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Launching Your First Subscription Program: A Step-by-Step Guide

A short checklist to create your first subscription plan, choose how customers pay, and set up the Customer Portal.

Use this checklist to launch your first subscription offer. For every plan setting in detail, see How to create a Subscription plan.

Step 1: Create a plan

  1. In Appstle Subscriptions, go to Subscription Plans.

  2. Click Create New Plan.

  3. Choose Start from scratch or a preset. Build-A-Box and Memberships are also available from this menu.

The Subscription Plans page.

The Create New Plan menu: start from scratch or pick a preset.

Give the plan a Plan name (internal only) and add the products it covers.

Step 2: Choose how customers pay

Under How customers pay, pick one card:

  • Pay as you go: charged every billing cycle.

  • Prepaid, auto renew: pay upfront for several deliveries; renews automatically.

  • Prepaid, one time: pay upfront for a fixed number of deliveries.

  • Prepaid, separate orders: prepaid, with each delivery created as its own Shopify order.

The How customers pay cards.

Step 3: Set options and incentives

  • Option name: what customers see for each frequency, for example "Monthly".

  • Free trial: set a trial length if you want customers to try before paying.

Step 4: Schedule and policies

  • Schedule: when you bill on a Specific day, you can set an Order cutoff.

  • Inventory policy: On sale or On fulfillment.

  • Cancellation: At any time, After minimum number of orders, or Subscription length.

Order cutoff under Schedule when billing on a specific day.

Step 5: Optional custom fields

Under Fields, Custom fields ask customers for extra details on the product page.

Custom fields shown on the product page.

Step 6: Set up the Customer Portal

Before launch, set up the portal so subscribers can manage their orders. See Set up your Customer Portal.

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