How to Setup WooCommerce Subscriptions? (Updated)

32 thoughts on “How to Setup WooCommerce Subscriptions? (Updated)”

1. Simon, Your instructions are so helpful and clear. You have saved me at least a couple of hours of trying to understand myself. Thank you!

   Reply

2. Hi Simon!

   Thank you for a great article! Do you know is it possible to set up a subscription product, so while buying people have a choice: using stripe and autorenewal or normal payment gate where they can prolong it manually?

   Reply

3. Hi there, do you have a solution. Our Prorate Recurring Payment isn’t working, it’s set as Never, however customers are being charged when they make the switch.

   Reply

4. This is very helpful! Question. How do we setup an introductory sale on a subscription, where the first period has a reduced price but the renewal price is standard? I am not seeing this anywhere, pretty common/basic use case. Thanks!

   Reply

   • Hey Zachary! Great question. I just created a video on how to apply a first order discount. I added this to the bottom of this blog post. You also can check it out here: https://youtu.be/X1JKUFFVZL4. Let me know what you think. I gave 3 methods on how to do this.

     Reply

5. Hello simon, I have a problem with this plugin and its use of recurring payment with paypal, since when the renewal time comes, it does not do it automatically, but manual and the manual renewal check is deactivated, do you have any knowledge of it?

   Reply

   • Hey Jean, what PayPal plugin are you using? Is it the one supported by WooCommerce?

     Reply

6. Hello Simon,

   I am using woocommerce subscrition and all products. I want to change the text displayed on the site.
   I want it to say “1 month”, “2 months”,… Instead of “Every month”, “Every 2 months”.
   Just like your branch basics products.

   Thank you

   Reply

   • Hey Martin, you would have to customize the plugin files. See this post on exactly how to do this: How to add subscription plans to your existing products on WooCommerce?

     Reply

7. Hello Simon,
   I run a store with Woo Subscriptions, but there’s a case that I can’t find a way to solve.
   We sell cleaning packages for home use and deliver them monthly. It’d be awesome if customers can pay for a yearly subscription, but receive their orders (+pay for delivery) monthly.
   I see a plugin from Woo that potentially covers our needs, but I cannot figure out how to set up that prepaid payments. Do you by any chance have a tutorial for this – Prepaid Subscriptions? Or is there any other option to accomplish that?

   Reply

   • Hi Jerome! Great question. I just created a new tutorial that goes over how to set up a prepaid subscription. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/AYistm0IB8c

     Reply

8. Hi Simon, first of all, thank you for this tutorial and the videos.
   A question, I would like to make a subscription with a recurring payment of up to 60 months, but it only comes up to 24 months in the plugin configuration. How could I fix it?
   Thank you very much in advance.

   Reply

   • Hey Jose, great question! Reference the snippets in this doc for how to extend the default lengths past 24 months: view here

     Reply

9. Hola Simón, muchas gracias por proporcionar esta ayuda.
   No encuentro cómo un suscriptor puede cambiar el método de pago, en este caso agregar una nueva tarjeta.
   Muchas gracias.

   Reply

10. Hi Simon, As per your tutorial with the branch basics is there a way I can add a line above and below the delivery options? Would this be a function or CSS change to the "element" around the subscriptions container?

    Reply

11. Hey Simon, thanks for all your help! I want to send an E-Mail to my customers the second they unsubscribe. How do I do that? Settings->E-Mail shows only the option to inform me if someone unsubscribes. Greetings from Germany!

    Reply

12. I have a product for sale for $150. I want to give the customer the option to add one of three recurring subscription to the product, 1 month, 2 months or 3 months but not charge for the subscription at checkout? It looks like WooCommerce Subscriptions doesn’t allow me to sell the product and the subscription as an optional product. Is it possible to sell the product with optional subscriptions?

    Reply

    • Hey Marc, can you explain your example in more detail? You sell Product A for $150. You also want to give the customer the option to subscribe to Product B (1 month, 2 month, 3 month) as well during the Checkout process? Or, you also want to give the customer the option to subscribe to Product A during the Checkout process?

      Reply

13. Great tutorial! Is there a way to generate a receipt for subscriptions every month?

    Reply

    • Thanks Doug! Are you referencing a Invoice that is downloadable? Or an automated email with that month’s subscription details such as order date, payment amount, etc?

      Reply

14. Am using subscription for Videos but what happens when the subscription ends, does the product get automatically removed from the user Account , I would like to know the Logic.

    Reply

    • Does your subscription product expire after a set period of time or is this set to renew every month and never expire unless the customer cancels? If you set the subscription to expire after a specific time period the customer will not have access to the subscription product after the subscription expires.

