Shopify Subscriptions: How to Set Up & Sell Subscriptions

Shopify subscription plans: how selling plans work

On Shopify, every subscription offer is a selling plan — the platform object that defines billing frequency (weekly, monthly, quarterly), the discount versus one-time purchase, and delivery cadence. A “subscription plan” your customer sees (say, “Monthly — save 15%”) is a selling plan your subscription app created via Shopify’s API and attached to specific products. Practical implications: plans are portable between apps (they live on Shopify, not in the app), one product can carry several plans (monthly and quarterly, or subscribe-and-save next to prepaid), and pricing changes to a plan apply to new subscribers while existing contracts keep their original terms unless you migrate them deliberately.

How Shopify subscriptions work

Shopify includes the technical foundation for subscriptions — selling plans, a Subscriptions API, and native checkout support for recurring orders — but it doesn’t ship a subscription management interface on its own. A subscription app supplies the parts merchants actually interact with: plan creation, the on-page subscribe widget, the customer portal, billing logic, and analytics. Together they let you charge a saved payment method on a repeating schedule and generate each renewal order automatically.

The billing side is worth understanding on its own: see Shopify recurring payments for which gateways support them, how the customer’s payment method is vaulted, and what happens when a renewal fails.

The result is a recurring revenue model: predictable MRR instead of one-off sales, and higher customer lifetime value.

What you need before you start

Subscriptions require a payment gateway that supports recurring billing. Shopify’s subscription APIs work with a specific set of gateways — confirm yours is supported (availability also depends on your region):

Setting up a subscription service on Shopify: products, digital goods or services

“Shopify subscription service” means two different things to the merchants who search for it, so both are covered here. If you mean Shopify’s own subscription service, there is no separate product by that name: Shopify ships the subscription infrastructure (selling plans, subscription contracts, recurring checkout) inside every plan, and the first-party Shopify Subscriptions app — free, with documented limits — is the closest thing to a built-in service. See Shopify native subscriptions vs apps for what it does and does not do.

If you mean setting up a subscription service of your own — a product, digital access or a recurring service that customers pay for on a schedule — the mechanics are the same in every case: create the thing you sell as a Shopify product, attach a selling plan, and let the app bill the saved payment method each cycle. What changes is fulfilment:

Shopify Help’s only documented exclusions are draft orders (subscriptions cannot be created from them) and, for the native app, bundles; subscription products are sold on the online store, Shopify POS, the Shop app and custom storefronts. For the digital route in detail see Shopify subscriptions for digital products.

How much does it cost to sell subscriptions on Shopify?

Three separate bills make up the answer, and only the first is unavoidable:

Shopify’s plan prices differ by country and change over time — check shopify.com/pricing for your region. For the app-side comparison see Shopify subscription apps with no transaction fees.

How to set up subscriptions on Shopify (5 steps)

1. Install a subscription app. Shopify provides the subscriptions infrastructure, but you need an app to create plans and render the storefront widget. Install RecurX from the Shopify App Store — it sets up the required selling plans and customer-portal integration automatically.
2. Create a subscription plan. Choose the products to offer on subscription, then set the billing frequency (e.g. every 30 days), the subscribe-and-save discount (commonly 10–15%), and options like free trials, prepaid terms, or tiered discounts that ramp after a few orders.
3. Add the subscribe widget to your product pages. Pick one of the widget designs and place it on your product pages. RecurX auto-matches your theme’s colors and fonts, so the “Subscribe & Save” option looks native and meets accessibility contrast requirements.
4. Enable the customer portal. Turn on the self-service portal so subscribers can pause, skip, swap products, change frequency, update payment details, and cancel on their own. A customer portal is required for subscription apps on the Shopify App Store.
5. Turn on payment recovery and launch. Enable automated dunning so failed payments are retried and recovered, then publish. Track MRR, churn, and ARR from your dashboard as subscribers come in.

What to offer: subscription types

• [Subscribe and save](/glossary/subscribe-and-save) — recurring delivery of the same product at a discount. The default for consumables like coffee, supplements, and pet food.
• [Prepaid](/glossary/prepaid-subscriptions) — the customer pays up front for several deliveries, improving cash flow and retention.
• [Membership](/shopify-membership-app) — a recurring fee for perks, member pricing, or access.
• [Build-a-Box](/shopify-subscription-box-app) — a customizable, mix-and-match subscription that increases average order value.

Whichever you pick, the number attached to it is the decision that compounds: see subscription pricing strategy for the seven pricing models and how to set the subscribe-and-save discount without giving away margin.

Native Shopify Subscriptions vs. a subscription app

Shopify’s free first-party app covers the basics. Dedicated apps exist because of where it stops — these are the documented gaps merchants most often hit as they scale:

Shopify’s native app and its limitations are documented in Shopify Help; capabilities change over time, so verify current details before deciding. For the full, sourced breakdown — including pricing and ratings for every app — see Shopify native subscriptions vs apps.

How to see and manage subscriptions in the Shopify admin

Every subscription is stored in Shopify as a subscription contract, so you can always find it in the admin regardless of which app created it:

• Native Shopify Subscriptions app: Apps → Subscriptions → Contracts lists every subscriber. Open a contract to pause, resume or cancel it, edit the products, quantity or frequency, or skip the next order. Customers themselves can only update contact, payment and address details and pause, resume or cancel from their account.
• Third-party app (RecurX, Recharge, Seal, Appstle…): the app’s own dashboard is the working view — RecurX lists subscribers with status, next charge date, MRR and the actions to pause, skip, swap products or cancel, individually or in bulk.
• Customers: the self-service portal (or the customer account page in the native app) is where they pause, skip, swap and cancel — see how to cancel a Shopify subscription for every path, including the store owner’s own plan.

Protecting your subscription revenue

Once subscriptions are live, the biggest threat to revenue is churn — especially involuntary churn from failed payments. Automated dunning (smart retries plus card-update emails) recovers a large share of those payments with no new acquisition cost, which is why it’s built into every RecurX plan. Pair it with a flexible customer portal so subscribers pause or skip instead of cancelling outright.

After you launch: optimizing subscriptions

Getting subscriptions live is the start, not the finish. The stores that win treat the program as something to improve every month. The highest-impact levers, in order:

1. Recover failed payments. Turn on dunning first — it’s the fastest revenue win and prevents the involuntary churn that silently caps growth.
2. Increase opt-in rate. Test widget placement, the subscribe-and-save discount, and the copy on your product page. A clearer value proposition lifts the share of shoppers who choose the subscription.
3. Raise average order value. Add bundles, Build-a-Box, and post-purchase upsells so each subscriber is worth more per cycle.
4. Reduce voluntary churn. Offer pause, skip, and swap; get the delivery cadence right; and add a cancellation flow with a save offer.
5. Watch the metrics. Track MRR, churn, and LTV, and use cohort analysis to find exactly where subscribers drop off.

Common issues (and fixes)

Next steps

Ready to choose a tool? Compare the field in our best Shopify subscription app guide, or if you’re leaving another platform, read the Recharge alternative comparison. To get fluent in the metrics, browse the subscription glossary.