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:

• Create Variant Level Plans 
• 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 prepaid frequencies for one product
• Fixed-amount subscription discount options
• 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. Select Products in your Recharge merchant portal and click Products from the dropdown.
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.

If your store is using a custom customer portal theme, contact your Recharge Account Manager to ensure correct endpoints are being used with Product Subscription Plans. 

Create a Product Subscription Plan

Recharge uses Product Subscription Plans to automatically display your products in your merchant portal after you've added a product on Shopify and installed Recharge. You can add products to Recharge and assign up to 100 subscription plans for each product, depending on the subscriptions you offer. 

Every product needs subscription rules added manually, and you cannot add more than one product simultaneously. 

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. New subscription plan IDs are created and used after enabling Product Subscription Plans.

As an example, if you sell skin care products, you can 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 and select Products from the dropdown.
   • By default, Recharge enables a filter that hides one-time products from the Product list. To access all available products, click the X on the Plan types: Prepaid, Subscription filter.
     
2. Select the product you want to make a plan for and click Create plans at the bottom of the product page. 
   
3. Click Add another plan. 
4. 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. 
    
5. Enter a discount amount if you wish to offer customers a discount when they purchase a subscription product. 
6. Optionally, select the Advanced settings dropdown to add a cut-off schedule and configure channel settings. Refer to Advanced settings for more information. 
7. Select Done when you're finishing configuring the plan. 
   
8. 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.

Advanced settings

Advanced settings when using Product Subscription Plans allow you to configure a charge and cut-off schedule as well as choose where plans are available for purchase with channel settings. 

Charge and cut-off schedule

Apply settings to charge customers on a specific day of the month. 

By default, the product is sent on the same day the initial checkout occurred. For example, if the customer checks out on the 14th for a monthly subscription product, all subsequent orders are processed on the 14th. Alternatively, you can select a specific day of the month from the charge on this day of the month dropdown to charge customers on a specific day for their recurring orders. See Charging on a specific day of the month for more information. 

Channel settings

Manage where plans are available for purchase by selecting the toggle next to the channels you'd like to display a specific plan. 

Offer product as a one-time purchase

Product Subscription Plans allow you to offer products as one-time purchases only. Additionally, you can add a discount to the one-time product while offering it on the customer and merchant portals. 

To offer a product as a one-time purchase:

1. Navigate to the Products page in your merchant portal and select Products from the dropdown.
2. Select the specific product to update and you will be directed to the product details page.
3. Click the toggle to enable the Available as a one-time product setting.
4. Click the pencil icon to edit the one-time product details. 
5. Select the checkbox if you'd like to offer a discount on the one-time product and enter amount for discount.
   
6. Click Update to save your changes. 

This will allow 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.

Considerations

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.
• Product Subscription Plans are compatible with the Affinity customer portal theme. Prima and Novum themes are not compatible with Product Subscription Plans. 
• 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. Consider checking with these apps before upgrading 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

  • Relo

  • Ultimate Upsell