Shopify Feature Compatibility with Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout

Shopify Feature

Integration Notes

Online Store

Bold Subscriptions integrates with your online Shopify store to allow you to offer subscriptions to your customers.

Themes

Bold Subscriptions is compatible with most vintage and Online Store 2.0 Shopify themes.

For detailed install instructions, please visit our Installation Guide for Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout.

(New) Customer Accounts

When a subscription is purchased, Shopify initiates the customer account creation process and links the customer with their subscription in Bold Subscriptions.

The Manage Subscriptions link to the customer portal can be added as a navigation menu item inside of Shopify's (new) customer accounts. 

Note: Customers must register their account using the same email that was used when purchasing the subscription.

Legacy Customer Accounts

When a subscription is purchased, Shopify initiates the customer account creation process and links the customer with their subscription in Bold Subscriptions.

A Manage subscriptions link to the customer portal can be placed inside Shopify's legacy customer account page in the theme code so customers can easily find where to manage their subscriptions after logging in.

Note: Customers must register their account using the same email that was used when purchasing the subscription.

Payment Gateways

Bold Subscriptions is compatible with Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Authorize.net, and Stripe.

Please visit Payment Options & Eligibility for all available payment options.

Accelerated Checkouts

Google Pay and Shop Pay are approved accelerated checkouts.

For more information on Shop Pay, please visit Shopify's article on how to Activate Shop Pay.

Abandoned Checkouts 

Shopify's abandoned checkout feature is compatible with subscription orders.

Shipping Settings

Your Shopify shipping rates are applied to your customers subscriptions.

If a product or address change is made in the subscriber's account after the initial purchase, this prompts Bold to update the subscriber's shipping method. A new shipping rate is assigned using the following priority:

1. No delivery (for digital products only).
2. Pickup (only if it has already been set).
3. Local delivery (only if it has already been set).
4. Fixed shipping.
5. General shipping (the cheapest option).

Local Delivery & Pickup

Because Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout uses the Shopify Checkout, it is compatible with all shipping methods provided by Shopify, including local delivery and pickup.

Shipping Locations

The shipping location that the product inventory is pulled from is controlled within Shopify.

Refunds

Subscription refunds are completed within Shopify.

Note: Refunding a subscription will not cancel future orders. For instructions on how to fully cancel future orders, please visit Subscription Management: Merchant Perspective.

Cart/Order Notes

Cart/Order notes can be enabled through the Shopify theme settings. 

Once enabled, notes will be shown on recurring orders under the notes section.

Bold Subscriptions also offers the option to add subscription notes via the app admin when editing a customer's subscription. These notes are visible to the store admin only and will populate on Shopify orders.

Fraud Analysis

Because orders are processed within Shopify, all fraud analysis is handled by Shopify. If you have any questions about this, please contact Shopify about their Fraud analysis feature.

Tax Overrides

Tax overrides are a Shopify feature supported by Shopify. If you have any issues with the overrides, please reach out to Shopify.

Subscription-Only Sales Reports Filter

Within Shopify, you can filter your sales reports by purchase option. You can easily view one-time purchases vs. subscription purchases.

In addition, Bold Subscriptions offers even more reporting features. You can find more information about cancellations, sort your customer by product, view transaction reports, and more.

Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow can be used to add order tags to subscription orders. For more information on how to build this workflow, please visit Shopify Flow & Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout Integration.

Shopify Mobile App

Shopify Mobile app is compatible with Bold Subscriptions. Merchants can manage their orders and subscriptions via the Shopify mobile app.

Shopify Feature

Integration Notes

Customer Tags

Bold Subscriptions applies a customer tag of active_subscriber or inactive_subscriber to the customer profile automatically, depending on the status of their subscription.

For more information, please visit Customer Tagging in Subscriptions for Shopify Checkout.

Note: You can add your own custom tags with the Shopify API or using Shopify Flow.

Order Tags

Bold Subscriptions automatically applies order tags to prepaid subscription orders only. 

Both of your customers' initial and recurring prepaid subscription orders are tagged with prepaid subscription.

