Subscription Terms and Conditions: What to Include

Subscription terms need clauses that one-off sales do not, because a subscription is an ongoing relationship where things change: prices, contents, addresses, and the customer’s mind.

This is a guide to what to cover, not legal advice. Have a lawyer review terms you intend to rely on.

Renewal

State plainly:

• That it renews automatically
• The frequency and the amount
• When each charge occurs
• That the customer will be notified before each charge (mandatory in India)

Repeat the key facts at the point of sale. Regulators consistently treat “it was in the terms” as insufficient when the disclosure was not visible where the decision was made. Auto-renewal rules.

Price changes

You will need to raise prices. The terms should establish:

• That prices may change
• The notice period — one billing cycle minimum, more is better
• What happens if the customer does not accept — they may cancel without penalty

Two practical notes. In markets with payment mandates, a price above the registered mandate maximum simply fails — so register mandates with headroom from the start. Why.

And decide in advance whether you grandfather existing subscribers. Doing so is generous and creates permanent operational complexity that multiplies with every future increase.

Cancellation

• How to cancel — self-service, same channel
• When it takes effect — immediately, or at the end of the paid period
• What happens to prepaid balance — refunded pro rata, or honoured as deliveries
• Any minimum term, stated as prominently in the sales page as in the terms

Minimum terms are legitimate but must be disclosed where the decision happens. A minimum term discovered at cancellation is the classic complaint.

Deliveries

• Expected delivery windows, and that they are estimates
• What happens if delivery fails — redelivery, who pays, when you pause
• Substitutions — whether you may substitute, and whether you notify first
• For curated boxes: that contents vary and are chosen by you

The substitution clause matters. Silently swapping a hero item for a lesser one generates complaints regardless of what the terms say, but having no clause at all makes the conversation harder.

Skips, pauses and changes

• What the subscriber may change, and by when — the cut-off
• Whether skips have limits
• Maximum pause duration, and what happens at the end of it

Refunds

• Whether a delivered box is refundable
• Prepaid cancellation — pro rata or not
• Damaged or missing goods, and the window to report

Under GST, refunds need a credit note against the original invoice rather than an informal adjustment. GST on subscriptions.

Data

Link to your privacy policy and, for merchants, your DPA. Say what you collect, how long you keep it, and how someone gets it deleted. Subscription data protection.

Version them

This is the clause people forget about the terms themselves.

Keep dated versions and record which version each subscriber accepted. In a dispute two years from now, “our current terms say X” is a much weaker position than “the terms this customer accepted on 14 March 2026 said X, and here they are”.

A policy with no effective date is a policy nobody can prove was in force.