How to Create a Subscription app Campaign

A subscription campaign is the offer customers see on your product pages. It sets which products it covers, how often orders ship and bill, the discount, and how the widget looks. You can run several campaigns for different products.

The campaign editor has these tabs:

• Purchase options: your plans, their schedule and discount, and the one-time purchase.
• Volume bundles: pack sizes with an extra discount, such as a 3 pack.
• Widget: the layout and every piece of text customers read.
• Style: colours, sizes and borders.
• Products: which products the campaign covers.

This article covers the offer and the products. For the look, see How to Customise the Subscription Widget.

The Volume bundles tab lets you offer a better price for larger quantities, such as a 3 pack. See How to Set Up Volume Bundles.

Step 1: Start a new campaign

1. Open Campaigns in the app menu. You see each campaign with its status, Published or Unpublished, and its products.
2. Click Create subscription campaign.
3. The Pick a template page opens. Choose a template, or click Start from scratch.

A template fills in sample plans, discounts and colours for you. See Start a Campaign from a Template.

If you have no campaigns yet, opening Campaigns takes you straight to Pick a template.

To edit a campaign later, click it in the list.

Step 2: Set up your plans

Each plan is one choice the customer can pick, for example every 2 weeks or every month. On the Purchase options tab, each plan is its own card. Click a card to open it. A closed card shows a short summary of its billing, price and gifts.

• Add purchase option adds a plan.
• Drag the handle on the left of a card to reorder plans.
• The trash icon deletes a plan. On a published campaign you are asked to confirm. Existing subscriptions are not affected.

In each plan, set:

Customer facing name

The plan name customers see. The app fills it in from the schedule, for example "Monthly" or "2 weeks", and keeps it updated while you change the frequency. Once you type your own name, it stops changing.

Delivery policy

Deliver every: a number and day(s), week(s), month(s) or year(s).

Billing policy: choose Pay as you go or Prepaid.

• Pay as you go: the customer pays per delivery. A line under the fields shows the schedule, for example "First charge at checkout. Then every 2 weeks."
• Prepaid: Charge for sets how many deliveries one payment covers (2 or more). Show price in the widget sets Total price or Per delivery.

Both have:

• Charge customers on: for weekly, monthly and yearly plans. The day they order, or a set weekday, day of the month or A custom date of the year.
• Subscription expires automatically after (optional): end the subscription after a set number of payments. Unticked, it renews until the customer cancels.
• Customers can cancel after (optional): the customer cannot cancel until this many payments are made. Until then they see Can't cancel yet in the portal.

Hover the (i) next to a field to see what it does. The blue box at the bottom of Billing policy sums up the setup.

Prepaid works quite differently from pay as you go. Read Prepaid and Pay as You Go Subscriptions Explained before you pick it.

Pricing policy

• Discount: choose Percentage or Amount off, then enter the value.
• Change discount after a number of payments (optional): for example 10% off for the first 3 payments, then 15%. Set Change after and Change to. The new discount uses the same type as the first one.

1st order gift (optional)

Add free products to the first order of this plan. See How to Give a Free Gift with the First Subscription Order.

Badges, highlights, descriptions, benefits and the crossed-out price are set on the Widget tab. See How to Customise the Subscription Widget.

Step 3: Offer a one-time purchase (optional)

A new campaign from scratch already has a one-time purchase, named "Just once". It has its own card on the Purchase options tab, where you can change its Customer facing name.

• If you deleted it and want it back, click Add one-time purchase under the plans.
• You can have one one-time purchase per campaign.
• To show it as a link button instead of a full option, use the Layout card on the Widget tab.
• To sell by subscription only, delete it. See Sell a Product by Subscription Only.

Step 4: Customer product changes, tags and name

Below the plans on the Purchase options tab:

Customer product changes: what customers can change on this subscription in the customer portal. All are off by default.

• Change variants (such as size or color)
• Swap to another eligible product
• Change product quantities
• Keep subscription discounts after changes

Order & customer tags: tags added automatically for your own reporting.

• Order tag: added to subscription orders.
• Customer tag: added to subscription customers.
• New campaigns start with the tag "Essential Subscriptions" in both. Each tag can be up to 40 characters.

Subscription campaign name (visible to you only): for your own reference, for example "Coffee subscribe and save". Customers never see it.

Click Continue to widget settings to move on to the look.

Step 5: Assign products

Open the Products tab. The number next to the tab name is how many products and variants are assigned. A campaign needs at least one product before you can publish it.

• Add products opens the picker. Pick whole products, or expand a product and tick single variants. A part-selected product reads, for example, 1 out of 3 variants selected. The widget then only shows when the customer has one of those variants chosen.
• Add all products adds every active product in your store. It runs when you save, and a banner shows while it works. You can leave the page while it finishes.
• Once products are added, Manage reopens the picker and Delete all removes them all.
• The table lists the first 30 products. The count under it, for example "120 products, 4 variants", is the real total.

Step 6: Publish

1. Style the widget on the Widget and Style tabs. See How to Customise the Subscription Widget.
2. Check the live preview on the right.
3. Click Publish at the top of the page.

The widget now shows on every assigned product page. If it does not, see Subscription Widget Not Showing? Checklist and Placement.

Saving: a save bar appears at the top whenever you have unsaved changes. Changes only go live when you save or publish.

Editing a published campaign: every save is live straight away. Removing a plan removes it from your storefront. Existing subscribers keep the terms they signed up on.

Unpublish and Delete: both remove the subscription plans this campaign created in Shopify. Customers cannot subscribe while the campaign is unpublished. Publishing again creates new plans. Existing subscriptions keep billing on their own terms. Use these deliberately, not to hide the widget for a moment.

Translations

If your store sells in more than one language, you can translate everything customers read. The Translations card is on the Widget tab. It only appears when your store has a second published language. See Widget Wording, Translations and the Subscription Details Tooltip.