Note: You can add your own custom tags with the Shopify API or using Shopify Flow.

Inventory

During initial checkout, Shopify utilizes your inventory settings to process orders. 

Shopify does not check inventory when processing recurring orders. Therefore, recurring orders will process regardless of inventory available.

Notifications

Merchants have the ability to control and edit the following email notifications from Bold:

• Subscription Created
• Transaction Failed
• Upcoming Order
• Expiring Credit Card
• Payment requires Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)
• Passwordless Login for Subscription Management 

Other notifications like order confirmation, fulfillment notifications, abandoned checkout, order refunds, and customer payment method update requests, are controlled by Shopify.

Dynamic Checkout, Accelerated Checkout & Buy Now Buttons

Shopify does not allow the use of accelerated checkouts such as Facebook Pay or Klarna for subscription purchases.

Shop Pay and Google Pay can be used for subscriptions.

The standard Buy Now button can be used if Shopify payments is your payment gateway.

Gift Cards

Shopify gift cards can be used as a payment method at the time of initial checkout when orders contain subscription products.

Gift cards cannot be used on recurring orders. For this reason, customers still need to provide a payment method to ensure that they are billed for their recurring orders.

Note: The gift card amount is only reflected on the order details in Shopify. There is no indication of a gift card being applied in the Bold admin.

Line Item Properties

Line item properties from the initial subscription order are added to the Shopify subscription contract and recurring orders. They are also added to the subscriptions line item attributes.

Note: Line item properties will not apply to a subscription contract if the Create Subscription endpoint is used, or if a customer is migrated.

Phone Number

Although you can require phone numbers in the Shopify checkout, if a customer removes their phone number when updating their address in Subscription customer portal, this can cause the subscription order to fail until a phone number is added.

We recommend keeping your Shopify phone number settings to optional so that phone numbers do not impact orders processing.

Shopify Scripts

Shopify Scripts can be used by Shopify Plus merchants using Bold to process subscription orders. As per Shopify’s limitations, Scripts that discount subscription prices or shipping rates apply to the first payment only and will not carry over to recurring orders.

You can work with Shopify to enable Shopify Scripts for subscriptions.

Permalinks

Shopify offers built in permalinks to send customers directly to checkout. To use this feature, you must have a technical knowledge. A solution for creating subscription permalinks can be found here.

Note: You can create Buy Now links in Bold Subscriptions to send your customers directly to checkout with a subscription. 

Shopify Feature

Integration Notes

Shopify Point of Sale (POS)

Bold is designed to work with the standard Shopify Checkout. As the Shopify Point of Sale (POS) system creates orders outside of the standard checkout process, subscription products won't work with Shopify POS.

For more information about Shopify's subscription limitations, please visit this article.

Outside Sales Channels

Shopify’s Online Store is the only sales channel that Shopify allows for subscription contracts.

Shopify Markets

Bold Subscriptions does not display the correct price within the subscriptions widget when the Shopify Market is set to a non-primary market.

As well, the customer portal is not compatible with shops who have assigned multiple domains through Shopify Markets.

Read more about this in Does Bold Subscriptions Work with Shopify Markets?

Draft Orders

Shopify’s draft orders are currently not compatible with subscription products. 

Order Editing

Adding products or editing existing subscriptions can be done with Bold Subscriptions' management tools. Merchants can edit a Shopify order directly, but cannot add a subscription product to an order from the Shopify admin. If this is done, the product will only register as a one-time purchase, and the change will not be reflected in Bold Subscriptions order history. 

To add a product to an existing subscription order, please visit Subscription Management: Merchant Perspective.

Automatic & Buy X Get Y Discounts

This is a Shopify limitation. Automatic and Buy X Get Y discounts aren't supported by subscriptions.

For more information about Shopify's discount limitations, please visit Shopify's Help Center.

Combined Discounts

Shopify's combined discounts feature is not yet compatible with Bold Subscriptions. While the discounts on initial orders can process correctly, only one discount will be applied to future orders.

Shopify discount codes can be used in combination with subscription group discounts.