Convert a Migrated Shopify Checkout store to a full Shopify Checkout

Converting a migrated Shopify Checkout store to a full Shopify Checkout happens when you still have existing subscribers with payment methods stored in Recharge that need to be migrated to Shopify. For example, this can happen after previously converting from Recharge Checkout on Shopify to Shopify Checkout Integration. 

To fully convert your store you must perform an Existing Subscriber Migration (ESM). This migrates existing subscribers to Shopify for unified order processing, tax and shipping calculations, and payment management.

As part of Shopify’s mandate and our goal to unify payment and subscription processing, all existing subscribers must be migrated by October 14, 2026. After this date, any subscriptions that haven’t been migrated will stop processing.

This guide walks through the process of performing an Existing Subscriber Migration.

Before you start

• Billing Address Warning: If your current legacy payment gateway does not have accurate billing address data, some recurring orders may show blank or incorrect billing addresses after the migration. If having an accurate billing address on a payment method is important for your business, let us know in advance so we can take extra precautions to mitigate any potential issues.
• Tax Setting Changes: Once the migration is complete, Shopify calculates taxes instead of Recharge. Make sure your Shopify tax settings match your current Recharge tax setup. 
• Matching the customer email: The customer email in Recharge must match the email associated with the customer's Shopify Customer ID or migration errors may occur. 
• Manually adding customers post migration: After the full conversion and subscriber migration, manually adding customers to Recharge does not work. If this use case applies to your business, let us know in advance and we can offer an alternative solution.

Step 1 - Adding and activating a legacy payment gateway 

You may want to double check your subscribers' billing address information in your payment gateway itself. Shopify references this data during the migration so even if address information in Recharge is correct, if it is wrong in your gateway it will be migrated incorrectly into Shopify. 

Step 2 - Request the Existing Subscriber Migration

Once your store is ready and your legacy gateway is connected, begin the process to request your migration.

1. Log in to the Recharge merchant portal.
2. Locate the homepage banner to schedule your conversion to the Shopify Checkout Integration.
3. Follow the guidance provided. You will either be prompted to complete the readiness form or reach out to Shopify. 

After your request is submitted or next steps are completed, Recharge will review your request, check your store for readiness and will follow-up with questions and any additional requests. Recharge will then confirm you are in the queue and what to expect on migration day.

On migration day, Recharge runs the migration and a variety of checks to ensure data accuracy and contact you to confirm the status of the migration.

Step 3 - Complete post-migration validation

After completing the existing subscriber migration, please complete the following tasks to confirm that everything behaves as expected.

1. Download the Payment Methods - All Export from Recharge.
2. Search for the customer_id. 
3. Confirm the process_name column now shows shopify_payments. This indicates the gateway configuration is now managed in Shopify.
4. Monitor recurring charges for migrated customers as they begin processing.
5. Confirm third-party apps are configured for the Shopify Checkout and adjust settings with the app provider as needed. You'll want to consider any data reconciliation across third-party applications (e.g. account, tax, inventory/fulfillment) based on order data that Recharge passes into Shopify. For example, NetSuite needs to reconcile Stripe transactions with Shopify orders that were generated from subscription billing attempts by Recharge. 
6. If you have any third-party apps, like Avalara, enabled in Recharge that were used for your legacy subscribers, you can turn them off now as Shopify takes responsibility for tax calculations. 

If you run into any issues or have questions during your testing, reach out to Recharge support.

Unsupported Payment Gateways on SCI

If you are using our custom gateway billing feature in the SCIm state and the gateway is unsupported in Shopify, this means that customers currently on these gateways must update their payment methods so future charges run through your new gateway in Shopify.

These unsupported gateways on Shopify include:

• Stripe Link - As Stripe Link is a payment wallet, it's not possible to migrate the customer data between gateways.  
• Klarna - Klarna is not currently supported for subscription billing.  If support is added, it's unlikely that migration pathways will exist for your existing customers’ payment methods.
• Amazon Pay - Amazon Pay is a payment wallet.  While Amazon Pay is supported in Shopify Payments, it is not the same account and generally you cannot migrate the customer data between gateways. 
• Ideal/Sepa - Currently this is on the Shopify roadmap, but it’s not clear when support will be added and when it is supported it will not be possible to migrate existing customers’ payment methods. 
• Afterpay - Klarna is not currently supported for subscription billing.  If support is added, it's unlikely that migration pathways will exist for your existing customers’ payment methods.

We recommend that you run a slow drip campaign to have your existing customers using these payment methods re-enter their payment information so it securely vaults into Shopify’s updated system.  We’ve seen higher degrees of success by running targeted campaigns to these subscribers asking them to update credit card info for security purposes in their new system using Recharge’s e-mail or sms features or via integrations with Klaviyo and other messaging platforms.  

Make sure you confirm your new legacy supported gateway is set up in Shopify and the “Update payment method” option is enabled in your customer portal before running these campaigns on existing subscribers.

For more information on the technical details and feature compatibility, refer to Shopify Checkout Integration technical details and requirements.

FAQs

Will the migration trigger any custom webhooks that I have set up in Recharge or Shopify?

If utilizing any kind of webhook that accounts for customer updates in Recharge or Shopify, we would recommend disabling these at the time of migration. The implications are that these webhook events may trigger in an unintended manner to the workflows you’ve built them into as we go through the process of updating your customer information into Shopify.

What is the difference between an Existing Subscriber Migration and a PAN Migration?

The Existing Subscriber Migration (ESM) is an effort to consolidate all customers' subscription contracts that are still processing on the Recharge Checkout on Shopify and migrate them to Shopify for processing (what this document is all about).  Once this process is completed, we are then able to move a store out of the Shopify Checkout Integration(m) and place it into a pure Shopify Checkout Integration state, as all customer contracts are now processing directly in Shopify instead of in a split state (Recharge and Shopify).

After the migration is complete, however, customers' payment methods will continue to process on the Legacy Gateway that was connected in Shopify during the existing subscriber migration (ESM), and not in Shopify Payments directly.  It's not until a customer were to update their Payment Methods or Billing Information that a customer is automatically vaulted into Shopify Payments. 

A PAN Migration is the process of moving all customers' payment methods on a Legacy Gateway in Shopify, such as Stripe, Braintree, or Authorize, into Shopify Payments all at one time.  This process requires an engagement with the Shopify ProServices Team and the Recharge Migration Team and may incur a fee from Shopify.  As part of this process, an Existing Subscriber Migration is still required as a prerequisite.

See Migrating legacy payment methods directly into Shopify Payments using PAN migrations for more information in our help documentation.