How to Set Up Subscribe and Save on Shopify

Subscribe and save is the simplest subscription offer there is: buy this thing repeatedly, pay a bit less. For most stores it converts better than any other subscription model, because it asks the customer to commit to something they were already going to do.

Setting the discount

Start from margin, not from what competitors show.

Take your gross margin on the product. A 15% discount on a 50% margin product leaves you at 41%. Now ask: how many extra orders does the subscription produce versus this customer buying once and possibly returning?

If a one-time buyer purchases 1.4 times a year and a subscriber takes 8 deliveries, a 15% discount is obviously profitable. If subscribers churn after two cycles, you have given away 15% on orders you might have had anyway.

The number to know is your break-even cycle count. If a subscriber has to complete three deliveries before the discount pays back, and your median subscriber completes two, the offer is losing money regardless of how good the top-line looks. The arithmetic.

Escalating discounts

A discount that increases with tenure — 10% on the first three deliveries, 15% after — aligns the incentive with the thing you actually want, which is retention rather than signup.

It also reduces the cost of the customers who churn fastest, which are precisely the ones a flat discount subsidises most.

Choosing frequencies

Offer frequencies that bracket real consumption. Three options is usually right; more is choice paralysis on a product page.

The failure mode to avoid: offering only monthly for a product that lasts three weeks or six. Subscribers who receive faster than they consume accumulate stock and then cancel — and they cancel with a negative feeling about your product, because their cupboard is full of it.

If you do not know consumption rate, ask. A one-question post-purchase survey beats a guess.

Presenting it on the product page

Four things measurably help:

State the saving in money. “Save ₹150 per delivery” outperforms “Save 10%” because it does not require arithmetic.

Pre-select nothing, or pre-select subscribe honestly. Pre-selecting the subscription lifts conversion and lifts cancellations. If you do it, make it visually obvious what is selected — a subscriber who did not realise they subscribed is a chargeback, not a customer.

Show the commitment plainly. “Cancel anytime” next to the option removes the main objection. If there is a minimum term, say so here rather than in the terms page — surprises at cancellation time become disputes.

Show the next charge date. “First delivery today, next on 19 October” turns an abstract commitment into a concrete one.

The mistake that costs the most

Making cancellation hard.

It is tempting, and it is counterproductive in three separate ways: it generates support tickets that cost more than the retained revenue, it produces chargebacks which are worse than cancellations, and in a growing number of jurisdictions it is illegal — see the auto-renewal rules.

Offer skip and pause prominently inside the cancellation flow. A large share of cancellations are “I have too much right now”, and that customer wants a pause, not an exit. They just cannot find one. Designing the cancellation flow.

Setting it up

With Super Subscription: create a plan, set frequency and discount, attach it to products, place the app block on your product template. The saving in money, the next charge date and the cancel policy render automatically.

Install free

Frequently asked questions

What discount should I offer for subscribe and save?

Most stores land between 10% and 15%. The right number depends on your gross margin and how many cycles a subscriber typically completes — the discount needs to be repaid by the additional orders it produces.