Can I prevent my current subscribers from receiving free shipping if I configure a free shipping profile?
Your Recharge shipping rate is set to retain
Yes. Retain shipping rates allows you to keep the shipping rate from the initial checkout for a subscriber’s future orders, rather than pulling updated rates dynamically. This offers the ability to keep existing subscribers on the same shipping rate even if Shopify rates change after their initial purchase. See Shipping setup guide: Shopify Checkout Integration for more details.
Your Recharge shipping rate is set to dynamic
No. Dynamic shipping profile rates apply to both new and existing subscriptions if you use dynamic rates. This means that any changes, such as adding free shipping, will also affect any current subscribers for products linked to that profile automatically.
Workarounds for dynamic rates
To offer different shipping rates, such as free shipping, only to new subscribers while keeping existing subscribers on their current dynamic rates, you can implement a workaround.
Option 1 - Set up separate dynamic shipping rates
By duplicating your subscription product in Shopify, assigning the duplicate to a new shipping profile with your updated rates, and then hiding the original product from your store, you can set a different dynamic rate for new customers, while keeping the old dynamic rate for existing ones.
Step-by-Step instructions
- In your Shopify admin, duplicate the existing subscription product.
- Assign the duplicated product to your new or existing shipping profile in Shopify.
- Hide the original product from your storefront and sales channels to prevent new purchases. This ensures only existing subscribers are tied to the original product and its shipping profile. See How do I hide a product in my store?
Option 2 - Override dynamic rates with manual rates for existing subscribers
If you want to apply a simple fixed rate, instead of dynamic rate, you can bulk apply a manual shipping rate (for example, their existing shipping rate) to all existing subscribers’ addresses in Recharge.
Manual rates are applied at the customer address level, and will override the existing dynamic shipping profile rate. Note that your customers will keep this manual rate even if their subscription changes, unless they sign up with a different shipping address or you remove this manual rate. For this reason, this option is only recommended if you are trying to grandfather in a lower rate for legacy customers. See Updating subscriptions in bulk.
