When a customer clicks Pause Subscription in the customer portal, the Pause tab decides what happens next. You can pause the subscription straight away, or ask why they want to pause and show an offer that might suit them better, such as skipping an order or a discount.
Where to find it
In Appstle Subscriptions, go to More > Retention Management and open the Pause tab. Click Save to apply your changes.
Customers see the Pause Subscription button on active subscriptions while Allow customers to pause subscriptions is on in Advanced Configuration. This setup works in the classic customer portal and in Shopify's new customer accounts.
Step 1: Choose how customers pause
Direct: customers confirm, and the subscription pauses straight away. There are no reasons or offers. New stores start with Direct.
Retention offers (recommended): customers choose a reason for pausing and see an offer for that reason before they pause.
Retention offers are included in the Business, Business Premium, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans. On other plans, customers pause directly.
Step 2: Add pause reasons
With Retention offers, add the reasons customers can choose from under Pause reasons. Customers pick from a list, in the order shown here. Use the arrows to reorder them.
Pause Reason: the text customers choose, for example "Going on vacation".
Retention Offer: what you offer for this reason. See What each offer does below.
Show Feedback Box: lets customers add more detail in their own words. Require Feedback makes it mandatory before they can continue.
Copy from Cancellation flow replaces your pause reasons with the reasons from the Cancellation tab, including their offers, discounts and skip counts. It also copies the Cancellation tab's default messages into the pause messages. Require Feedback, custom messages and second offers aren't copied. Some tokens in cancel messages don't work when pausing, and a note under the field shows which.
What each offer does
Continue to pause: no offer. The subscription pauses as soon as the customer confirms.
Pause Subscription: shows your Pause Offer Message and pauses the subscription for the Default Pause Duration, or for the number of cycles the customer chooses. This is the only way a pause gets an end date.
Offer Discount: a percentage off the subscription's price instead of pausing, for the number of billing cycles in Discount Duration. The subscription stays active. Each subscription can receive a retention discount only once, whether it was accepted while pausing or cancelling.
Skip Next Order: skips upcoming orders instead of pausing. It skips as many orders as the reason's Skip Duration (Orders), or one order if that's blank. With Let customers choose pause duration on, customers choose how many to skip, from 1 up to that number.
Swap Products, Gift Subscription, Update Address, Change Delivery Date and Update Frequency: open the matching editor in the customer portal instead of pausing. Subscriptions on a fixed billing schedule can't change their delivery date or frequency, so those reasons are greyed out for them.
Customers who turn an offer down click No, pause the subscription, and the subscription pauses. The Pause Subscription offer only has an accept button.
How long a pause lasts
Direct, Continue to pause, or turning down an offer: the subscription stays paused until the customer resumes it.
Accepting a Pause Subscription offer: the subscription restarts on its own after the number of billing cycles in Default Pause Duration, or the number the customer chose. With a duration of 0, it stays paused until the customer resumes it.
A pause can only restart on its own if it's shorter than the number of upcoming orders already scheduled, which is at most 10. Longer pauses stay paused until the customer resumes them.
Orders that fall due while a subscription is paused aren't charged. When a pause has an end date, customers see it as Pause Till Date, in the classic customer portal and in Shopify's new customer accounts.
Customers can resume a paused subscription themselves while Allow customers to resume subscriptions is on in Advanced Configuration.
Pause settings
Default Pause Duration (Billing Cycles): how long an accepted Pause Subscription offer lasts. 0 means until the customer resumes. This is the same setting as Pause Duration on the Cancellation tab, so it also sets how long pause offers in the cancel window last.
Let customers choose pause duration: appears when Default Pause Duration is above 1. Customers choose from 1 up to that number when they accept a Pause Subscription offer. When they accept a Skip Next Order offer, they also choose how many orders to skip, from 1 up to the reason's Skip Duration. It's shared with the Cancellation tab and works the same way there.
Discount Duration (Billing Cycles): appears when a reason offers a discount. It sets how many billing cycles a retention discount lasts and is shared with the Cancellation tab. If no duration is saved, accepted discounts never end.
Email notifications for accepted discounts and Notification Email Address: get an email when a customer accepts a retention discount. These are shared with the Cancellation tab, and the email is only sent while the Cancellation tab uses Retention offers.
Default pause messages
These are the messages customers see for each offer when they pause. Pause reasons don't have their own messages, so these are always used. If one is blank, customers see a built-in message. If the Discount Offer Message is blank or still the original default text, customers see "Stay and get 20% off your next 3 orders.", using the offer's discount and your Discount Duration.
Discount Offer Message: can use
{{discountAmount}}(the discount percentage),{{cycleLimit}}(the Discount Duration) and{{cycleDuration}}(the billing interval, such as "months").Pause Offer Message: can use
{{cycleNumber}}(how many cycles) and{{cycleDuration}}.Skip Next Order Message: can use
{{skipCycleNumber}}(how many orders are skipped).Gift Subscription, Product Swap, Reschedule Delivery, Update Shipping Address and Change Delivery Frequency messages: plain text, without tokens.
Decline Offer Button Text: the button customers click to turn down an offer and pause anyway. The default is "No, pause the subscription".
What customers see
With Retention offers, customers go through these steps:
They click Pause Subscription and choose a reason. If the reason has a feedback box, they can add more detail.
They click Confirm. With Continue to pause, the subscription pauses now.
Otherwise they see your message for the offer under the title "Before you pause", with Accept and No, pause the subscription.
After they accept a discount, skip or pause offer, they see "You're all set" with a success message and a Close button. After they pause, they see a success message.
With Direct, they see a short confirmation, and the subscription pauses when they confirm. In Shopify's new customer accounts, pausing, including accepting a Pause Subscription offer, closes the window and shows a short confirmation instead. The text of the reason list, feedback box and buttons is in your customer portal labels, including the Pause Offer Title and Offer Accepted Title.
What the Pause tab doesn't have
The Pause tab is simpler than the Cancellation tab. It has no second offers, no per-reason messages or success messages, no sample preview and no Check on live link. Pause reasons can't be translated. If your store uses more than one language, the Languages card lets you edit the default pause messages in each language. Targeted flows only change the cancel experience, never pausing.
Good to know
When Allow customers to cancel during free trial is off, customers also can't pause during their free trial.
Lock subscriptions until the minimum number of orders, Block cancellation, pause, or skip actions and Allowed days to cancel, pause, or skip orders can also stop customers from pausing.
On the Overview tab, an accepted offer counts as a save, including an accepted Pause Subscription offer. A customer who pauses without accepting an offer counts as an outcome that wasn't saved.
Related articles
Need help?
Email us at support@appstle.com or message us from the chat in the app.