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How to let customers buy more and save with Quantity Upsells

Relevant to: Shopify Checkout Integration Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

Quantity upsells allow you to create flexible, incentive-based offers that encourage higher-value purchases while maintaining a smooth subscription experience. With quantity upsells, you can offer customers larger discounts the more they buy.

This guide explains how you can use Quantity Upsells to encourage customers to buy more and save.

Platform:

  • Shopify Checkout Integration
  • Migrated Shopify Checkout Integration

Before you start

Step 1 - Set up your product and theme in Shopify

Before offering a quantity upsell, you need to create a dedicated product page template without the standard quantity selector. Hiding the quantity selector ensures that customers use only the quantity upsell options you configure.

  1. In your Shopify admin, go to the product you want to set up with a quantity upsell and note the theme template assigned to it under Theme template.
  2. In your Shopify admin, select Online Store under Sales Channel, and click Customize next to your live theme.
  3. Click Home Page in the Theme Editor and select Products from the drop-down menu. 
  4. Select Create template. Enter a name for the new product template, and from the Based on drop-down menu, select the theme template you noted in Step 1. Select Create template.
  5. Click the Quantity selector in your new template, then select the eye icon to hide the selector.
  6. Confirm the Recharge Subscription Widget app block is present on the new product template.
  7. Save the new product page template.
  8. Navigate back to the product you want to set up with a quantity upsell. Under Theme Template change the product page template to the new quantity upsell template using the drop-down menu options.

Your product now uses the new theme template for quantity upsells. Make sure to assign this same template to any future products you want to sell as quantity upsells.

Video tutorial

Review the video below for detailed instructions on setting up your Shopify theme for Quantity Upsells.

Step 2 - Set up the Quantity Upsell plans in Recharge

After creating a dedicated theme template for Quantity Upsells, the next step is to configure your Quantity Upsell plans in Recharge.

  1. In the Recharge merchant portal, click Products, then select Products. Click the product you want to set up with a quantity-upsell offer. 
  2.  Select Configure and then Create plans if you haven't created a plan for the product yet. Click Add subscription plans to add a new plan to the product if there are existing plans. See creating quantity upsell offers for products with existing plans for more information. 
  3. Select Subscription with quantity upsell discounts to create your first quantity upsell plan. 
  4. Create your first plan to match your quantity upsell offer. You can edit the plan titles as needed to make them more transparent to customers. 
  5. Click Save and then Save and add another plan to configure additional plans that reflect your quantity upsell discounts. For each plan, set your preferred delivery frequency, quantity, and discount, for example:
    • Send one product every month with a 10% discount
    • Send three products every three months with a 15% discount
    • Send six products every six months with a 20% discount
  6. When finished, click Save to apply your new quantity upsell plans.

Video tutorial

Review the video below for detailed instructions on setting up the Quantity Upsell plans in Recharge.

Creating quantity upsell offers for products with existing plans

If you’re adding Quantity Upsell plans to a product that already has existing subscription plans, keep the following in mind:

  • If you want to offer a Quantity Upsell plan that ships a single unit at the same frequency as one of your current subscription plans, you can keep the original subscription plan. Existing subscribers will continue managing their subscriptions as usual and won’t see the new quantity upsell options.
  • To maintain a single-unit option for new customers, consider creating a Quantity Upsell plan that matches your standard frequency and quantity. You can also choose to set multi-unit purchases as your new default.
  • Once your Quantity Upsell plans are live, any customers who subscribe through the Recharge Subscription Widget (or a custom widget) will see an Affinity-specific Quantity Upsell widget when managing their subscription in Affinity. This lets them easily switch between different frequencies, automatically updating their product quantity.

Step 3 - Set up the Recharge Subscription Widget to reflect Quantity Upsells

After setting up your Quantity Upsell plans, the next step is to create and customize your Subscription Widget in Recharge. The widget controls how your Quantity Upsell options appear on the product page, allowing you to highlight discounts and benefits.

  1. In the Recharge merchant portal, click Cross-Sell & Upsell, then select Subscription Widget.
  2. Click Create widget from template.
  3. Select the Quantity upsells widget template and click Get started.
  4. Use the default configuration option as the basis for your new widget, then select Set starting point.
  5. Click the Subscription Widget node on the flow canvas and select Customize subscription widget.
  6. Customize your subscription widget to match your brand's styling. See available variables to learn more about the variables you can use with the quantity upsell widget.
  7. Click Done when finished and then Apply.
  8. Select Save on the flow canvas, and Activate when you're ready to go live with the widget.

When a product uses the specific Quantity Upsell Subscription Widget, only its Quantity Upsell plans appear on the product page. Other subscription plans are hidden from new customers, but are still available for existing subscribers to switch to in their customer portal.

