Recurring subscriptions

A recurring subscription allows you to charge customers on a repeated schedule for products and services.

You can offer subscriptions and accept recurring payments for one or more items. The billing cycle can be set to daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annually. With recurring subscriptions you can sell food, daily products, cosmetics, subscription boxes, access to membership, accept regular donations, and more.

You need Lightspeed Payments or Stripe payment method to set up recurring subscriptions.

How recurring subscriptions work

To enable subscriptions in your store, you need to connect your store to Lightspeed Payments or Stripe.

For each product, you set a billing period that can't be changed once set up. You can allow shoppers to buy a product as a one-time purchase, or as a subscription. The subscription period is displayed on the storefront for items with a subscription option only. If you allow a one-time purchase for an item as well, the subscription period will be displayed on the product page instead of the storefront.

Buyers can pay for their subscription with a debit or credit card. Once they subscribe to your product, they will be charged automatically. Shoppers can manage subscriptions in their customer account — cancel it or change payment details. The subscription can't be paused.

Note that If a customer pays for the shipping, they will be charged for it every time during the subscription. For instance, a customer subscribed to a $10 shampoo that costs $5 to ship. In total, it’s $15. The next time they will be charged, it will be $15 — exactly the same sum they paid the first time.

If you sell products with options and a customer subscribed for a particular one, e.g., a mint-flavored cookie box, they will be subscribed to that specific product variation. If a customer changes their mind, they have to cancel the current subscription and re-subscribe to another product variation, e.g., a chocolate cookie box.

Every time a customer is charged for a subscription, you receive an email and a new order is placed. You also receive an email in case of charging issues or subscription cancellation.

You can customize prices to make your subscriptions stand out:

Sign-up fee. Allows you to increase or decrease the price of the first subscription order. For example, you can set the price for the first subscription order for $20, and for every next subscription order for $15.
Free trial. If you set up the sign-up fee for $0, your customers won't be charged for the first order in subscriptions. That means you can offer a free trial for your clients.
Subscribe and save. If you offer a product for a one-time purchase, you can make its subscription price lower to entice customers into repeat orders. For example, a one-off price for coffee beans is $20, while the monthly subscription price is $15. You can also set different pricing for the product variations that you sell as subscriptions.

Changing the subscription price won’t affect existing customers, only new subscribers.

Subscription analytics is displayed in your store reports. To see reports, go to Dashboard and scroll down to Subscription performance.

Adding recurring subscriptions to your store

To start selling your items regularly, you need to enable the subscription option in your store and add products with the subscription pricing.

Before you proceed with setup, make sure that your store meets the requirements:

Connect Stripe as a payment method.
Include rules for using recurring subscriptions in your store’s Terms & Conditions.

Make sure to include information about payment terms, non-refundable fees, restrictions on use, termination of subscriptions. You can read more about Terms & Conditions for subscription services in a TermsFeed blog post.

To add subscriptions to your store:

From your store admin, go to Settings → General → Cart & Checkout.
In the Sell subscriptions box, turn on the Product subscriptions toggle to enable products with subscription prices.
Go to Catalog → Products.
Create a new product or select the existing one you want to sell with recurring payments.
In the Pricing section in the product editing page, click Manage pricing options → Sell by subscription and turn on the toggle.
A Billing period field will appear. Click on the dropdown menu to select how often you want to charge your customers for this product — Once per day, Once per week, Once per 2 weeks, Once per month, Once per 3 months, Oncer per year:
Tick the Allow purchase without subscription box, so your customers can choose between one-time purchase and subscription. Otherwise, they can only buy a product with a subscription.
(optional) Click Set up one-time purchase price and enter the one-off cost to make a one-time purchase more expensive than a subscription pricing. If the product has variations, you can set a different one-time purchase price for each variation.
(optional) Click Set up price with signup fee and enter the price for the first order on subscription. Enter the "0" price if you want to make the first order free of charge and offer a free trial.
Click Save.

Open your store mobile app and tap Products, then tap on the + icon in the right-hand upper corner to create a new product.
Enter product name and price.
Tap Add Image to add the picture of the product.
Tap Add Product.
Tap Price → Sell as Subscription.
Tap Billing period to select how often you want to charge your customers for this product. Tap Done.
Leave the Allow One-Time Purchase toggle turned on so your customers can choose between one-time purchase and subscription. Turn the toggle off so shoppers can only buy the product with a subscription. The price will stay the same both for a one-time purchase and for the subscription.
(optional) Click Set up one-time purchase price and enter the one-off cost to make a one-time purchase more expensive than a subscription pricing. If the product has variations, you can set different one-time purchase pricing for each variation.
(optional) Click Set up price with signup fee and enter the price for the first order on subscription. Enter the "0" price if you want to make the first order free of charge and offer a free trial.
Tap Close.

