A subscription ties a customer to a plan and automates recurring billing. You can create subscriptions through the Admin UI, Checkout, Hosted Payment Pages, or the API — with full control over pricing, timing, add-ons, coupons, and invoicing behavior at the point of creation.

Available on all Recurly plans

1Definition 2Key details

Definition

A subscription gives a customer access to your products or services for a recurring billing period. Recurly automates the billing cycle, supports trials and future start dates, and lets you override plan defaults — price, term length, add-ons, and more — on a per-subscription basis.

Key details

Creation methods

Checkout

A customizable buying experience for customers that handles account creation, subscription setup, and billing details automatically.

Hosted Payment Pages

A dedicated checkout page per plan — Recurly creates the customer account and subscription on successful purchase.

Admin UI

Create subscriptions manually against a new or existing customer account from the Admin UI.

API

Integrate subscription creation directly into your product using Recurly's API — supports combining subscriptions, one-time charges, and other components into a single invoice.

Admin UI and 3DS If you're outside the US or required to use 3DS for new subscriptions, avoid creating subscriptions through the Admin UI — this can cause SCA declines and other issues associated with merchant-initiated subscription creation.

Create a subscription in the Admin UI

Navigate to the customer account

Go to Customers → Accounts and select the account.

Add a subscription

Open the Account Actions dropdown and select Add subscription.

Fill in subscription details

Complete the fields across each section — described below.

Subscription details

Field	Description
Plan	The subscription model the customer is purchasing. Required — determines the features and services the subscriber can access.
Currency	The currency in which the customer is billed. Required for businesses operating across regions.
Price per billing period	The amount charged each cycle. Can be set per subscription or auto-populated from the plan configuration.
Quantity	The number of units — users, licenses, or any other measurable metric — the subscriber is purchasing.
Description, billing period, setup fee, trial length	Auto-populated from the plan's default settings. Shows the billing frequency, any initial fees, and trial period details.

Add-ons

Add supplementary features, tools, or extended capacity to the core plan subscription.

Timing

Field	Description
Start subscription	Begin immediately, set a future date, or backdate up to ten years in the past to align with contract dates.
Subscription term	The length of the initial subscription in billing periods — for example, 12 monthly periods equals a one-year term.
At end of subscription term	Choose whether the subscription automatically renews or expires at the end of the initial term.
Renewal subscription term	If auto-renewing, specify the length of each renewal term in billing periods.

Shipping

For subscriptions that include physical delivery, check Include Shipping and enter a shipping address.

Coupons and gift cards

Apply promotional codes for percentage or fixed-amount discounts, or redeem a gift card that covers the full or partial subscription cost.

Invoicing

Field	Description
Collection method	Automatic — Recurly attempts payment using the account's billing info on invoice generation. Manual — payment is collected outside Recurly and the invoice is marked paid manually.
PO number	Purchase Order number for the transaction, if applicable.
Note to customer	A message or instructions included on the invoice for the subscriber.
Terms and conditions	Legal clauses and policies the subscriber agrees to at the time of purchase.

Preview the invoice and confirm

Review the invoice preview before finalizing to verify all details are correct. Contact [email protected] if you need assistance.

Additional options

Purchase API

When using the Purchase API, you can combine subscriptions, one-time charges, and other purchase components into a single invoice — useful for complex sales cycles. See the Purchase API reference for details.

Custom fields

Define custom fields at the subscription level to track additional data — for example, an internal user ID or a code specific to the subscription. See custom fields for details.

Net terms

Set a number of days after the invoice date before payment is considered past due. Net terms can be configured at the subscription level.

Backup payment method

If the primary payment method fails, Recurly attempts collection using a backup payment method. See backup payment method for setup details.

Subscription notes

Add internal notes visible only in the Admin UI — useful for team communication or reminders about a specific subscription.

Billing information requirement

Automatic collection requires valid billing details on the account. Manual collection does not. To start an automatic subscription without billing information, you can:

Use a cardless free trial
Apply a gift card to cover the subscription cost

Multiple subscriptions

An account can hold multiple subscriptions — to the same plan or different plans. Options include:

Adjusting the Quantity field to increase the number of subscriptions to a plan
Creating multiple subscriptions to the same plan with different renewal periods
Using the Purchase API endpoint to create multiple subscriptions in a single consolidated invoice

For full details, see multiple subscriptions.