Bold Subscriptions V1 allows you to choose exactly how your customers subscribe to your products.
This article outlines all the different methods of how you can customize your customer's subscription experience, as well as how each method can benefit your store and customers.
Please visit our demo store to view and interact with all of the different methods Bold Subscriptions offers.
Alert
Please note that this article only relates to Version 1 of Bold Subscriptions. If you have Version 2 of Bold Subscriptions installed on your store, please visit Subscriptions V2 Overview.
If you are unsure of which version of Bold Subscriptions that you have currently installed, please visit Identify Your Version of Bold Subscriptions.
Standard subscriptions allow you to sell your products on a recurring basis. This subscription type is useful if you have a large amount of inventory or need to create multiple subscription groups.
Adding multiple Shopify products to one subscription group is useful if you're allowing your customers to swap between subscription products. This will allow your customers to change their subscription product to any other product within the same subscription group.
Once a standard subscription group has been created and activated, the subscriptions widget will appear on the product page.
You can adjust the look and feel of this widget from within the Bold Subscriptions app admin under Settings > Display Settings.
You can also adjust the widget language from within the Bold Subscriptions app admin under Settings > Language Settings.
Convertible subscriptions are an entirely new style of subscription widget. Convertible subscriptions allow a customer's initial subscription product to automatically be swapped for a different product on their second order.
Your customers will have the option to subscribe to a single product, then automatically receive a different product on their second order. The product that the subscription is changed to will be the product your customers receive for the remainder of their subscription.
Example
You sell a monthly convertible subscription for toothbrushes and toothpaste. The initial subscription product is 1 toothbrush that changes to toothpaste on the 2nd order.
A customer who purchases this subscription will receive 1 toothbrush from their initial order. After the initial order, they will receive 1 tube of toothpaste every month for the remainder of their subscription.
Convertible subscriptions can also be used to up-sell different products on your store, like trial-size products that "convert" to a full-sized product. If your subscription model requires an initial fee, you can achieve this by using the two different products within the convertible subscription group.
With the ability to switch products after the initial subscription, you can create unique subscription campaigns for your customers. You can integrate discount codes with Bold Subscriptions V1 to offer your customers different savings for their initial order and recurring orders.
When convertible subscription groups are enabled, the subscription widget will appear on the product page.
Note: Prepaid and gift subscriptions are only available through the standard subscription type.
Bold Subscriptions V1 allows you to offer your customers the ability to pay for multiple orders at once and still have them process on a weekly or monthly basis going forward.
There are lots of reasons why customers may want to prepay for their subscription, like tiered discounts, which give your customer an incentive to prepay for a longer period of time. Prepaying for a subscription ensures that your customers will not experience any payment disruptions as they've already paid for all of their orders.
When prepaid / gift subscriptions are enabled, a subscription widget will appear on the product page.
Each frequency that's created in a subscription group will appear as a dropdown that your customers will be able to interact with.
Alert
Upgrades to the Advanced Plan now requires authorization from our Customer Success team.
If you're interested in upgrading to the Advanced Plan of Bold Subscriptions V1, please reach out to our Customer Success team.
While on the Advanced plan of Bold Subscriptions V1, you can create build-a-box subscriptions where your customers can pick and choose exactly what kinds of products they would like to receive.
With this feature, you can offer custom meal plans, dynamic subscription boxes, or unique bundles of items.
Build-a-box is currently only available for stores on the Advanced plan that are using the Single Product / Multiple Products cart mode.
When a build-a-box subscription is created and activated, the subscription widget will appear similar to how standard Subscriptions appear on the product page.
After a customer has chosen both a variant and an order frequency, then selects Select Choice, they will be brought to a page where they can select the products that make up their build-a-box subscription.
Bold Subscriptions V1 allows you to select products in bulk during the setup of your subscription groups.
All subscription types allow you to choose a set order frequency to charge on (IE. every 2 weeks). Setting a fixed order frequency ensures that all of your customers that subscribe to your products will receive the product in that set frequency.