Available variables

Variable

Description

Example
{amount} Displays the total quantity of the product included in the subscription. 2 units per order.
{shippingInterval} Displays how often the product is shipped as part of the subscription. Delivered every 2 months.
{discountPrice} Displays the discounted product price after applying the subscription discount. Only $18.99 per order.
{unitPrice} Displays the price per unit when sold as part of a subscription. Only $2.50 per bottle

Video tutorial

Review the video below for instructions on setting up the Recharge Subscription Widget to reflect Quantity Upsells.

Step 4 - Update store settings

Update your cart settings

Update your cart settings in both Recharge and Shopify to ensure correct upsell behavior:

  1. From your Shopify admin, select the Shopify theme editor. Confirm that the Cart style is set to drawer.
  2. From the Recharge merchant portal, select Cross-Sell & Upsell and click Cart. Confirm that your Cart is enabled.

Update your customer portal settings

Update your customer portal settings to ensure quantity changes happen for your customers: 

  1. Click Storefront in the merchant portal and select Customer portal.
  2. Under Customer portal functionality, enable the option Reschedule upcoming regular orders.
  3. Save your changes.

Update your Shopify Checkout settings

Turn on cart validation in Shopify to ensure customers can’t manually change product quantities in the cart to bypass your Quantity Upsell discounts:

  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings and select Checkout, then find the Checkout rules section.
  2. Click Add rule and choose Recharge Cart Validation for Quantity Upsells.
  3. Click Save, then Turn on to activate it.

Additional settings are available when you open the rule: 

Within the rule, the Allow all customers to complete checkout option is enabled by default. This is a failsafe that determines what happens if Recharge can't run validation. This can happen for a range of reasons, such as a product issue, a third-party outage, or an error within Recharge.

When things are working normally, this setting has no effect. If Recharge is unable to validate:

  • Enabled (recommended): Customers can still check out, but quantities won’t be validated.
  • Disabled: Checkout for Quantity Upsell products will fail entirely.

Recharge recommends keeping this option enabled to avoid interruptions during checkout.

Video tutorial

Review the video below for instructions on configuring your store settings.

Considerations

Consider the following when using Quantity Upsells:

Consideration

Notes
Cart behavior for quantity upsells
  • When a customer adds a product with a QuantityUpsell plan to their cart, the Recharge Cart automatically disables quantity selectors. This prevents customers from manually changing the quantity and potentially bypassing your upsell discounts.
  • Recharge strongly recommends using the Recharge Cart for this reason. It also allows customers to:
    • Upgrade from a one-time purchase to a Quantity Upsell plan directly in the cart
    • Switch between a product’s Quantity Upsell plans in the cart
  • If you’re not using the Recharge Cart, you’ll need to ensure that quantities can’t be changed on Quantity upsell products. Work with a developer to disable or hide the quantity selector in your cart.
Quantity upsell plans override other subscription plan types
  • When you create a quantity upsell plan for a product, you cannot add other subscription plan types to that same product. This limitation helps prevent plan conflicts and ensures a clearer customer experience. To use a different subscription plan type, delete the Quantity Upsell plan first, then create the new plan. You can recreate the Quantity Upsell plan afterward if needed.
Widget usage for quantity upsells
  • You can continue using the standard Subscription Widget for products without upsell offers. For products that include quantity upsells, ensure both the Quantity Upsell Widget and the related plans are configured.
Prepaids
  • Quantity Upsells are not compatible with prepaid products
Bundles
Display order and badges in the storefront
  • You can reorder your Quantity Upsell plans by dragging and dropping them on the product page in Recharge. The storefront will update within a few minutes.
  • Keep in mind:
    • The “Recommended” badge (from the default widget) appears on the first plan in the sort order
    • The “Best Value” badge appears on the second plan in the sort order.
Quantity upsells compatibility limitations
Dynamic pricing
  • You cannot enable dynamic pricing and quantity upsell plans at the same time. When you activate a quantity upsell plan, Recharge automatically disables dynamic pricing. You cannot re-enable dynamic pricing until you remove the quantity upsell plan.
Updating existing subscriptions
  • You cannot convert existing subscriptions from a standard subscription plan to a quantity upsell plan. 
  • To update these subscriptions, perform a bulk update that adjusts both the subscription quantity and the recurring price. Set the recurring price as the per-unit price to align with the quantity upsell plan pricing structure.
Third-party widgets

  • If you’re using a custom or third-party subscription widget instead of the Recharge Subscription Widget, you’ll need to ensure the widget reads the product quantity associated with each selling plan. 

  • For detailed implementation guidance, see Using Quantity Upsells with custom widgets.
Custom CSS
  • The widget supports custom CSS. In the widget customizer, select Edit styles, then scroll to Advanced: enter custom CSS to add your custom code.

Resources

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