Bulk Updater lets you apply pricing or product changes across hundreds or thousands of active subscription contracts at once — no manual contract-by-contract editing required. Configure your update, preview the scope before committing, and track every run in a persistent history table.

Available when Recurly Commerce and Bulk Updater are enabled on your account

1Definition 2Key benefits 3Key details

PrerequisitesAccess to Recurly Commerce with Bulk Updater enabled. At least one active subscription plan with existing contracts in Commerce. Products and variants already configured in your Shopify catalog.

LimitationsOnly one update type (Price Update or Product Swap) can be configured per bulk update run. For product swaps, only products from the selected plan are shown in the product and variant modals. Bulk updates can't be easily reversed once applied to live contracts — always run a preview first.

Definition

Bulk Updater is a Recurly Commerce tool that lets you apply pricing or product changes across hundreds or thousands of active subscription contracts at once, without editing each one individually. It supports two update types — Price Update and Product Swap — and includes a preview mode that shows the full scope of any change before it goes live.

Key benefits

Mass updates in minutes Apply changes across hundreds or thousands of subscriptions with one action — no manual contract-by-contract editing required.

Consistency at scale Ensure accurate pricing and product availability across your entire subscriber base in a single run.

Safe by design Preview any update before it goes live. The tool shows exactly how many contracts and subscribers will be affected — and lets you download that list — before you commit to anything.

Key details

Supported update types

Update type	What it does
Price Update	Changes the recurring price on existing subscription contracts
Product Swap	Swaps the subscribed product or variant across existing contracts

Create a bulk update

Open Bulk Updater

In Recurly Commerce, navigate to Bulk Updater from the left sidebar. Click Create Bulk Update in the center of the page to begin.

Select a bulk update type

Choose either Price Update or Product Swap. Your selection appears immediately in the Bulk Update Summary sidebar under Type Selected.

Price Update — Update legacy prices on your existing subscription contracts to keep up with your live pricing.
Product Swap — Swap products across existing subscription contracts.

Configure the bulk update

The configuration options differ depending on which update type you selected.

For Price Updates — Click + Select Product to open the product selection modal. Search for and select the products whose prices you want to update, then choose how to apply the new price:

Update price per variant — A table appears listing each target variant with its Catalog Price and a New Price input field. Enter the new price for each variant individually.
Update all to one price — A single price input appears. The value you enter applies to all selected variants.

For Product Swaps — Begin by adding the product you want to swap into the active plan in Commerce. Then click Select Subscription Plan and select the plan that has the products you want to swap. Click + Select Product to choose the specific products you want to swap, then choose how to apply the swap:

Swap each variant — A table appears listing each variant with a new variant input field. Enter the new variant for each product individually.
Swap all products/variants to one product — A single product selection appears. The product you select applies to all selected variants.

NoteOnly products from the selected plan are shown in both modals. You can only select one target variant for a Product Swap.

Review the update

The Review Bulk Update card shows the projected scope — how many contracts and subscribers will be affected — and lets you download that list before committing.

Both CSVs are also available after the run completes.

Preview or run the bulk update

Two action buttons appear in the top-right header. If you click Run Bulk Update without previewing first, a confirmation modal lets you run a test or proceed without one.

Button	What it does
Preview Bulk Update	Runs a test without modifying any live contracts
Run Bulk Update	Applies changes immediately to live contracts

WarningBulk updates can't be easily reversed once applied to live contracts. Always run a preview first.

Promote a preview to a live run

After a preview completes, it appears in the Bulk Update History table with the status Preview Completed and a Review & Apply button. Click Review & Apply to open the detail view for that preview run, then confirm to apply the same configuration to live contracts — no need to reconfigure from scratch.

Monitoring results

All runs — both previews and live — are listed in the history table:

Column	Description
Date/Time	Timestamp of the bulk run
Update Type	The type of update
Contracts Impacted	Count of affected contracts, with a link to the detail view
Subscribers Impacted	Count of affected subscribers, with a link to the detail view
Bulk Status	Current state of the run (see below)

Status	Meaning
Preview Completed	Test run finished; no live contracts were modified
Completed	Live run applied successfully
In Progress	Run is actively processing
Error	Run encountered a fatal error

Click Details on any completed row to open the run's detail view, which includes the contracts impacted table with Plan Name and Date Updated columns.

Each contract updated via Bulk Updater records an entry in its individual activity log. The actor is listed as Bulk Updater.

Email notifications

You'll receive an email when a preview or run completes. The email includes the update type, date and time, and counts of contracts and subscribers targeted and impacted.

Still need help? Contact [email protected].