Create and manage selling plans
Selling plans represent how products can be sold and purchased. When you create a selling plan, you can determine the policies under which a product can be sold. For example, you can create a selling plan where a customer can purchase a subscription on a monthly billing cycle, and where you offer a 15% discount for weekly deliveries of the product.
This guide shows you how to create a "Subscribe and save" and a "Prepaid" selling plan, and how to associate products with them.
Requirements
Anchor link to section titled "Requirements"- Your app can make authenticated requests to the GraphQL Admin API.
- Your app has the
write_products,read_customer_payment_methods,read_own_subscription_contracts, andwrite_own_subscription_contractsaccess scopes. Learn how to configure your access scopes using Shopify CLI. - You've created products and product variants in your development store.
To be eligible to use Shopify subscriptions, users need to meet the qualifying criteria.
You've familiarized yourself with the concept of selling plans.
Step 1: Create a selling plan group
Anchor link to section titled "Step 1: Create a selling plan group"In the following example, a selling plan group is created using the sellingPlanGroupCreate mutation.
The input fields include name (the plan group name that customers see), merchantCode (the plan name that the merchant sees), sellingPlansToCreate (the individual selling plans to create), options (the selling plan options available in the drop-down list in the storefront), and position (how the options are sorted).
Learn more about GraphQL Admin API objects for purchase options. For more information on input fields and values, refer to the following resources:
Within each individual selling plan, the billing, delivery, and pricing policies are set:
billingPolicy: The schedule is based on a weekly, every two weeks, or monthly pay per delivery subscription.deliveryPolicy: The schedule is based on the merchant offering delivery every week, two weeks, and one month.pricingPolicies(fixed): The pricing is set at 15% off for deliveries every week, 10% off for deliveries every two weeks, and 5% off for deliveries every month. Selling plan pricing policies also work in conjunction with price lists. For more information, refer to the Catalogs overview.
The category field should be set to SUBSCRIPTION.
If you need to define more advanced delivery behaviors for subscriptions, such as specifying that fulfillment starts on a certain date each month, then you can include anchors in your API call. The following example sets billing and delivery anchor dates on Mondays or on the 15th of the month.
Selling plan API properties
Anchor link to section titled "Selling plan API properties"The following selling plan API properties display merchant-facing strings on the Product page in Shopify admin and on the storefront product page and checkout. The app populates the strings. To provide the best user experience, you can follow the Subscription UX guidelines and the Pre-orders and try before you buy UX guidelines.
| Field | Content guideline | Description |
|---|---|---|
SellingPlan.name |
Subscription, delivery every week | Display type and delivery frequency selected by the customer. |
| Pattern: [Subscription type], delivery every [frequency] | ||
SellingPlanGroup.description (if field is set) |
SellingPlanGroup.summary |
Shopify will output the contents of SellingPlanGroup.summary directly. It will not add the Customer can choose string. |
SellingPlanGroup.description (if field isn't set) |
Customer can choose
|
Shopify will output Customer can choose: and loop through the selling plan group's associated selling plans, outputting SellingPlan.name. |
Within each individual selling plan, the billing, delivery, and pricing policies are set:
billingPolicy: The schedule is based on a 12 week prepaid subscription.deliveryPolicy: The schedule is based on the merchant offering delivery every week, two weeks, and three weeks.pricingPolicies(fixed): The pricing is set at 20% off for deliveries every week, 15% off for deliveries every two weeks, and 10% off for deliveries every three weeks. Selling plan pricing policies also work in conjunction with price lists. For more information, refer to the Catalogs overview.
The category field should be set to SUBSCRIPTION.
If you need to define more advanced delivery behaviors for subscriptions, such as specifying that fulfillment starts on a certain date each month, then you can include anchors in your API call.
Selling plan API properties
Anchor link to section titled "Selling plan API properties"The following selling plan API properties display merchant-facing strings on the Product page in Shopify admin and on the storefront product page and checkout. The app populates the strings. To provide the best user experience, you can follow the Subscription UX guidelines and the Pre-orders and try before you buy UX guidelines.
| Field | Content guideline | Description |
|---|---|---|
SellingPlan.name |
3-month prepaid subscription, delivery every week | Display prepaid period, type, and delivery frequency selected by the customer. |
| Pattern: [Subscription type], delivery every [frequency] | ||
SellingPlanGroup.description (if field is set) |
SellingPlanGroup.summary |
Shopify will output the contents of SellingPlanGroup.summary directly. It will not add the Customer can choose string. |
SellingPlanGroup.description (if field isn't set) |
Customer can choose
|
Shopify will output Customer can choose: and loop through the selling plan group's associated selling plans, outputting SellingPlan.name. |
Editing a selling plan group
Anchor link to section titled "Editing a selling plan group"You can call the sellingPlanGroupUpdate mutation to edit the attributes for a selling plan group that has already been created. In the following example, the “Subscribe and save” selling plan group is renamed to “Pay per delivery”:
Step 2: Associate a selling plan group to a product
Anchor link to section titled "Step 2: Associate a selling plan group to a product"Selling plans can be created with products or product variants that are already associated in the sellingPlanGroupCreate call.
However, you can also use the sellingPlanGroupAddProducts or sellingPlanGroupAddProductVariants mutation to make a separate call to associate a selling plan group with a product or product variant, without having to delete and recreate the selling plan group.
If you have multiple selling plan groups to be associated with a product or product variant, then you can use the productJoinSellingPlanGroups or productVariantJoinSellingPlanGroups mutations.
In the following example, the selling plan group is associated with a product variant.
Removing a product or variant from a selling plan group
Anchor link to section titled "Removing a product or variant from a selling plan group"If you want to disassociate a product from a selling plan group, then you can use the sellingPlanGroupRemoveProducts mutation. To remove a product variant from a selling plan group, you can use the sellingPlanGroupRemoveProductVariants mutation. In the following example, a product is removed from a selling plan group:
Step 3 (Optional): Configure a product to be sold only as a subscription
Anchor link to section titled "Step 3 (Optional): Configure a product to be sold only as a subscription"You can configure which products are sold on a subscription by specifying the requiresSellingPlan field as true in the productUpdate mutation. In the following example, the product is configured to be sold only on subscription.
Collecting payment information
Anchor link to section titled "Collecting payment information"After you've created the selling plan group, customers can purchase a product on a subscription and add it to their cart. For more information on implementing storefront Liquid properties, refer to Showing selling plan groups and selling plans on a product page.
Customer payment methods allow merchants to initiate new charges, with or without the customer being present. After a checkout is complete, a customer payment method is associated with the customer.
When an order includes subscription products, the payment method is associated with the subscription contract. This allows subscription apps to know which payment method to use for recurring payments.
- Learn how to use subscription contracts to create agreements between a customer and a merchant, and bill customers on a recurring basis.
- Learn how to manage orders and fulfillments for prepaid subscriptions.