Subscriptions
Anatomy of a Subscription Plan
1. Give your plan a name.
Why call it a plan?
With Stride subscriptions you can apply a subscription plan to different products. This makes it easy to create a single plan that you can use over and over again and apply it to different products or offers.
Stride Subscriptions are highly configurable. Some different kinds of plans you can create.
-Pre registrations
-Limits
-Limited time subscriptions (you can set custom length and frequency of plans)
-Create payment plans
-Custom product matrixes to send different products each month
-Custom pricing for products
These are just a few ideas and capabilities of Stride Subscriptions
2. Subscription Timing:
How often do you want the subscription to to renew?
Every: Whole number to set the frequency
Select: Days, Weeks, or Months (Stride defaults to "Months")
Periods: Set the length of the subscription. For continuous subscription, until customer cancels, set this number to "0"
(If your trigger product will be the first period of a subscription, you will need to set the periods to be 1 less than desired. ie 12 month program but first purchase sends first "month's" item. You will want to set it up for 11 months.)
3. Start Subscription has 3 choices.
Immediately: This will trigger the subscription to start automatically and create a sales order and delivery order (if shipping a deliverable product) immediately. This will also cause the first subscription period to be invoiced and billed as well. For example, you set the subscription to "Immediately" and you have a registration fee of $1.00 and the first in the subscription is Widget 1, the customer would be charged $1.00 and the subscription would immediately start. They would then be charged for Widget 1 and a shipping order would be created (if the product was shipping). Please note that this is not a common use case. Also note, if you use the subscription start on "Set Date" feature and the date has passed, it will default to "Immediately".
First Billing Delay(Previously "After Trial of"): You will typically set this to match the subscription timing. After the customer buys the trigger product when do you want the subscription to start? This sets up a "trial" period meaning that they will pay for the subscription at the time of the sale, but will wait for a specified time period for the subscription to start renewing. For example: I am selling a supplement subscription that renews every two weeks. When I a customer buys the trigger product the first auto-billing will occur two weeks later and continue until the customer edits/cancels the subscription.
Set Date: This option will start the subscription on a set date for all users. If you allow the product to be sold after the "Set Date" the subscription will default to start immediately. Note* this could cause the customer to be billed two times in a short period. They will need to be aware of that. Please note* If there is a defined timeframe for the subscription (ie 12 months) and a customer signs up for the subscription after the Set Date the subscription will run for 12 months. If you want it to end with the other subscriptions you will need to manually adjust the individual subscription. *See the documentation for editing individual subscriptions. Also Note - If you set the date for 9/1/2023 and the customer purchases the subscription after the set date, the default setting will be "immediately."
4. You have the choice to synchronize subscription renewals or let them renew on the specified renewal time period.
Note*: if you set the "Start Subscription" to "After Trial of" and synchronize the renewal date a customer may wait longer or shorter than the subscription timing period to receive their second shipment (or first, if you configure the subscription to start using a registration fee).
For example. I set the synchronization to the first of every month and the person buys something on the 9/15 with a billing delay of 1 month, they will not receive their second shipment until 11/1. Please be aware of this behavior.
5. Choose the sales team that will be credited with this "Sale".
Note* Defaults to "Subscription" team. Teams can be created in the "Sales" Module.
6. Product and Pricing:
Use Same Product as Original: Delivers the same product as originally purchased each period. Commonly used for products that do not change period to period and will continue until cancelled by the customer.
Use Custom Product as Matrix: Allows you to create a custom matrix with different product(s) delivered each period. You can quantities, and set the price for each product.
7. "Use Custom Product as Matrix" field.
8. If your subscription is set to run indefinitely you can choose custom product matrix and add multiple products, set individual product quantities and prices.
If your subscription plan is set to run for a defined number of periods you will need to set which product(s) will ship during which period.
9. Select the quantity
10. Edit the price.
*Note - This will change the price of the monthly subscription. Users will be charged the full price for all products in the period. Often you will use this to create special pricing for subscriptions. (eg. normally product A is $20.00, but by subscribing customers can get it for $15.00)
**Note - If you set a pricelist rule that includes a product in your subscription that price will override the price you set on the subscription.
11. Create SO/Invoice
Create SO: This ONLY creates a sales order and confirms it. Payment will not be automatically taken. It will also create a delivery order for shipment.
Create SO & Invoice: This will create the SO and the Invoice. *If checked another set of options appear.
12. If "Create SO & Invoice" is selected.
13. Invoice Options:
Invoice in Draft: Creates a draft invoice that can be edited, confirmed, and sent to the customer for payment.
Confirm and Send Invoice: Automatically confirms the invoice and sends it to the customer for payment.
Create Invoice and Charge Token: Automatically tries to process the card to pay for the invoice. If unsuccessful, it will try to charge the token daily for a set amount of days that you specify. If unsuccessful after set attempts the system will create an action for the responsible user to either cancel the subscription or reach out to the customer.
14. Shipping Options:
Use Shipping Method From Original SO: If a deliverable product is part of the subscription, the original shipping method will be charged each month as part of the subscription. Note* if your product weights change each period and you are using calculated shipping, the customer charge could change each period.
Use Custom Shipping Method: You can create a custom shipping method and charge a different amount for the subscription. Can also be used for "in-store" pickup.
Use Cheapest From Selected Shipping Option: You can set different shipping methods and charge the cheapest one available. *Please note - This requires that the products being shipped have a weight entered on their product card. Also note, if product weights change from period to period the customer could be charged different amounts.
15. If using custom shipping method or Cheapest shipping method an additional dialogue box appears.
16. Here you can choose your custom shipping method, or add additional shipping methods to use for "Cheapest Shipping Option"
17. Click the "Use Cheapest From Selected Shipping Option" field.
18. Show in Portal: If turned on, this option makes the subscription visible in the customer portal.
19. Allow Customer to Cancel Subscription in Portal?: If allowed customers can access the subscription from the portal and cancel the subscription without contacting you.
20. Limit Sale Of Subscriptions: If you only want to allow a certain number of subscriptions you can set the limit here. *Please note - this will limit ALL subscriptions using this template. If you have multiple products using the same template, it will limit the overall sales of all products.
21. Once you have customers that have bought a trigger product with this subscription plan you can access all the individual subscriptions created by this plan by clicking here.
22. Once you have applied your template to a product, or products, you can click the "Products" icon in the top right-hand corner to view all the "Trigger Products" that will trigger this subscription template.
