepaid cycle is charged and begins. Review Editing upcoming charge dates for details.

If the customer wants to switch from a standard recurring subscription to a prepaid subscription review Converting from monthly to prepaid.

Changing the product or variant

The product is set for the entire prepaid cycle when the prepaid subscription is created. If you need to adjust the product selection follow Changing the product for an existing prepaid subscription.

If the 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 created set of shipments.

Cancelling prepaid subscriptions

prepaid subscriptions require additional steps if you also want to cancel the prepaid orders that were created. Review Cancelling a prepaid subscription for further details.