Selling plans: subscriptions and recurring orders
Selling plans turn a one-time product into a recurring purchase. Whether you sell coffee that ships every month, a fitness membership billed weekly, or a service paid up-front for a quarter, a selling plan defines the cadence, the discount, and the trial — so a single product can be offered both as a one-off and as a subscription.
How selling plans are organised
Everything starts with a selling plan group. A group is the user-facing choice your shopper sees on the product page (for example, "Subscribe & save"). Inside the group sit one or more plans — the individual cadences ("Every 30 days", "Every 60 days", "Every 90 days").
Each plan carries:
- A name (shown to the shopper).
- A category: Subscription, Prepaid, or Try Before You Buy.
- A billing interval: Day, Week, Month, or Year.
- An interval count, so "every 2 weeks" or "every 3 months" is possible.
- An optional delivery frequency — deliver more often than you bill, e.g. a delivery every day while charging once every 7 days (see below).
- Trial days (optional).
- Up to two price adjustments — a percentage off, a fixed amount off, or a fixed price — optionally kicking in after a number of completed orders.
Creating a selling plan group
- Open Products → Selling Plans in your admin.
- Click Create Selling Plan Group.
- Give the group a Group Name (for example, "Subscribe & save"). The Merchant Code is auto-filled from the name and can be edited.
- Under Plans, fill out the first plan: name, category, billing interval, interval count, and trial days.
- If you want to give subscribers a discount, click Add Adjustment, pick Percentage / Fixed Amount / Price, and enter the value. You can add a second adjustment that applies after a set number of orders (for example, an extra 5% off after the third delivery).
- To ship more often than you charge, tick Deliver more often than billing and set how often a delivery goes out. The helper text shows exactly how many deliveries each charge covers.
- Click Add Plan to add more cadences inside the same group.
- On the right-hand Products panel, click Attach and pick the products this group should apply to.
- Click Save.
Plan categories
| Category | What it does |
|---|---|
| Subscription | Shopper is billed every interval (e.g. monthly) and can cancel between cycles. |
| Prepaid | Shopper pays up-front for a set number of cycles, then receives deliveries across that span. |
| Try Before You Buy | Shopper starts with a trial; the regular billing kicks in after the trial period ends. |
Deliver more often than you bill (prepaid deliveries)
Some products are enjoyed daily but are easier to pay for weekly — fresh bread, tiffin boxes, flowers, milk. A plan's delivery frequency lets you split the two cadences: the billing interval says how often the customer is charged, and the delivery frequency says how often a delivery goes out.
Example — a daily bread box billed weekly:
- Billing interval: Day, every 7
- Delivery frequency: every 1 day
- Adjustment: 10% off
With a loaf priced at ₹189, the shopper sees "₹170.10 per delivery · billed ₹1,190.70 every 7 days" on the product page. One weekly charge covers all seven deliveries — the price is simply the discounted per-delivery price multiplied by the number of deliveries in the cycle.
Two rules keep the maths clean:
- The delivery frequency uses the same unit as the billing interval (days with days, weeks with weeks).
- The billing count must be a multiple of the delivery count, so every charge covers a whole number of deliveries. Billing every 7 days with a delivery every 1 day works (7 deliveries); a delivery every 3 days doesn't (2.33 deliveries) and the editor will tell you.
The cart, checkout, and every renewal all charge the same per-cycle amount, and the order records the plan so your team knows the delivery schedule behind each charge.
Attaching plans to products
A product can sit inside more than one group, which is how a single item can be offered as a one-off purchase and as a subscription, or as both a 30-day and a 90-day cadence. From the group's edit page, use the Products panel to attach or detach products at any time — changes apply to new sign-ups immediately.
How the storefront shows the choice
Once a product is attached to a group, the product page renders a purchase-options selector with each plan as an option. Picking a plan updates the displayed price (including any discount you set), and the choice carries through cart and checkout. The customer's selected plan is recorded on the order, which is what kicks off the recurring billing.
Managing subscription orders
Subscription orders appear in their own list at Orders → Subscriptions, separate from one-off orders. The page header shows live analytics:
- Active Subscriptions — how many are currently billing.
- Monthly Revenue (MRR) — recurring revenue across active subscriptions.
- Paused — how many are on hold.
- Churn Rate — cancellations in the selected period.
From here you can search, filter by status (Pending, Confirmed, Paid, Shipped, Delivered, Canceled), and open any subscription order to see its details, invoices, and renewal history.
How customers manage their own subscriptions
On the order details page for a subscription, your customer sees a Manage Subscription button. Clicking it opens a secure billing-portal session where they can:
- See the next billing date and cadence.
- Update the card on file.
- Update the billing or shipping address.
- Pause, resume, or cancel the subscription.
- Download past invoices.
Because changes go through the secure portal, you never handle card details yourself, and the subscription state stays in sync with the payment provider.
Renewals
When a subscription's next billing date arrives, a new order is created automatically and charged against the saved payment method. If the charge fails, the subscription is flagged and the customer is notified by email so they can update their card before the next attempt.
FAQ
Can one product be in more than one group?
Yes. Attach the same product to multiple groups and the product page will render each group as a separate purchase option, with its plans listed underneath.
How are subscription discounts applied?
Each plan can carry up to two price adjustments — Percentage, Fixed Amount, or fixed Price. The discount is applied automatically when the shopper picks the plan and continues to apply on every renewal. You can configure a second adjustment to kick in only after a set number of completed orders, which is useful for loyalty bumps ("an extra 5% off after the third box").
Can I offer a free trial?
Yes — set Trial Days on the plan. The shopper isn't charged for the first cycle until the trial expires.
What payment methods work for subscriptions?
Any card-based gateway that can store the customer's payment method for re-charging. Pay-on-delivery and other one-shot methods are not supported for recurring billing, because there is no token to charge on the next cycle.
Can I deliver daily but charge weekly?
Yes — that's the delivery frequency feature. Set the billing interval to every 7 days, tick Deliver more often than billing, and set a delivery every 1 day. The customer pays one weekly charge that covers all seven deliveries, and the product page shows both the per-delivery price and the billed amount.
Can a customer switch cadence?
If a single group has multiple plans (for example, 30, 60, or 90-day options), the customer can switch between them from the billing portal. Switching to a plan in a different group means cancelling the current subscription and signing up to the new one.