Overview
OCU's Subscriptions Integration allows you to offer a subscription product, both as a pre-purchase offer and a one-click post-purchase offer! Subscription services are a huge part of daily life and recently, subscriptions have become one of the fastest-growing categories in eCommerce.
Repeat customers are 50% more likely to make another purchase than new customers, and they spend 33% more on average. Subscriptions allow you to foster ongoing relationships with your customers that keep them coming back.
Supported Subscription Apps
Currently, OCU only supports Recharge for pre-purchase offers, but support for other subscription apps is in progress!
OCU supports the following subscription apps for post-purchase offers:
Recharge Subscriptions (Shopify Checkout Version)*
*All Recharge workflows, including the free trial workflow, are compatible with the integration and OCU post-purchase functionality.
**For the Loop app, set the conditions of the subscription for the product first, then create a Post-Purchase Offer.
Which OCU offers work with subscription integrations?
As of 3/24/23, only pre-purchase and post-purchase offers are compatible with subscription integrations.
OCU can't show a subscription product as a Thank You page offer yet, but this option will become available in a future update!
Subscriptions for Pre-purchase can be used with the following offer types:
"Add to Order" (single product)
"Upgrade Order"
"Add to Order" - Same product as added to cart (dynamic)
"Upgrade Order" - Same product as added to cart (dynamic)
Currently, it is not possible to offer subscriptions as part of a multi-product pre-purchase offer.
The subscription integrations work on all post-purchase offer types! However, there are some limitations when the original order already contains a subscription. If the original checkout order includes a subscription product, the subscription option won’t show on the post-purchase page.
Subscription products as In-Checkout offers & Thank You page offers are not available at this time, they will be added in a future update!
If the original checkout order includes a subscription product, the subscription option won’t show on the post-purchase page.
In situations where the original order already includes a subscription product:
If the post-purchase offer product is set for "subscription only" in the Subscription app, we will skip the offer page from being shown completely.
If the post-purchase offer product is set for "One-time & subscription" in the Subscription app, we will show the offer page, but only the "One-time" option will be available.
The same logic applies to the post-purchase Upsell 2 page: If the customer accepts Upsell 1 which is a subscription product then the Upsell 2 "subscription only" product will be skipped.
Adding a Pre-Purchase Subscription Offer
Currently, OCU only supports Recharge for pre-purchase offers, but support for other subscription apps is in progress!
Adding a pre-purchase subscription offer to an upsell offer works the same way as for other non-subscription products! Click here to learn more about adding products to your upsell funnels
📝 The following information applies to both "Add to Order" and "Upgrade Order" single Pre-Purchase offers:
After setting the subscription type for a product in your subscriptions app, the subscription widget will appear on the pre-purchase offer pages that use that same product for the offer.
When using a subscription product as a pre-purchase offer, you will see the following new components on the pre-purchase offer pop-up interactive preview:
Selling plan group option
Ability to edit titles
Selling plan group option (1)
Like with the pre-purchase offer subscriptions, the selling plan group option will display the "One-time purchase" option and the frequency-based "Subscription" option(s) set for that product in your subscriptions app:
How the widget will display on the pre-purchase offer pop-up is determined by the following:
“Subscription widget" settings
The “Subscription type" you choose for the product in your subscription app.
The OCU subscription integrations work with "One-time & subscription," “Pre-Paid Subscription only,” and "Subscription only" options.
Edit option titles (2)
You can edit the following option titles, which are displayed in the subscription widget via the interactive preview:
"One-time purchase"
"Subscribe"
"Subscribe & Save"
"Deliver every XX Days"
"Deliver every XX Days, Charge every XX Days"
"Recurring total" (*only for Recharge and Yotpo)
Just click on the subscription option element or dropdown label to use the inline text editor and make your changes! These fields cannot be blank:
Adding a Post-purchase Subscription Offer
Adding a post-purchase subscription offer to an upsell funnel also works the same way as for other non-subscription products. Click here to learn more about adding products to your upsell funnels
Just like with pre-purchase offers, the subscription widget will appear on the post-purchase offer pages that use that same product for the offer after setting up a selling plan for it in your subscription app.
When using a subscription product for the post-purchase offer, you will see additional components on the post-purchase offer page interactive preview:
Selling plan group option
Ability to edit option titles
Buyer consent form
Recurring billing summary
Selling plan group option (1)
Like with the pre-purchase offer subscriptions, the selling plan group option will display the "One-time purchase" option and the frequency-based "Subscription" option(s) set for that product in your subscriptions app:
How the widget will display on the offer page is determined by the following:
“Subscription widget" settings
The “Subscription type" you choose for the product in your subscription app.
The OCU subscription integrations work with "One-time & subscription," “Pre-Paid Subscription only,” and "Subscription only" options.
Edit option titles (2)
You can edit the following option titles, which are displayed in the subscription widget via the interactive preview:
"One-time purchase"
"Subscribe"
"Subscribe & Save"
"Deliver every XX Days"
"Deliver every XX Days, Charge every XX Days"
"Recurring total" (*only for Recharge and Yotpo)
As with Pre-Purchase offers, all you need to do is click on the subscription option element or dropdown label to open the text editor and make your changes! These fields also cannot be blank.
Buyer consent form (3)
In order to add a subscription item to the order, customers have to consent to your subscription policy. A consent checkbox and a link to your store's subscription policy (Settings > Legal pages > Subscription policy in your Shopify admin) appear below the Total cost summary section.
