After enabling subscriptions on a product, you can set up order or item-level discounts. Similarly to regular discounts, these discounts can be configured for specific target criteria, products, and conditions. Subscription and regular discounts can also be applied to the same order if they are enabled for stacking and applied to different layers.
Subscription Discount Types
There are four main discounts that can be applied to subscriptions.
- Total Quantity: These order-level discounts are based on the total quantity in an order, regardless of how many different products are purchased. If the discount requires a total quantity of five, then the shopper can either purchase Item A in a quantity of five or they can purchase one quantity each of Item A, B, C, D, and E. These discounts can be applied to subscriptions or one-time purchases.
- Distinct Products: These order-level discounts are based on the number of different products in an order (excluding free products, and a bundle counts as one product). For example, if a discount requires three distinct products in an order then the shopper must purchase any quantity of Item A, Item B, and Item C. The discount would not be applicable if they only purchased Item A and Item B. These discounts can be applied to subscriptions or one-time purchases.
- Frequency: These item-level discounts apply to specific re-order frequencies, encouraging more frequent subscription frequencies. For instance, a discount could apply to weekly recurring orders and would not be valid for subscriptions that are only re-ordered at a monthly frequency. These discounts can only be applied to subscriptions.
- Continuity: These order-level discounts apply to a specific continuity, meaning they are redeemable at only a particular rate of orders (such as every three orders), to prevent the customer from using the discount on every order. These discounts can only be applied to subscriptions.
Subscription and one-time purchase order-level discounts are evaluated differently when determining whether the discount criteria is met. If the criteria is not met, the discount will not be applied.
- Subscription discounts consider only the quantities, item prices, and order total associated with subscription items in the cart.
- One-time discounts consider the quantities, item prices, and order total for all items regardless of whether they are one-time or subscription items.
Both types of order-level discounts are carried over to the subscription from the order.
Configure a Subscription Discount
To configure a subscription discount, follow the basic steps in the Discounts guide but make the following adjustments for discounts that you want to apply to subscriptions:
- Select Subscription sales only in the discount's general settings. A discount can only be valid for either a one-time purchase or a subscription, but not both.
- A new section titled Additional Subscription will appear with more configurations. Here, you can set the frequency and continuity conditions depending on whether you are creating an order-level or item-level discount (based on the Applies To field shown above):
- If you are creating an order-level discount, the Nth order in a subscription option will be available. Toggle this option on if you want to specify which continuity order the discount can be applied to, and set your desired value for N.
- If you are creating an item-level discount, the Subscription frequency toggle will be available. Toggle this option on if you want to specify a required frequency for the subscription, and select at least one frequency from the dropdown that this discount will be valid for.
- If you are creating an order-level discount, the Nth order in a subscription option will be available. Toggle this option on if you want to specify which continuity order the discount can be applied to, and set your desired value for N.
If you are configuring an order-level discount, you can also specify any requirements for product quantity and distinct products that the order must meet to qualify for the discount:
- Under the Discount Conditions tab, locate the Purchase Requirements section. This determines the product requirements that the order must meet in order for the discount to be valid:
- If desired, set a Minimum Total Order Quantity. This will allow the discount to be applied only if the order's total quantity meets that value.
- If desired, set the minimum Number of distinct products in the Order. For instance, if you want the discount to only apply if the order includes three or more different products then set this value to three.
- As with regular discounts, you can also set any required products or categories that must be purchased in order for the discount to be applicable.
Finally, you must link the discount to the price lists you created for subscription pricing.
- Under the Target Criteria tab, use the Applicable Price Lists dropdown to select the parent price list you created for subscription pricing. This is required for subscription-only discounts and will be validated when you attempt to save the discount.
- Click Save in the top right to save the discount settings.