Subscription Management Guide

This guide provides an overview of the functionality available to customers who purchase a subscription in our store.

My Account Page

After you have purchased one or more subscription products from us, you can view your subscriptions on your My Account page.

On the My Account → Subscriptions you subscriptions will be listed, along with the subscription’s status, next payment date and links to View the subscription, where you can view all details and manage each subscription.

To view the full details for a subscription:

1. Go to the My Account page.
2. Go to the Subscriptions page.
3. Select the View button next to the subscription in the Subscriptions table; or
4. Click the subscription number under the Subscription column in the Subscriptions table.

On this page, you will see the subscription’s:

• Status
• Start date, trial end, next payment and end date (if any)
• Line items, including products, shipping, fees and taxes
• The total amount charged each renewal
• Payment method
• Order history, including the original order used to purchase the subscription 
• Contact email and phone number
• Billing and shipping addresses

Subscription Management

At the bottom of the subscription details table and in the subscription totals table on the View Subscription page is a set of action buttons. You can use these buttons to:

• Cancel an active subscription
• Suspend an active subscription *
• Reactivate a suspended or recently canceled subscription
• Resubscribe an expired or fully canceled subscription
• Pay for a renewal order when the automatic recurring payment failed or the subscription uses manual renewals
• Change the Payment Method used for automatic recurring payments
• Change Address for subscriptions which require shipping
• Remove items  from you subscription. 
• Renew early 
• Toggle between manual and automatic payments 
• Upgrade or downgrade the subscription line items *

Suspend or Cancel Subscriptions

By default, a Cancel button is displayed on the View Subscription page for subscriptions that are active.

When a subscription has been put on-hold, a Reactivate button is displayed to allow you to restart their subscription. If the subscription was put on-hold because a payment is due, then the Reactivate button is not displayed. The customer must pay for the renewal before a subscription is reactivated.

Requirements to Display Cancel Button

For the cancel button to be displayed:

• the subscription must currently have a status other than cancelled, trash, expired or pending-cancel.
• the subscription must have at least one future payment as there is no need to cancel a subscription that will end before any future payment is processed.

Remove a Product Item

If a subscription has more than one product line item, you can remove some or all but one of those items from the subscription. This allows customers to remove items they initially subscribed to but no longer wish to receive on each renewal.

To remove an item, you should:

1. Go to My Account → Subscriptions page.
2. Select the View button next to the subscription they want to modify.
3. Click the cross next to the product they want to remove.
4. Click OK.

After the item has been removed, the subscription’s totals are updated to remove the cost of that product.

Pay for Renewal

On occasion, a renewal order may need payment either because:

• manual renewal payment is required
• last automatic renewal payment failed

If payment is required on the renewal order for a subscription, a Pay button is also displayed next to the order under Recent Orders of both the My Account → View Subscription page and the My Account page.

The Pay action is only displayed when:

• the order has a status requiring payment. By default it is on-hold or pending, but can be customized;
• subscription is on hold or pending, as this also signifies the subscription has not been manually reactivated by a store manager despite payment not being collected for the renewal order.

Clicking the Pay button in the related order actions will direct you through a normal WooCommerce checkout process to pay for the subscription’s renewal. Once payment is completed for the renewal order, the subscription will be reactivated.

If the payment is to make up for an automatic recurring payment that previously failed, Subscriptions will attempt to update the payment method on the subscription so that future recurring payments will use the new payment method rather than the failing payment method. 

Change Address

If want to have your products shipped to a different address, or you moved and need to update your billing address, you can change the addresses used for your subscriptions from the My Account page.

There are two methods you can use to update your address:

1. Update the shipping address for one subscription; or
2. Update the shipping and/or billing addresses for all subscriptions.

Change Address on One Subscription

To change the shipping address used for a single subscription, you need to:

1. Go to their My Account > View Subscription page.
2. Click the Change Address button next to the subscription.
3. Enter the new address details in the form.
4. Click Save Address.

At the base of the edit address form, you are advised that both the shipping address used for this subscription and the default shipping address for future purchases are updated. However, the shipping address for other subscriptions is not changed. 

Change the Address on All Subscriptions

To change the address used for all subscriptions, you need to:

1. Go to their My Account page.
2. Select the Edit link next to the shipping or billing address.
3. Enter the new address details in the form.
4. Tick the checkbox: Update the address used for all of my active subscriptions.
5. Save Address.

