Subscription Product Setup
Subscriptions are set up like any other product and have a few additional settings.
In addition to the normal product properties (price, description, image, fulfillment), a subscription has several other properties which define the subscription behavior:
- Billing Period - Sets the billing cycle every 30 days, 4 weeks, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
- Optional Number of Billing Periods / Rebills - Set 2 up to 12 rebills. By default, the number of rebills is set to unlimited.
- Subscription Followup Notifications - Occur when a future rebill fails or reminds the buyer in case of a yearly subscription 10 days before the next payment.
A subscription product is considered to represent a complete "subscription plan." The include plan / period information shows as part of the product name (e.g. Monthly Access Fee). The order process will also show the recurring period, for example "$9.95 Monthly," regardless of the name of the product.
To start the subscription setup process, choose "Create Subscription Product" inside Actions on the right of your Product Catalog.
Pricing
During the subscription set up you can define the recurring price and the trial period price. This generates two prices. One with a fixed amount of 9.95 and one with an amount of 0.00 (if the trial period is free). The 0.00 price gets an "Order Environment Condition" that restricts this price to the first period (e.g. first month). You can also define other amounts (e.g. 2.00 for the first month) or add further restrictions (like a date or coupon condition) to either price setting.
Fulfillment Actions
Subscription products may have fulfillment actions like any other product. However due to their recurring nature, you may prefer to customize when the fulfillment actions are applicable on a subscription.
The following scenarios are supported:
- Applicable always - for first order and all future rebills [default]
- Applicable on the first order only - not applicable on future rebills
- Applicable on rebills only - not applicable on the first order
To customize when a fulfillment action is applicable for a subscription go to the Fulfillment section and click the "Advanced" tab.