Creating a subscription rule in the Recharge Checkout on Shopify results in the creation of a hidden auto-renew product in your ecommerce store. Recharge uses this auto-renew product to verify the subscription price and product title you set up during checkout, while the original product in your store is used for all other related information, such as inventory.

This guide provides an overview of how auto-renew products work and tips on organizing auto-renew products in Shopify.

How it works

It's typical to provide a discount for subscription products to incentivize customers to subscribe and receive your products on a recurring basis. In this scenario, the price of the subscription product differs from the one-time purchase price.

Before Shopify was able to support subscriptions on the Shopify Checkout Integration, this type of configuration required a unique variant and product ID for each price. This requires the Recharge Checkout on Shopify to use hidden auto-renew products to set the subscription price at checkout. 

The auto-renew version of a product manages the subscription discount and defaults to hidden as they are only used by Recharge. The auto-renew version is used at the checkout to:

• Set the subscription product price
• Assign the subscription product title 

The original product is used for the rest of the product components, including the available inventory.

The auto-renew product is only used when a customer checks out with a subscription product. Recharge can get the relevant product information without the auto-renew product if a subscription is created through the merchant portal, the customer portal, or through the API. 

Original products vs. auto-renew products

The original product is the standard, one-time product you offer. This is the product that is visible on your Shopify product page and when selecting products from the customer portal.

The auto-renew product acts as a copy of the original product. Auto-renew products have their own product ID and, when applicable, a different price than one-time purchase products. Auto-renew products retain most of the original product data, including inventory and weight settings. The only product data that is not retained are product tags.

This product remains hidden on all sales channels and is only used by Recharge to process the first order. To differentiate the auto-renew product from the original product, it includes auto-renew in the title and has a subscription tag in Shopify.

When a customer makes a subscription purchase at checkout, Recharge reduces the inventory from the original product even though the auto-renew product is used for this initial order.

If making changes to your products, update the original product and sync your subscription product in Recharge.

Rename the product title

For products at checkout

Change the name of the auto-renew product, as it appears at checkout, directly in Shopify.

Note: When syncing your products, the auto-renew product must be renamed again.

For current subscribers

To change the title of an auto-renew product for current subscribers, use the Bulk management tools in the merchant portal.

Remove auto-renew products

Use the following steps to delete all auto-renew products and resync your products:

1. In the Shopify Admin, go to Products, search for 'auto renew', and delete all the products.
   
2. In the Recharge merchant portal, select Products.
3. Next to the subscription product, select the Actions dropdown and click Sync.

Troubleshooting

For more help, visit Troubleshooting auto-renew products.