Change Payment Method

The Change Payment Method button can be used to update the payment method for future recurring payments, e.g., When your credit card expires, or you wish to use a different credit card than the one currently on file.

Change Recurring Payment Process

To change the payment method used for a subscription, you can:

1. Go to My Account > View Subscription page.
2. Click the Change Payment button.
3. Enter the new payment details on the Checkout page.
4. (Optional): Click the Update the payment method used for all of my current subscriptionscheckbox to update all subscriptions.
5. Submit the Checkout form and return to the My Account > View Subscription page.

Requirements for Changing Payment

It’s not always possible, or necessary to be able to change the recurring payment method on a subscription. As a result, the Change Payment Method button is only displayed if a subscription:

• Has the status of active
• Has at least one future automatic payment scheduled. There is no need to change a payment method if no payments will occur.

Switch Subscriptions

You are able to upgrade or downgrade between different subscription products via the View Subscription page.

The Switch Process

To switch subscriptions, you need to:

1. Select the Upgrade or Downgrade button on the line item you want to switch.
2. Select a new subscription product and clicks Sign up Now.
   • A checkout form is presented, along with a notice that this subscription will replace the existing subscription and the date the next payment will be charged.
3. Complete the checkout form for the new subscription.
   • The standard Order Received page is presented, displaying details of up-front payment (if any) and recurring payments (if any).
4. You will be returned My Account page where they can see the line item on the subscription has been changed, and the recurring totals updated (if the amounts were different).

Screenshots below show a customer switching from one subscription variation to another.

Resubscribe

If your subscription has expired or been canceled, you can create a new subscription with the same terms as the original subscription by resubscribing to the inactive subscription from the My Account > View Subscription page.

Clicking the Resubscribe button takes you through the normal checkout process to pay for the subscription’s renewal. Once paid, a new subscription s created with the same billing terms as the original subscription.

Resubscribing to an expired or been canceled subscription has a number of differences to purchasing the same subscription product from the product page, like not charging a sign-up fee again. 

Resubscribe Requirements

• expired, pending-cancellation or canceled status
• at least one successful payment
• a recurring total more than 0
• product line items that still exist
• no product line items
• not already been resubscribed 

Account Payment Methods

Payment Method Management

Saved payment methods can be managed from My Account > Payment Methods page. On this page, you can:

• set a default payment method for future transactions
• delete a payment method from your account
• add a new payment method to your account

Deleting a Payment Method

Deleting a saved payment method which is used for subscription payments would cause future renewal payments to fail because the payment method can no longer be used.

To prevent this, Subscriptions will not allow you to delete payment methods which are used by active subscriptions unless:

• you add another payment method; or
• you have one other saved payment method

If your account meets one of those criteria and deletes a payment method used by a subscription, the subscription will be automatically updated to use the alternative card, and will be notified of this after deleting the payment method.

Adding a Default Payment Method

After adding a new payment method, you may wish to then set this method as the default.  For example, perhaps the old payment method has expired and you would like to add a new payment method for both existing and future subscriptions.

When a new payment method is added and set as default, an option will appear to update all the customer’s existing subscriptions to use that method.

Choosing “Yes” will cause the payment method for the existing subscriptions to change to this new default. 

Early Renewal

If you would like to renew your subscription without waiting for the next payment date, that is now possible with the Early Renewal feature.

Early Renewal Requirements

Early renewal is available under these conditions:

• Subscription must have an Active status
• Subscription must not currently be in a trial period

Process an Early Renewal

In order to process an early renewal:

1. Go to My account > Subscriptions
2. View chosen subscription
3. In the first table, the Renew Now button will appear in the Actions row
4. Click Renew now and complete checkout

Next Payment Date After Early Renewal

After an early renewal is processed, the next payment date is extended to accommodate another billing period. For example, if a subscription renews monthly on the 15th and the next payment date is December 15th, then processing an early renewal on November 20th will move the next payment date to January 15th.

Auto Renew Toggle

If you would like to disable auto-renewals on your Subscription, you can use the “Auto Renew” toggle on the Subscription. This will only change the subscription’s payment method to manual renewal but won’t stop the renewal completely.

Auto Renew Requirements

• Subscription must be Active
• Subscription must be using automatic renewals