Subscription upgrades let a customer change a one-time item in their cart into a recurring order. By the end of this the option will appear for products that support it. Atlas displays selling plans, it does not create them, so a product with no selling plan in a subscription app will show no upgrade option.
Allow customers to upgrade products to subscriptions directly in the cart. Only products with active subscription plans will show upgrade options.
In this article:
What you need first
A subscription app with selling plans attached to the products you want to offer. Shopify Subscriptions and Recharge are the two named in the module:
Subscription upgrades only appear for products that have selling plans configured in a subscription app (like Recharge or Shopify Subscriptions). Products without selling plans will not show upgrade options.
⚠️ Atlas does not create, price or manage subscription plans, and cannot fix a subscription problem. If the frequency, price or renewal behaviour is wrong, the fix is in your subscription app.
Step 1: Enable the module
In the cart drawer editor, select
Subscription Upgrades.Select
Activate.
Until then: "Subscription upgrades are not shown because they are disabled. Activate to allow customers to upgrade cart items to subscriptions. You can preview changes before saving."
Step 2: Set the button and dropdown text
Three fields, each accepting variables that pull in the real plan names.
Field | Default | Variables |
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The tooltips explain each: the button text is "Text shown on the upgrade button", the dropdown is a "Template for subscription options in dropdown", and the one-time text is "Text shown for the one-time purchase option in the dropdown."
💡 Lead with the benefit, not the mechanism. "Subscribe and save 15%" converts better than "Upgrade to Subscription", because it answers the customer's actual question, which is what they get for it.
Step 3: Decide about downgrades
Prevent downgrades stops a customer switching back from subscription to one-time.
The tooltip is unusually honest about the trade-off:
When enabled, customers cannot switch from subscription back to one-time purchase. Note: This may increase cart abandonment.
⚠️ Leave this off. A customer who cannot undo a choice they made by accident does not buy the subscription, they abandon the cart. The setting protects a conversion you were unlikely to keep and costs you orders you would otherwise have had.
Overriding the text
Three override fields let you replace the defaults entirely: Override button text, Override dropdown text and Override one-time purchase text.
The dropdown override carries the clearest explanation of how the variables resolve:
The variables {selling_plan_group_name} / {selling_plan_name} will be replaced with the 'subscription group name' and the 'subscription plan name' of the product, respectively. If the field is empty, the default subscription group and plan names will be used.
Use the overrides when your subscription app's plan names are internal or unhelpful. If your plan is called "SUB-30D-STD", customers should not see that.
Why the cart is a good place for this
Most subscription offers sit on the product page, where the customer is still deciding whether to buy at all. Asking them to also commit to a recurring order is two decisions at once.
In the cart they have already decided to buy. The upgrade is now one decision, framed as a saving on something they were purchasing anyway.
ℹ️ This works alongside bundle subscriptions rather than replacing them. A bundle can offer subscription on the product page, and the cart drawer can offer it again to customers who did not take it. Just make sure the pricing you show in both places agrees.
If nothing appears
Check the product has a selling plan. Open it in Shopify and confirm a subscription plan is attached. This is the cause almost every time.
Check the plan is active in your subscription app.
Check the module is enabled on the drawer that is actually live, since only one drawer is active at a time.
Check the right product. Selling plans are per product, so a cart with several items may only show the option on some.
Full sequence in Why don't subscription upgrades appear for my product?