Subscription plans

A subscription plan decides what customers can subscribe to, how often they're charged and receive an order, and what discount they get. Customers can only subscribe to products that are on a plan.

Plans and options

A plan holds one or more options. Each option is one way to subscribe, such as "Every month" or "Every 2 months". On the product page, customers pick one option.

For example, a "Subscribe and save" plan could have three options:

You add products to the plan, not to each option. Every product on the plan gets all of its options.

Selling methods

Each option has a Selling method. It decides how charges and deliveries line up.

• Recurring subscription: customers are charged and get a delivery on the same schedule, for example every month. This is the most common choice, often called subscribe and save.
• Recurring prepaid subscription: customers pay for several deliveries at a time, and the subscription renews. For example, charge every 3 months and deliver every month.
• Prepaid, single charge: customers pay once, at checkout, for a set number of deliveries, and the subscription then ends. This suits gift subscriptions.

Multi-order gifts

A Prepaid, single charge option can also be Multi-order. Subrise then creates a separate order for each delivery, so you can reschedule a shipment or change its address.

Price a multi-order product for all its deliveries, since there's no automatic multiplier. For example, price a $10 product delivered over 3 months at $30.

Multi-order isn't available on any Subrise plan yet. The Multi-order checkbox shows, but you can't check it.

Frequencies

A frequency is a number and a unit: weeks, months or years. Each option sets its own.

• A recurring subscription has one frequency, Charge and deliver every.
• A recurring prepaid subscription has two, Charge every and Deliver every. The charge period must be a whole number of delivery periods and longer than one. Every 3 months with monthly deliveries works. Every month with deliveries every 3 weeks doesn't.
• A single-charge prepaid option has Deliver every and Total deliveries.

To offer several frequencies, add one option per frequency.

Discounts

Discounts are optional, and each option sets its own. An option can have up to two:

• Discount from the first charge: applies to every charge, starting with the first.
• Different discount after a number of charges: takes over after the number of charges you set. Use it for an introductory offer, such as 20% off the first order and 10% after.

Each discount is Percentage off, Amount off, or Set price to, which sets a fixed price.

For example, set Discount from the first charge to 20% and Different discount after a number of charges to 10% after 1 charge. Customers pay 20% less on their first order and 10% less on every order after it.

Maximum charges

Maximum charges ends a subscription after a set number of charges, from 1 to 24. Unlimited subscriptions renew until the customer or you cancel. Single-charge prepaid options always end after one charge.

Billing and delivery anchors

An anchor moves every subscription on an option to a set day, so you can ship everything at once. For example, all orders on the 1st of the month.

The first order still happens at checkout. Each later order moves to the anchor day. The Cutoff day decides which cycle an order joins: orders placed after the cutoff move to the next cycle.

For example, with the anchor on the 1st and the cutoff on the 21st, a customer who subscribes on the 22nd gets their second order on the 1st of the month after next, about 39 days later.

An anchor can be a Day of the month or a Day of the week. You can add more than one anchor to an option.

Plan templates

When you create a plan, you can start from a template and change anything before you save:

The two gift templates use Multi-order, so they aren't available yet.

Next steps

• Create a plan
• Add products to a plan
• Add the product widget
• How plans work at checkout