How to Give a Free Gift with the First Subscription Order (Essential Subscriptions app)
You can give shoppers a free gift on their first subscription order. The gift is added to the cart for them and made free at checkout. It is not part of the recurring orders that follow.
Gifts are set per subscription plan. Each plan in a campaign can have its own gifts, or none.
Step 1: Add gifts to a subscription plan
- Open Campaigns in the app menu and click the campaign.
- On the Purchase options tab, open the subscription plan (for example Delivery every month).
- Open the 1st order gift section. Its badge shows how many gifts the plan has.
- Type in Search products, or click Browse, and pick one or more products.
- Set the quantity next to each gift. This is how many units are free. To remove a gift, click the X next to it.
- Check Discount name (appears in cart, checkout & order). The default is "Free gift with subscription".
- Click Save, then Publish.
Whole product or one variant?
- Pick the whole product and the shopper chooses the variant (size, colour) from a dropdown under the gift. The first variant in stock is preselected.
- Pick one or more single variants and each one is given as it is. No dropdown.
The one-time purchase option cannot have gifts. Gifts only unlock with a subscription.
Other ways to start
From a template. On the Pick a template page, turn on 1st order gifts before you click Choose. The editor opens with a placeholder gift called Welcome kit on the first plan, marked Product not chosen. Click Choose product and pick your real gift. The placeholder only shows in the preview. Until you pick a product, the plan has no gift. See Start a Campaign from a Template.
From Shopify Discounts. If you create the Essential Subscriptions free gifts discount in Shopify admin > Discounts, the app opens a new campaign with the 1st order gift section open. Set up the campaign there. The app then creates the discount for you (see Step 2).
Step 2: You don't need to create a discount
When you save a published campaign that has gifts, the app creates an automatic discount for you in Shopify admin > Discounts. It is called Free subscription gifts: [your campaign name]. To get there, hover the words Discount name above the field and click View discounts in the pop-up.
- Do not edit or delete this discount by hand. The app keeps it in sync every time you save the campaign.
- Click the discount in Shopify Discounts and the app opens the campaign at its gifts.
- If you unpublish or delete the campaign, or remove all its gifts, the app removes the discount.
- It combines with your other product, order and shipping discounts.
Step 3: Change the gift wording
On the Widget tab, open 1st order gift:
- Gift heading (optional): shown above the gift when the shopper has picked the plan with the gift. Default: "Gifts with your subscription". Leave it empty to hide it.
- Locked heading: shown when the shopper has not picked that plan yet. Default: "Subscribe to unlock your gifts".
- Gift price shows: Strikethrough price shows the gift's normal price crossed out. Free shows a word instead of the price.
- Free label: the word to show when you pick Free. Default: "FREE".
These texts can be translated like the rest of the widget. See Widget Wording, Translations and the Subscription Details Tooltip.
Step 4: Style the gift block
On the Style tab, open 1st order gift:
- Show background: turn the box behind the gift on or off. When on, set the Corner radius, Background, Border color and Border size.
- Gift heading text, Gift product name text and Gift price text: set the size, style and colour of each.
The preview on the right updates as you go.
How gifts show up in your store
The gift block sits in the subscription widget on the product page.
- Locked: while the shopper has the one-time purchase (or another plan) selected, the gift is greyed out under the Locked heading.
- Unlocked: when the shopper picks the plan with the gift, it lights up under the Gift heading. If you chose a whole product, the variant dropdown appears here.
- If a gift quantity is more than 1, the name shows it, for example "Ski Wax × 2".
By layout:
- Detailed: each plan shows its own gifts inside its own row.
- Grouped and Minimal: one gift block lists the gifts from all plans. Gifts of the selected plan are unlocked. The rest stay locked.
What happens in the cart and at checkout
- The shopper picks the plan with the gift and clicks Add to cart.
- The gift is added to the cart for them, as its own line. It is a one-time item, not a subscription.
- The gift is made 100% off. The discount name you set shows next to it in the cart, at checkout and on the order.
- Later subscription orders do not include the gift.
Good to know:
- Only the quantity you set is free. If the shopper raises the gift quantity in the cart, the extra units are charged.
- If the gift (or the chosen variant) is out of stock, it is not added.
- If the gift is already in the cart, it is not added again.
- If the shopper removes the subscription product from the cart, the gift stays in the cart but is no longer free.
- The gift is only added with Add to cart. Express checkout buttons on the product page (Buy it now, Shop Pay and others) skip the cart, so the gift is not added. See Why the First Order Gift Isn't Added with Express Checkout Buttons.