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Shopify subscription - APIs limitations

Limitations and criteria set by Shopify for merchants to offer subscriptions

Updated this week

Overview

Shopify's subscription APIs have specific criteria that merchants must meet to offer recurring orders to their customers. Apps like Appstle Subscriptions, which are designed to integrate with Shopify, must adhere to these criteria. This article outlines the key limitations and requirements imposed by Shopify on subscription apps, providing clarity on what merchants need to know to successfully implement subscription services. While you will find the detailed list of Shopify limitations and conditions (for subscriptions) in this link, we have outlined a few of the key criteria below.

Key Criteria and Limitations Set by Shopify for Subscriptions

  1. Supported Payment Gateways
    Shopify currently requires merchants to use one of its supported payment gateways to offer subscription-based services. These gateways include:

    • Shopify Payments

    • PayPal Express

    • Authorize.net

    • Adyen

    • Stripe

  2. Important Note: For merchants looking to install any subscription app, including Appstle Subscriptions, using third-party payment gateways like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or others that are not listed above is not supported for subscriptions. This limitation is crucial for enabling smooth payment processing for recurring orders.

  3. Draft Orders (Manually Created Orders)
    Shopify does not currently support adding separate orders within an ongoing subscription. This means that while merchants can swap products or skip scheduled deliveries, they cannot manually insert or create new orders within a subscription.

    Merchants are limited to modifying existing subscriptions rather than creating additional orders manually. Therefore, any new order that needs to be associated with a subscription must go through the regular checkout process.

  4. Accelerated or Express Checkouts
    Accelerated or express checkout methods—such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and others—offer a streamlined checkout experience by using pre-saved billing and shipping information.

    However, due to the limitation on payment gateways mentioned earlier, Shopify restricts the use of these accelerated checkout methods for subscription-based purchases. The following gateways are currently supported for express checkouts in subscription apps:

    • Shopify Payments

    • Stripe

    • PayPal (limited functionality)

  5. If your customers prefer using accelerated checkout methods, they can only do so through these supported payment gateways. Third-party services like Apple Pay and Google Pay, for example, are not compatible with subscription-based checkouts at this time.

  6. Shipping Rates for Subscriptions
    Shopify’s default behavior for shipping rates on recurring orders only shows the cheapest shipping option available within the store. The limitation is set to help reduce shipping costs for both the merchant and the customer, especially on orders placed well in advance for recurring shipments.

    Note: Merchants currently cannot offer multiple shipping rate options for subscriptions, limiting flexibility in how shipping costs are presented to customers. For merchants that want to offer different shipping options, a custom solution or app may be needed to work around this limitation.

    Shopify Buy Button

    The Shopify Buy Button is a feature that allows merchants to embed product/service cards on third-party websites or blogs (e.g., Wix, WordPress). Unfortunately, Shopify does not currently allow subscription apps to integrate with the Buy Button feature. As a result, subscription-based products cannot be added directly through this button.


If you have any questions about the Shopify limitations or want to talk about any other features, please reach out to us at support@appstle.com. Our 24x7x365 available experts will be happy to assist you further.

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