Open your store mobile app and tap Products, then tap on the + icon in the right-hand upper corner to create a new product.
Enter product name and price.
Tap Add Image to add the picture of the product.
Tap Add Product.
Tap Price → Sell as Subscription.
Tap Billing period to select how often you want to charge your customers for this product. Tap Done.
Leave the Allow One-Time Purchase toggle turned on so your customers can choose between one-time purchase and subscription. Turn the toggle off so shoppers can only buy the product with a subscription. The price will stay the same both for a one-time purchase and for the subscription.
(optional) Click Set up one-time purchase price and enter the one-off cost to make a one-time purchase more expensive than a subscription pricing. If the product has variations, you can set different one-time purchase pricing for each variation.
(optional) Click Set up price with signup fee and enter the price for the first order on subscription. Enter the "0" price if you want to make the first order free of charge and offer a free trial.
Tap Close.

Done! Now your customers can subscribe to your products. With every new charge, your inventory will be updated automatically.

If you use other payment methods and want associate Stripe with subscriptions only, you can create a product-specific shipping method for a subscription.

Setting individual subscription pricing for product variations

When you offer customers to subscribe to a product with variations, you can set individual prices for each variation. Say, you sell poke lunches. You can set the $6 price for a large bowl and $5 for a small bowl.

The same way you can set individual pricing for each variation of a product that you sell both as a subscription and a one-time purchase. For example, meat and vegetarian poke bowls will cost different as a one-time purchase and as a subscription:

setting_individual_subscription_price_for_variations.gif

To set up the one-time purchase price for product variations:

From your store admin, go to Catalog → Products and choose a subscription product.
Click the Options tab, then click Variations.
Near a variation you want to change, click Manage.
In the Price field, enter the subscription price to assign an individual subscription price for the variation.
If the product is sold as a one-time purchase, you can set an individual price for the variation that is sold as a one-time purchase. In the One-time purchase price field, enter the price that is higher than the subscription price.
Click Ok. Then Save.

Applying discount coupons to subscriptions

You can offer discount coupons with your subscription. For example, you can send a customer a coupon for a 100% discount and it will work as a free trial before they commit to a recurring payment.

To avoid applying the discount to subsequent orders, make sure to add usage restrictions to a coupon. For example, limit the discount usage to a single use, or once per customer. That way, discount will be applied to the first order only.

If a coupon has no limitations, the discount will be applied to the initial order and all subsequent orders in subscription.

Managing subscriptions

You can check all recurring subscriptions in the My Sales → Subscriptions section in your store admin. You will see all subscriptions your store ever had, including active, canceled, subscriptions with failed charges, and the ones that need to be confirmed.

To make it easier to find the subscription you are looking for, click Filter and select how you want subscriptions to be displayed. This can help you prioritize your order processing. For instance, you can click Filter → Next Charge Date and select Next 7 days. That way you will see what subscription products need to be prepared and shipped first.

You can also check all the orders that were made within one subscription. For instance, a customer subscribed to one cosmetic box once per month, one hair treatment box once per month, and one shaving set once per month. If you want to see all orders within a subscription, go to My Sales → Subscriptions, find the subscription and click Orders created: 3 orders. You will see all orders that were made within the subscription.

While processing an order, you can change its status, edit order or print order in My Sales → Orders.

To better understand order statuses and editing orders, read the article about managing orders.

Contacting customers

In case you need to specify the delivery address or clarify subscription details, you can always contact your customer in person via email.

To find your customer’s email or phone, go to My Sales → Subscriptions, find the subscription you have issues with, and look up the email of a customer to contact them.

If you want to send automated emails for a particular subscription, for example, an email with the instruction, you can do it with the help of Mailchimp. You need to connect Mailchimp to your online store and then create the email campaign for a certain product (subscription) in your store.

Editing automated emails

Customers that subscribed to your products can receive automated emails if payment confirmation is required, if a charge has failed, or if the subscription is canceled. You can edit the email templates for these automated emails — change the appearance and texts. For instance, change font color to your brand’s colors, change the paragraph’s order, add image, and more.

To edit email templates for subscriptions:

From your store admin, go to Settings → Mail.
Click Edit next to one of the templates you want to change — Subscription Canceled, Subscription Charged Failed, or Subscription Payment Confirmation is Required.
Make the changes.
If you don’t like the result, click Revert to default at the bottom of the template to restore the default template.
Once you are satisfied with the result, click Save.

You can learn more about how to edit emails in your store.

Canceling recurring subscription

A subscription can be canceled in three cases — if you cancel the subscription manually, if a customer cancels their subscription manually, or if a charge can’t be made (not enough money on a credit card or the card period has expired). The subscription will be canceled within 7 days if a customer won’t add a valid card to their account.

To manually cancel a subscription:

From your store admin, go to My Sales → Subscriptions.
Select the subscription you want to cancel and click Actions → Cancel subscription.

After canceling the subscription, orders will no longer be placed automatically, and the customer won’t be charged any further.