If a weekly or monthly frequency is selected, you can set your subscriptions to renew based on the initial purchase date, which is a set day of a week / month. Having all of your orders renew on a set day of a week or month allows for easy fulfillment rather than having orders generate at random.
All subscription types also have a feature called buffer days which helps ensure that the initial order and recurring order are not generated near the same time.
Example
You want to charge all of your customers on the 15th of every month, but you don't want customers who sign up on the 14th of the month to be charged again on the 15th.
Setting a buffer day helps prevent the first recurring order (which is the 2nd order in a subscription) from generating too close to the initial purchase date.
Standard and convertible subscriptions both allow you to offer discounts that are automatically applied if the customer purchases a subscription. Offering a subscription discount helps to incentivize subscription purchases over the one-time purchase option.
You can set these discounts to apply to all of your recurring orders, or just the first order. You can then switch to a different rate after a set amount of orders have been generated.
FAQs
No. Currently, Bold Subscriptions is unable to add an additional charge or one-time fee to an order.
If you'd like the first order to include the cost of a processing fee, we recommend changing the price of the product(s) within the Shopify admin. Once this is completed, you can then add a dynamic discount to the subscription group to adjust the subscription pricing back to its original amount.
Example
You sell security systems and want to add a charge for the installation fee. The security system costs $90.00/mo while the installation fee is a flat $10.00.
You would set the product price in the Shopify admin to $100.00, then offer a 10% dynamic discount in the subscription group to change the product price to $90.00 after the first initial order.
Please visit Subscriptions Discounts (Standard & Dynamic) for more information.
Yes. A free subscription can be offered to a customer by providing the customer with a discount code that discounts the entire order by 100%.
Discount codes can be created in the Bold Subscriptions V1 admin under Subscriptions > Discount Codes. Please visit Discount Codes Set-up & Types for more information.
Pro-Tip
Once the discount code has been applied to your new customer(s), you can then disable the code and grandfather it for your existing subscribers. This prevents all other customers from using the discount code on both new and existing subscription orders on your store.
No. While Bold Subscriptions V1 offers a wide variety of options that you can offer to your customers, it is not currently possible to specify a select number of days between each processed order.
Currently, Bold Subscriptions V1 offers the following frequency intervals.
Let customer select order interval
Allows you to set either a Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly frequency interval. Then, you can set the amount your customer can select for these intervals.
IE. Entering 2 while you have Monthly selected will offer frequency intervals of both Every 1 Month and Every 2 Months.
Your customers will then be charged on the anniversary of their initial purchase date once every 1 or 2 months.
Set a fixed order interval
Allows you to set only 1 frequency interval for the product(s) in your subscription group. You may still enter your preferred frequency.
IE. Entering 2 while you have Monthly selected will offer frequency intervals of both Every 1 Month and Every 2 Months.
Note: When using Set a fixed order interval and offering a Daily or Yearly interval, you will not be able to select Charge all customers on the same day every month. You will only be able to charge your customers on the anniversary of their initial purchase.
If you select a Daily or Yearly interval, you will not be able to set any buffer days. Buffer days are a part of the Charge all customers on the same day every month option.
No. All of your customer's payments will be processed right away.
Recurring billing is automatic but you can select the interval in which you'd like your customers to be billed at (weekly, biweekly, monthly, or yearly).
All subscription orders are processed in batches that run from 4:00am CST until 9:00am CST, every single morning.
Your customer's order processing dates are based on what the customer had chosen at time of purchase, which is then based on what you have set up within your subscription groups.
Example A: A customer purchases a subscription on October 15th that's set to recur every 1 month, with no fixed order interval. Their orders will process between 4:00am CST and 9:00am CST on the 15th of every month.
Example B: A customer purchases a subscription set to recur every 1 month, with a fixed order interval set to charge on the 30th of every month. Their orders will process between 4:00am and 9:00am CST on the 30th of every month.
No. Buy now buttons skip the necessary add to cart functionality that Bold Subscriptions V1 requires when your customers add products to the cart. This will cause subscription orders to be created as one-time purchases.
To remove this type of button from your store, please visit Shopify's article on dynamic checkout buttons for more information.