How to create a Product Subscription Plan

Product Subscription Plans let you control how customers subscribe to your products. You can define delivery frequency, apply discounts, and offer multiple subscription options per product. This helps you increase recurring revenue while giving customers flexible purchase choices.

This guide explains how to create, manage, and update Product Subscription Plans in Recharge.

Before you start

You must use either the Affinity or the Unity customer portal to use Product Subscription Plans.

How it works

Product Subscription Plans define how a product is sold as a subscription. Each plan determines how customers are charged, how often they receive orders, and how pricing behaves over time. You create and manage Product Subscription Plans at the product level. 

When creating Product Subscription Plans, you must first choose a plan type. Each plan type supports a different subscription model:

• Subscription: Customers are charged and receive an order each billing cycle.
• Prepaid/gift: Customers pay upfront for multiple shipments delivered over time.
• Subscription with dynamic pricing: Customers receive a discount for a set number of orders, then a different discount moving forward.
• Subscription with quantity upsell discounts: Customers receive larger discounts when they buy more or choose less frequent deliveries.

Your choice of plan type affects how billing and discounts are applied. For example, prepaid plans collect payment upfront, while standard subscriptions charge per delivery.

After selecting a plan type, you configure the frequency, discount, and optional advanced settings. You can create multiple Product Subscription Plans for a single product to offer different options.

For example, you might offer two Product Subscription Plans for the same product: “Deliver every 2 weeks – 10% off” for frequent purchases, and “Deliver monthly – 15% off” to encourage longer commitments.

Recharge syncs products from Shopify automatically to the Products page.While you cannot create Product Subscription Plans for multiple products at once, you can copy existing plans to other products.

Discount types

Each plan's discount can be a percentage or a fixed amount. Open the discount type dropdown on the plan to choose how Recharge calculates the subscription discount:

• Percent off: Reduces the subscription price by a percentage, such as 10%.
• Amount off: Reduces the subscription price by a fixed amount, such as $5. Fixed-amount discounts stay the same regardless of product price, so review your pricing before applying the same fixed discount to products with different prices.

The selected discount applies to the subscription price at checkout and in the customer portal. Customers using Affinity or Unity see the discounted price with the original price crossed out.

You can apply fixed-amount and percentage discounts to different plans for the same product — for example, to test discount strategies or advertise a clear "Save $5" offer on one plan.

Step 1 - Create a Product Subscription Plan

You can create or import plans for individual products directly in the merchant portal. To create a Product Subscription Plan: 

1. In the Recharge merchant portal, click Products and select Products from the dropdown.
2. Use the Add filter button to narrow or customize the products displayed.
3. Select the product you want to create a subscription plan for.
4. Click Add subscription plan.
5. Select a plan type, then update the frequency and plan name. The plan name appears in the subscription widget on your storefront. Note: Daily order intervals are not supported. 
6. Enter a discount if you want to apply one. Use the discount type dropdown to choose Percent off or Amount off, then enter the value. See Discount types for details.
7. Optional - Open the Charge and cut-off schedule menu to charge customers on a specific day.
8. Optional - Open the Channels menu to configure channel settings. Use these settings to manage where customers can purchase the subscription product.
9. Click Save.

After you create your first plan, repeat these steps to add additional plans with different subscription frequencies. You can also drag and drop plans to set the display order on your storefront product page.

Import an existing plan

You can reuse an existing plan with the same settings to save time:

1. Click Configure plans.
2. Select Import plans from an existing product.
3. Search for the product(s) you wish to copy.
4. Select the plan(s) to copy.
5. Click Apply.

Advanced settings

Use the advanced settings to configure a charge and cut-off schedule, plus choose where plans are available for purchase with channel settings. 

Charge and cut-off schedule

By default, Recharge processes the first order on the day of checkout, then schedules future orders on the same day.

To charge on a specific day, select a date from the Charge on this day of the month dropdown. See Charging on a specific day of the month for details.

Set subscription to expire after a set number of charges

You can also set your subscription to expire after a set number of charges. This automatically cancels a customer's subscription when they've been charged the set number of times. This feature is typically used with prepaid gift subscriptions. 

Channel settings

Use the toggle to control whether the plan displays on each sales channel.

Disabled plans don't appear in Shopify. If your plans aren't showing in Shopify, check that the plan is enabled and that Storefront widget is selected as a channel.

Optional - Copy existing plans to multiple products

1. Select Products in the merchant portal and click Products from the dropdown.
2. Select up to 50 products using the checkboxes.
3. Optional -  Use the Select all pop-up to apply changes across pages.
4. Click Update plans.
5. Choose a product whose plans you want to assign to others, then click Copy plans.
6. Review changes and click Confirm: copy plans.

Offer products 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. 

1. Navigate to the Products page in your merchant portal.
2. Select the product to update.
3. Click Add one-time plan.
4. Select the checkbox to apply a discount, then enter the discount amount.
5. Enter a plan name.
6. Click Save.

Edit existing plans

You can edit plans anytime. Updates apply to new orders only. Use a bulk update to change existing orders.

1. Navigate to the Products page.
2. Select the product.
3. Click the pencil icon next to the plan.
4. Make your changes and click Done.

You can update intervals, names, discounts, advanced settings, add or remove plans, and more.

Considerations

Consider the following when creating a Product Subscription Plan:

Frequently asked questions