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How to create a subscription plan
Updated over a week ago

Congratulations on downloading Appstle Subscriptions! You have now started the journey to expand your recurring revenue streams, a highly necessary feature to win in today's e-commerce game.

You’re in excellent hands! Appstle will support you every step of the way on your journey to success!

App Configuration

You can configure the Appstle Subscriptions app by simply logging in to your Shopify admin panel, navigating to the apps section, and clicking on our app.

Start by clicking on the Subscription Plans section to be taken to the configuration page.

Here, you can click on Create Subscription Plan found in the upper right side of your screen.

Plan Name

This field allows you to create a name for your subscription plan. This won't be seen by your customers and is only used to help you stay organized.

Adding Products to Your Subscription Plan

This is where you get to decide which products you want to offer on a subscriptions basis. You can browse products by collection or by a list of all your products.

Subscription Frequency

By default you'll have one subscription frequency already set up for you when you create a new plan. Here you can click Edit to customize this selling plan, or Add more frequency plan to add another selling plan. Having multiple selling plans allows you to offer something like a monthly and a weekly subscription for the same products.

General

Billing Type

Pay As You Go: If you select this plan, it will automatically bill the customers after the defined interval frequency of the recurring orders.

  • Order Frequency: this is the time gap between two orders.

Prepaid One-Time: if you select this plan, it will charge the customers in advance for their orders. Their subscriptions will then be canceled once all deliveries have been fulfilled.

  • Order Fulfillment Frequency: the time interval between two fulfillments.

  • Billing Frequency: the time gap between two billing cycles. For a pre-paid plan, billing frequency should be higher than delivery frequency. For example, you can set a billing frequency of 12 weeks and delivery frequency of 1 week, in which case, a customer will pay for 12 deliveries in advance.

Prepaid Auto-renew: If you select this plan, it will charge the customers in advance for their orders. Their subscriptions will then continue indefinitely until either they, or you as the merchant, decide to pause/cancel them.

  • Order Fulfillment Frequency: the time interval between two fulfillments.

  • Billing Frequency: the time gap between two billing cycles. For a pre-paid plan, billing frequency should be higher than delivery frequency. For example, you can set a billing frequency of 12 weeks and delivery frequency of 1 week, in which case, a customer will pay for 12 deliveries in advance.

Pay As You Go (Prepaid): if you select this plan, your customers will be charged each new billing cycle, but will be locked into a certain number of orders.

  • Order Fulfillment Frequency: the time interval between two fulfillments

  • Billing Frequency: the time gap between two billing cycles. For a pre-paid plan, billing frequency should be higher than delivery frequency. For example, you can set a billing frequency of 12 weeks and delivery frequency of 1 week, in which case, a customer will locked into 12 deliveries and be billed each week.

Display Contents

Frequency Name

This is the text that will be visible to your customers on the product page when they select a subscription.

Show Description

If you'd like to provide more information to your customer about your subscription, here is where you can do so. This will be visible to your customers on the product page beneath the subscription Frequency Name.

Charge on Specific Days

This section allows you to decide your subscription renewal day. By default all recurring orders will be placed on the same day of the month as when the initial order was made. If you'd like to set a specific day each month for your orders, you can do so here.

Offer Incentives

If you want to offer your customers a discount for a subscription, which can be offered either in the form of percentage or specific amount off, this is where you can do so. Check out our dedicated documentation here.

Policies

Inventory Policy

You have two options for Inventory Policy:

  1. On Sale: if you select this option, an order will be taken from your inventory the moment the sale is made.

  2. On Fulfillment: if you select this option, an order will be taken from your inventory only after it is fulfilled.

Cancellation Policy

This section allows you to set the minimum number of billing cycles before your customer can cancel their subscription. The default value allows your customers to cancel immediately after their first order.

Automatic Expiration

This section allows you to decide how many billing cycles you want to allow your customers to keep an active subscription. The default value allows your customers to stay subscribed indefinitely.

Visibility

Require Specific Tags

If you'd like to offer these subscription offers only to certain customers you can do so on the basis of Shopify Tags.

Exclude Specific Tags

If you'd like to hide these subscription offers from certain customers you can do so on the basis of Shopify Tags.

Collect Additional Details

Custom Fields

This section allows you to collection additional information from you subscribers when they try to purchase a subscription. You can either make this information required or optional, and it will be visible from each individual subscription ID page.

Finishing Up

Congratulations, you've just created a subscription plan! If you have any further questions about creating a subscription plan, or if you need any other help, please reach out to us at subscription-support@appstle.com or just ping us through the live chat widget on our app. Our experts are available 24x7x365 and will be happy to assist you further.

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