The “Pay now” button will be inactive until the customer checks the box. When the button becomes active, it is then possible to add the subscription to the order.
Recurring billing summary (4)
Post-purchase subscription offers include a recurring summary line. This line is used to communicate the selected selling plan group option and recurring cost, less tax, and shipping to the customer.
This line can be edited using the inline text editor by clicking on the pricing element. Useful for changing the default pricing text if the offer is part of a Recharge Workflow.
Enable / Disable the Subscription Option
If the offer product used has both "One-time & Subscription" options configured for it in your supported subscription app, then a toggle to "Allow subscription option for this product" becomes available in the "Display Offer" section of the offer editor:
The default setting has this toggle enabled, so both one-time and subscription options will show on your pre-purchase and post-purchase offers. If you’d only like the one-time option to be available, click the toggle to the off position.
📝 If your product is set to "Subscription only" the option to disable the subscription will not be available.
Subscription Widget Colors for Post-Purchase Offers
The subscription widget radio buttons, dropdown border, consent checkbox, and subscription policy link all inherit the "Accents" color from your Checkout styles set in your Theme.
To edit this color, if desired, navigate to Online Store > Themes > Customize in your Shopify admin to open the Theme Editor. Once there, navigate to Theme settings > Checkout > Colors to find the "Accents" color option there:
Important Notes about Post-purchase
Payment processors that you can use for post-purchase subscriptions are Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Authorize.net, and Stripe (only available to some merchants) as these are the only ones that are currently supported.
Due to Shopify API limitations, an unpaid subscription offer cannot be removed from the Order. This means the “Remove Unpaid Item From Orders” setting under Settings > Post-Purchase within the OCU app isn’t able to work on subscription products.
OCU Discounts: OCU's “Fixed amount” and “Percentage” discounts will only apply to the One-time products added to your pre-purchase and post-purchase offer page. It does not apply these discounts to the products with the “Subscription” option selected.
Only the discount set in the subscription app will be shown and used for the "subscription" option I.e. when switching from the "one-time" to the "subscription" option, the OCU discount will disappear from the offer page and the discount set in your subscription app will be shown instead.
Digital subscription products can't be offered as post-purchase upsells because Shopify's Checkout API doesn't support it. In cases like that, customers will still see the post-purchase offer page, but with the following error message: "This payment method isn’t available for subscription orders."
Important Notes about Pre-purchase
For the subscription apps that work on Shopify Checkout:
If the cart contains a subscription product and an OCU pre-purchase offer that uses either the “fixed amount” or “percentage” discount is added by the customer, the subscription will be converted to a one-time product instead due to a Shopify Draft Order API limitation.
Therefore, for stores with subscription products, we recommend using the "None" or "Compare at price" discount for pre-purchase offers. This way there will be no conflict between subscription products and OCU pre-purchase offers.
For subscription apps that have their own Checkout:
When there's a subscription product in the cart (whether it's an OCU trigger product or not) a pre-purchase offer will not be shown in order to prevent an incompatibility issue with external checkouts and the Shopify Draft Order API.
Switch to a supported subscription app that uses Shopify Checkout if you want the pre-purchase popup to be shown when a customer adds a subscription trigger product.
Common Issues when Setting Up A Subscription Integration
If the following cases occur, please refer to the recommendations below:
Product with a “subscription only” option is not shown as a post-purchase offer
A subscription option is not shown for post-purchase when it’s a “one-time and subscribe” option.
Recommendations:
First, you will want to check to be sure the subscription options are available on the Post-Purchase Preview. Open the Post-Purchase Preview and make sure the preview contains the "Deliver every" element.
The preview should also contain a consent checkbox:
If you still don’t see both of these elements on the post-purchase preview page,
1) Make sure the product is set up to be a subscription within your subscription app.
2) Check the LIVE product page for that product to be sure that the subscription widget is working properly there.
If the subscription option still doesn't show up in your OCU offer editor, then ensure that your subscription widget is published/active within your subscription app. If it's published but still not showing in OCU, unpublish and re-publish the widget to your storefront. Then check the OCU offer editor to see if the subscription option shows up after that.
For Recharge for example, the subscription widget can be published/unpublished by navigating to Storefront > Subscription Widget in the Recharge app:
Frequently Asked Questions
I set up my subscription! What's Next?
Once you have your subscriptions set up in the offer editor, the next thing you'll want to do is a live test order to see your offer in action!
I tested it and it doesn't appear to be working...
First, double-check that you see the subscription option within the offer editor!
If you're not seeing the subscription widget or consent checkbox...
Check to be sure that the subscription is set up properly within your subscription app for that product.
Check the LIVE product page for the subscription widget and check to see that it's working properly.
If you are seeing the subscription widget on the offer page, but the subscription did not show during your live test...
Check to be sure there weren't any subscriptions products purchased in your original order.
Check to be sure you used a supported payment processor.
If you're still experiencing issues after taking these steps, please reach out to our Support team by clicking the chat icon in the bottom right corner of this page!
My subscription app isn’t supported. Is there a way to make it work with OCU?
An integration is necessary for subscriptions to work on OCU's Post-Purchase offer pages. We love building integrations with other apps! If you have a subscription app that isn't currently supported by OCU, the best way to get it supported is to submit a feature request inside the app!
You can leave a feature request by clicking on the Feature Request Icon shown in the screenshot below: