Overview

Video

Definition

A subscription plan in Recurly Commerce defines which products customers can subscribe to, how often they’re billed, and any discounts, gifting options, add-ons, or shipping rules that apply.

Key benefits

• Launch in minutes: Spin up subscription offers without touching code or waiting on engineering.
• Flexible pricing & discounts: Configure one-time, subscription-only, prepaid, or hybrid offers with tiered discounts and special promotions.
• Rich add-ons & gifting: Enable product swaps, one-time or recurring add-ons, and gift-option prompts to boost average order value and delight customers.

Key details

Creating a subscription plan

With Recurly Commerce, you can create a subscription offer in minutes, which will feed into your storefront widget where your customers can add a subscription product to cart.

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Subscription Information

1. In the Recurly Commerce admin, navigate to Subscription Plans and click + Create Offer in the top-right.

2. In Subscription Information, enter:

   • Subscription offer group name: an internal name for your team to reference.
   • Description: internal notes—your customers never see these.

3. Click + Select Products. Your entire Shopify SKU catalog loads in a modal.

   • Check the box next to each product you wish to include in this plan.
   • Uncheck to remove. These selections determine which product detail pages (PDPs) display the subscription widget.

4. Click Confirm at the bottom to save your product selection.

Note: Only products that do not currently have a subscription offer are available for selection.

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Choosing purchasing options

Once your products are chosen, select how they’ll be offered to customers:

• One-time & Subscribe & Save

  • Customers can either purchase once or subscribe on a recurring schedule.

• Subscription only

  • The product is available exclusively as a subscription.

• Pre-paid subscription only

  • Customers pay upfront for the entire subscription term (e.g., full year) and receive deliveries at each interval.

• One-time, subscribe & save, and prepaid subscription

  • All three options appear in the widget, letting customers choose among one-time purchase, recurring billing, or prepaid plans.

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Add subscription options & discounts

1. Select Offer discounts or Do not offer discounts to enable or disable promotional pricing.
2. Click + Add Option to define each delivery frequency (e.g., every 1 month, every 2 months).
3. For each frequency, enter the discount percentage you wish to apply (e.g., 15% off every month, 10% off every 2 months).

Note: Offering larger discounts for more frequent deliveries incentivizes subscriptions and boosts customer retention.

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Gifting option

Toggle Add gift option on to include an “Is this a gift?” prompt below the subscription choices. This adds a radio button customers can select to flag their order as a gift.

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Product swaps and add-ons

For each product in your plan, you can configure:

• Swap

  • Allow subscribers to swap this SKU for any other plan product at renewal.

• One-time Add-on

  • Let subscribers select this (or other store) SKU as an optional extra on a single delivery. Great for accessories like tote bags or water bottles.

• Subscription Add-On

  • Automatically include this SKU on every renewal—for staples your subscribers always need.

Note: By default, only the products you selected for this subscription are available to swap or add-on—but you can extend add-on availability to any store product.

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Special discounts

In addition to recurring frequency discounts, you can grant one-time promotions based on order count or quantity:

• By Order

  • Apply a special discount to the first N deliveries (e.g., 50% off the first 3 orders) to win initial sign-ups.

• By Quantity

  • Discount based on the total quantity of products (e.g., 10% off when ordering 2 products, 15% off when ordering 3 products) to encourage larger baskets.
  • Click + Add Discount Tier to add additional discount tiers by quantity.

Note: Discounts don’t stack. Special discounts override the recurring frequency discount until they expire—for example, a “first 3 orders 50% off” runs first, then the “10% off every 1 month” takes over.

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Free shipping

Define your subscription shipping rules:

• Toggle Free shipping to define the Countries where free shipping applies.
• Select All countries available or Selected countries available to select where free shipping applies.

Note: If your Shopify store’s existing shipping profile already handles subscriptions, skip this section to avoid conflicting rules.

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Cancellation flow

Finally, set up your desired Cancellation Flow. With tailored cancellation flows, you can configure flows that:

• Prevent cancellations with timely incentives or suggesting alternative products
• Gather critical customer feedback with custom, on-brand surveys and
• Personalize the subscriber experience with relevant messaging and upsells

Click None in the Cancellation Flow drop down to select from your list of Cancellation Flows.

To learn more about creating a Cancellation Flow, check out the Cancellation and churn prevention flows overview.

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Publish offer

When you’re satisfied with your selections, click Publish Offer in the top-right corner. Your subscription plan is now live on the product pages you configured.

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Still need help? Contact [email protected].