SI Subscriptions & Memberships lets you sell products as subscriptions. You make plans (how often, at what discount, with a free trial or a sign-up fee if you like), customers pick one on the product page and check out with Shopify, and the app charges each renewal for you, retries failed payments and emails the customer at each step. Customers pause, skip, change or cancel from their account.
The same app runs memberships: tiers with member prices, member shipping, store credit each billing period, and members-only products and pages. It also runs a rental queue, where members borrow items from a list in turn. See Memberships, tiers and store credit and The rental queue.
The app is sold on its own and works on any Shopify store. It doesn’t need the Rentals & Bookings app; if you have that too, rentals can be billed by the period through this app (see Rental subscriptions with Rentals & Bookings).
Before you start #
- A payment provider that supports subscriptions, such as Shopify Payments. Without one, the home page says “Your store can’t sell subscriptions yet” and asks you to turn one on in Settings › Payments.
- New customer accounts (Shopify Settings › Customer accounts). Customers manage their subscriptions on a page of their account, and members receive store credit there. Legacy accounts can’t show that page.
- Subscription access from Shopify. Shopify approves each app that sells subscriptions. The setup guide shows whether this app has that access.
Install the app #
- Open the app’s page on the Shopify App Store and click Install.
- Shopify lists what the app can see and change in your store. Click Install again.
- The app opens in your Shopify admin. Later you’ll find it under Apps in the left-hand menu.
The first time you open it, setup runs by itself: it reads your store’s settings and checks what is ready. If a step doesn’t finish, the home page says “Some setup steps did not finish. They are tried again in a few minutes.” Settings › Setup › Run setup again runs it at once.
The setup guide #
The home page lists what is ready and what is still to do (“Finish these steps to start selling subscriptions.”). Each line is marked Done, To do, Waiting, Problem or Tip.
| Step | What it checks |
|---|---|
| Take payments that support subscriptions | Your payment provider can take subscription payments. |
| Subscription access from Shopify | Shopify has given the app access to subscriptions. Until then: “Shopify is reviewing this app’s access to subscriptions. Plans and billing start once it is approved.” |
| Create a subscription plan | You have at least one plan. See Subscription plans and the plan editor. |
| Show plans on product pages | The Subscription options block is on your product template. Open the theme editor takes you there, and the line lists the app embeds to turn on. See Subscription options on your product pages. |
| Let customers manage their subscriptions | New customer accounts are on, so customers can manage subscriptions on the Subscriptions page of their account. Add that page to the account menu in Settings › Customer accounts if it isn’t there. |
| Renewal billing | The app’s billing is running. “Billing starts with your first subscription.” until there is one. |
| Store credit for members | Shown when a membership tier gives store credit: your store uses new customer accounts, so members receive it. |
| Rental products | Shown with the Rentals & Bookings app: rental plans and their bookings. See Rental subscriptions with Rentals & Bookings. |
The Billing card beside the guide shows how many subscriptions are active (with your plan’s limit, when it has one) and “Billing is running. Last run …”. If billing stops for more than 30 minutes the card turns red: “Billing has not run for … minutes. Renewals wait until it runs again; contact support if this message stays.”
What happens to a subscription #
- A customer opens a product with one of your plans. The Subscription options block shows One-time purchase and your plans, with the savings and when they’ll be charged. They pick a plan and add it to the cart.
- They check out with Shopify’s checkout, which shows the plan and its terms. The order is the subscription’s first order.
- The subscription appears under Subscriptions, and the customer gets the welcome email with a link to manage it.
- A few days before each renewal (3 by default) the customer gets an “upcoming charge” email. On the day, the app charges their saved payment method and Shopify makes the renewal order, which you fulfil as usual.
- If a charge is declined, the app retries on your schedule and emails the customer. See Renewals and failed payments.
- The customer pauses, skips, changes or cancels from the Subscriptions page of their account. See What customers see in their account.
The app’s menu #
| Page | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Home | The setup guide and the Billing card. |
| Subscriptions | Every subscription, with tabs, search and a plan filter; one subscription’s schedule and actions; New subscription. Its Retention tab is the cancellation reasons report. See Subscriptions in your admin. |
| Plans | Your subscription, membership and rental plans, and the plan editor. |
| Memberships | Members (every membership) and Tiers (what members get). |
| Rental queue | Overview, Return items and Loans, for stores that lend items through the queue. |
| Analytics | Monthly recurring revenue, active subscriptions, churn, failed payments recovered and more, by day. |
| Settings | General (renewals, failed payments, customer self-service, memberships, your plan, the product page, setup), Emails, Rental queue and Retention. |
In your Shopify admin #
The app also adds blocks to Shopify’s own pages:
- Subscription on the order page: the order’s subscription, whether it was the first order or a renewal (“Renewal, cycle 3”), with a link into the app.
- Subscriptions on the customer page: the customer’s subscriptions and memberships.
- Subscription plan in a product’s Purchase options card: add the product to an existing plan or a new one without leaving the product page.
Add a block once: open an order (or a customer), click + Block in the Blocks section, choose the block and pin it.
Good to know #
- Every payment goes through Shopify: the first order through your checkout, renewals through Shopify’s subscription billing with the customer’s saved payment method. The app never holds card details.
- The plan limits count active subscriptions only, and the limit is soft: no checkout, renewal or new subscription is ever stopped. See Plans and features.
- The product page block, the account page and the emails are in English for now.
