Letting customers subscribe and save on an offer

Subscriptions add a subscribe or one-time choice to the widget, built on the subscription plans your subscription app has already put on the product. The shopper picks an offer, chooses a plan, and checks out as usual. Bundlex applies your volume discount on top of the plan's own saving on the first order, and the subscription app takes it from there.

Bundlex never creates subscription plans or contracts. It shows the plans that already exist on the product and attaches the chosen one to the cart. Billing, renewals, pausing and cancelling all stay in your subscription app.

Before you start

You need a subscription app that creates selling plans on your products. Shopify Subscriptions, Appstle, Seal, Recharge and similar apps all work. Set up the plan there first, with its delivery frequency and its own discount (for example "every 30 days, save 10%"), and assign the products you want to offer it on.

Only recurring plans are used. Prepaid plans, pre-order plans and try-before-you-buy plans are ignored and never appear in the widget.

Turn it on

1. Open your bundle and go to the Add-ons tab.
2. Open Subscriptions and switch on Enable subscriptions.
3. Pick a layout and position, adjust the texts, then save and re-publish.

The preview in the editor shows the block only when the previewed product has a subscription plan. If you see "This product isn't eligible for subscriptions", preview a product that has a plan, or assign one in your subscription app.

Layout and placement

Layout has four options:

• Checkbox (the default) and Toggle show a single subscribe row. Ticking it subscribes, leaving it unticked buys one time.
• Radio and Grid show both options side by side. Show first decides whether subscribe or one-time comes first.

Position places the block above or below the offers. Pre-select subscription makes subscribe the selected option when the page loads. Show prices on options adds the one-time and subscription prices next to each option, so the shopper sees both totals before choosing.

When the product has more than one plan, a dropdown under the subscribe option lists them, using the plan names from your subscription app.

Texts and benefits

Header text is an optional title above the block. The Subscribe title, Subscribe subtitle, One-time title and One-time subtitle are the option texts. The subscribe title and subtitle accept three saving variables from the {} picker: {{subscription_discount}} shows the plan's own saving, {{offer_discount}} shows the saving of the selected offer, and {{total_subscription_discount}} shows both combined. A variable shows nothing when there is no saving to show.

Subscribe benefits is a short list shown under the subscribe option only, for lines like "Cancel anytime" or "Free shipping". It can show all the time or only while subscribe is selected.

Colours and font sizes live in the Style tab, and every text is translatable under Translations in the editor header. See translating a bundle.

How prices show

Under the subscribe option, prices start from the plan's own price, the one your subscription app charges, and Bundlex applies the selected offer's discount on top. The offer cards, the savings badges and the footer total all update when the shopper switches between subscribe and one-time, picks another plan or changes the offer, so what the widget shows is what checkout charges.

The two discounts compound rather than add up. A 10% plan and a 10% offer give about 19% off, not 20%. The editor notes this too: the plan discount applies before Bundlex's, so the checkout total can differ slightly from the preview.

The Bundlex discount applies to the first order only

Shopify applies discount functions like Bundlex's at checkout, when the first order is placed. Renewals are created later by your subscription app, and Bundlex is not part of that. So the first order gets the plan's saving plus your Bundlex discount, and every renewal bills at the plan price set in your subscription app.

The editor shows this as a banner while subscriptions are on. If your copy promises a saving, make clear which part repeats. A good habit is to use {{subscription_discount}} for the plan saving in the subscribe title and leave the offer saving on the offer card.

Add-ons

An add-on from the Upsell offer block can subscribe on its own, even when the shopper buys the main product once. This suits a "kit once, refills monthly" setup.

1. With subscriptions enabled, go to the Add-ons tab and open Upsell offer.
2. Open the add-on item and tick Offer as subscription.

The checkbox stays disabled until the add-on product has a recurring plan in your subscription app. On the storefront the add-on gets its own subscribe checkbox under its row, and a plan dropdown when the product has several plans. It is ticked by default when the shopper has chosen subscribe in the main block and the add-on carries a plan with the same name; otherwise it starts one-time. The add-on discount applies to the first order only, then the add-on renews at its plan price.

Bundles

A bundle (a pack of products) can be subscribed as a whole when the main product and every paid product in it carry a plan with the same name as the plan the shopper selected, and every paid product uses a percentage discount or no discount. The simplest way to meet this is to add all of the bundle's products to the same plan in your subscription app.

When the bundle subscribes, each product goes on its own product's plan. The subscription contract holds them as separate lines, so each renews at its own plan price, and the bundle discount applies to the first order only. The plan dropdown offers only the plans every product in the bundle has.

If any paid product lacks the plan, uses a fixed price or fixed amount discount, or a mix and match slot is still empty, the block is greyed out on that offer and the bundle is added one-time. Mix and match slots are checked again every time the shopper picks or changes a product.

Free gifts in a bundle never subscribe; they are added one-time, free on the first order. Upsells attached to the offer are not part of the pack, so they neither block the subscription nor join it.

Buy X Get Y

A Buy X Get Y offer can subscribe too. Bundlex puts the paid units on the plan and adds the free units as a separate one-time line of the same product. The subscription contract carries the paid units only, so a free unit is never billed on a renewal. The free unit is a first-order benefit, like the rest of the Bundlex discount.

This does not work on a product that can only be bought with a subscription, because the free units need a one-time line. On such a product the offer cannot be added at all, and the widget disables the add-to-cart button rather than letting checkout fail.

What stays one-time

• Fixed price and fixed amount offers. Only percentage and Buy X Get Y offers can subscribe. On other offers the block is greyed out and the shopper buys one-time.
• Free gifts of every kind: fixed gifts, gift selectors and progressive gifts.
• Upsells attached to an offer, and add-ons without Offer as subscription.
• Prepaid, pre-order and try-before-you-buy plans are never offered. A product whose only plan is prepaid shows no block.

Two more things to know. The quantity selector cannot be on at the same time as subscriptions; the editor names the blocker. And while subscribe is selected, the theme's express checkout buttons (Buy it now, Shop Pay) are hidden, because they bypass the widget and would add the product without its plan. They come back as soon as the shopper picks one-time.

Troubleshooting

The block is greyed out

The selected offer cannot subscribe. Either it uses a fixed price or fixed amount discount, or it is a bundle where at least one paid product lacks a plan with the selected plan's name, uses a fixed price or fixed amount discount, or has an empty mix and match slot. Switch the offer to a percentage discount, or add the missing product to the plan in your subscription app.

The block is missing

The product, or the selected variant, has no recurring plan. Assign the product to a plan in your subscription app. If the block shows for some variants only, the plan covers some variants and not others.

A plan does not show

Prepaid plans, pre-order plans and try-before-you-buy plans are ignored. Only recurring plans appear in the widget.

The renewal did not get the Bundlex discount

That is expected. The Bundlex discount applies to the first order only, and renewals bill at the plan price. See above.

Before you turn it on

• Place a test order with subscribe selected and confirm the checkout total matches the widget.
• Open the resulting contract in your subscription app and check the lines and the renewal price. On a bundle, expect one line per product.