Customers can manage their subscriptions by using their Shopify customer account to log into their customer portal. They can access this via their email notifications, or by logging in to their account on your Shopify storefront and clicking Manage Subscriptions.

Recharge uses the customer's email address to associate their customer portal with their Shopify account. This guide provides an overview of how Shopify customer accounts work with Recharge and how your customers can access and manage their subscriptions. 

Before you start

• Recharge is not compatible with Shopify's new customer accounts feature. If your store has this feature enabled, you must use classic accounts.

How customer accounts work

For every customer that goes through the checkout with a subscription product, a customer portal will be created that allows the customer to access and manage their subscriptions. The customer portal can be accessed using a tokenized magic link that is sent to the customer by email.

Customers use their customer portal to update subscription information, add additional products, cancel subscriptions, and more.

Customer account creation after checkout

When a customer checks out with a subscription in their cart they will receive two emails:

1. Order confirmation email - This comes from and can be customized in Shopify. See Shopify’s guide on customizing notification templates.
2. Subscription activation email - This comes from and is customized in Recharge. The emails contain a Manage subscription link that automatically brings customers to their customer portal.

Customer account preferences

You need to make sure your customer account preferences in Shopify are set to optional or required in order for customers to be able to create their customer account.

Even though a customer can access their customer portal through the Manage subscription link in the activation email, their customer account is not automatically activated if you set accounts as optional in Shopify.

You can tell if a customer has an activated account by accessing their customer profile in Shopify (click Customers in your Shopify admin). If the customer has not activated their account, there will be a Send account invite option.

Activating customer accounts

If your Shopify customer account preferences are set to optional, your customers still need to activate their accounts before they can modify their subscriptions. You can send a reminder as the store owner or request your customers to activate on their own.

• Store owner - Send out the email invite through Shopify, see Shopify's guide on Sending individual account invites. 
• Customer - Customers need to use the same email they checked out with in order for their previously purchased subscriptions to show up under their customer account.
  1. Click on the account button on the storefront to log in or create a customer account. The icon used for this is dependant on the Shopify theme. Alternatively, customers can also access the login page by adding .myshopify.com/account/login to the end of your store URL.
  2. Click Create account.

Once you or your customer requests their account, your customer will receive the Customer account invite email from Shopify. Once the customer has verified their account, they can see their order history and manage their subscriptions. 

Log in to Shopify to manage subscriptions

Customers can access your storefront login page and enter their Shopify account details. Once logged in, they will be able to see their Shopify orders and a Manage Subscriptions link, which will open their customer portal.

You can edit what a customer can modify within their customer portal by clicking Storefront and selecting Customer portal in your merchant portal. See Customer portal controls for more information.

Update billing information

Customer portal

Customers can update their billing information via their customer portal, by clicking the Send email to update button within the billing section. Shopify then sends the customer an email to update their credit card and billing information and the customer's next processed charge will use the new billing information.

To process this update click into the Payment method on the Payment methods tab or by editing the subscription and then click Send email to update.

Merchant portal

Merchants can also trigger the payment update email in their merchant portal:

1. Select Customers in the merchant portal and click Customers from the drop-down.
2. Search for and select the customer.
3. Select Manage payment methods and click request an update via email. Shopify sends the customer an email to update their credit card and billing information and the customer's next processed charge will use the new billing information. 

If the customer has multiple payment methods on file the payment method assigned to a specific address profile can be adjusted by selecting the payment method action button below the address. You can change, edit and add payment methods from this button.

Frictionless payment updates

Your customers can add and edit payment methods directly in the Recharge customer portal and do not see the send update email option if you:

• Use the Shopify Checkout Integration or the Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration as your platform
• Have the Retain package
• Use Shopify Payments in your Shopify admin payment settings as your primary payment provider
• Use one of Recharge's standard custom portals (Affinity, Novum, or Prima)

You must meet the criteria above to enable friction payment updates. You can review your store's eligibility and enable frictionless payment updates in Recharge:

1. Select Storefront in your Recharge merchant portal and click Customer portal. 
2. Navigate to the frictionless payments updates section and click Check eligibility for frictionless payment updates.
3. Enter your primary payment processor and select your customer portal theme. 
4. Click Check Eligibility so that Recharge can perform a check to confirm you meet the requirements for using this feature.
5. If you meet the requirements to enable frictionless payment methods, select Enable. This will automatically enable the feature on your store.
   • If you do not meet the requirements, you can change your store setup and try to enable the feature again. 

Shop Pay payment methods

Shop Pay customers can manage their subscription payment methods directly in their Shop Pay account. Review Shopify's Manage your subscription orders in Shop Pay guide for further details.

Update shipping address

Customer portal

Customers can update or add a new shipping address directly within their customer portal.

1. Access the Shipping addresses tab. 
2. Click on the shipping address you want to edit, add the updated information, and click Update shipping address. 
3. If adding a new shipping address, click Add shipping info.

Merchant portal

Merchants can also update a customer's shipping address in their merchant portal:

1. Click Customers and search and select the customer.
2. In the Customer overview, click the ellipsis menu for Subscriptions next to the address.
3. Click Edit address, add the updated information, and click Update.

FAQ

Refer to Understanding the customer portal for common customer portal questions.