      For example, you set up your subscription product to be $10/month and expire after 4 months. A customer signs up on December 4th and pays $10 for their 1st payment. Their next order date is January 4th for $10, February 4th for $10, and March 4th for $10. the customer’s subscription will automatically update from Active to Expired on April 3rd/4th. The customer would no longer have access as their subscription is Expired now. Note: are you using another plugin to manage the customer’s access besides subscriptions?

      Another situation is if you set the subscription product to be $10/month and never expire. A customer signs up on December 4th and pays $10 for their 1st payment. Their subscription will keep renewing each month for $10 and always be Active unless the customer cancels their subscription. If the customer decides to cancel June 15th of next year, their subscription status will update from Active to Pending Cancellation until July 4th and they will still have access since they paid $10 for that month already. On July 4th, their subscription status will update from Pending Cancellation to Cancelled and thus no longer have access.

      Reply

15. I got this error on my woocommerce subscription “Subscriptions Mode: Staging” the woocommerce it has a read label Staging, i would like to know what it means.

    Reply

    • Good question! What this means is that your site is in ‘staging mode’ and will not automatically charge customer’s credit cards or subscription related emails. This was setup so if you copied your live site to a staging site your customer’s credit cards would not get charged twice. See more here.

      Reply

16. Odd scenario maybe you can help? We have monthly subscriptions and annual subscriptions (two different products). The monthly ones we want to automatically renew and charge, but the annual ones we want to automatically renew (generate invoice) but not charge.

    Any thoughts on a method to prevent the storing of cards for one particular membership/subscription level?

    Reply

17. I got this message on checkout “woocomerce subscription No Available Payment Gateways Warning” I have set up woocommerce subscription with paypal standard what is the problem?

    Reply

    • On your WordPress dashboard, hover over WooCommerce and click ‘Settings’. Next, click the ‘Payments’ tab and then click ‘Manage’ in the PayPal Standard row. Then, check ‘Enable PayPal Standard for Subscriptions’. Finally, scroll to the bottom of the and click ‘Save changes’.

      Reply

18. Hi Sam, Thanks for these! you are a super star! Quick question – we are offering a yearly golf membership. the first 6 months of a year are set. then the last 6 months each have different prices. At the moment, the visitors has to chose e.g. june – dec and they get 1 price or they have to choose e.g. feb – dec and they get another price. do you think there is a way where this plugin can automate that e.g. jan – dec costs $100, mar – dec costs $80, nov – dec costs $20 – and that WP can automatically give them the cost based on the current month? hope that makes sense. Thanks for any help 🙂

    Reply

    • Hey Lindsay, anything is possible with the right developer and no perfect way to do this.
      
      What I would recommend is setting up a simple subscription product for $100/year and have it always renew on a specific date of the year (i.e. the 1st of January).
      
      Then, in your WooCommerce Subscriptions settings, under Synchronize renewals enable “Align Subscription Renewal Day”. In addition, set Prorate First Renewal to “Never (do not charge any recurring amount)”.
      
      
      
      Finally, edit your product and update the Sign-up fee price to what price you should charge for that period. For example, since it’s still October you would update the Sign-up fee price to $80. If customer John signed up for a membership in October, 2020 he would pay $80.
      
      
      
      On January 1st, 2021 his membership could automatically renew for $100 because that is the subscription price each year. Another example is for the month of November 2020…you would go back and edit the Sign-up fee price from $80 to $20. If Sam purchased a membership in November or December he would pay $20 on that date and then his subscription could automatically renew for $100 on the 1st of the year. What about the price for January – December? On January 1st, 2021 simply update the Sign-up fee price from $20 back to $100. If Katie signs up on February 5th, 2021 she would pay $100. Her next payment would automatically renew on January 1st, 2022. On March 1st, 2021 update the Sign-up fee from $100 to $80. On November 1st, 2021 go back and update the Sign-up fee from $80 to $20.
      
      Overall, this method requires you to update the Sign-up fee price only a few times a year but assures customers have the same renewal price. You could also look into prorating the $100 fee but that is calculated by the number of days left in the year and not the months and could get confusing quickly.

      Reply

19. Hey Simon,
    Thanks for the help on getting this started! Would you be able to help remove the “-subscribe and save X%” from the pricing. It’s everywhere, on the homepage, shop, products, recently viewed products… Just makes the site look too busy. I can’t find anything on the internet about removing this. Thanks!
    Nicole

    Reply

    • Yes for sure! The quickest way to remove the “-subscribe and save X%” from the pricing would be to add this to your CSS file:

      .wcsatt-sub-options {
          display: none;
      }
      

      Reply

      • You could also add this filter and function to the bottom of your functions.php file:

        add_filter( 'wcsatt_price_html_suffix', 'apfs_remove_suffix', 10, 3 );
        
        function apfs_remove_suffix( $suffix, $product, $args ) {
        	return '';
        }
        

        Reply