A subscription product gives buyers access to your content for as long as their plan is active. Use it for memberships, private communities, monthly templates, courses with ongoing updates or any recurring offer.
Each subscription product contains one or more plans. Every plan has its own price, billing period, currency, free trial and buyer content.
Before you start
Subscriptions are billed through Stripe. Connect Stripe before you publish a subscription product.
Create a subscription product
- Open Products → New product.
- Under Choose product type, select Subscription and select Continue.
- Enter a title and, optionally, a cover image.
ScaleEdges creates a first plan called Basic, billed monthly. You can rename it and add more plans.
Configure your plans
In the Presentation tab, the Product versions panel lists your plans. Select Add a version to create another one. For each plan, set:
- Version name: the plan name buyers see, such as Monthly, Yearly or Pro;
- Price: a recurring plan must cost more than zero;
- Currency: a three-letter code such as
EURorUSD; - Billing period: Monthly, Every 3 months, Yearly, Every 2 years or Lifetime (one payment);
- Free trial: enable it and choose 3, 7, 14 or 30 days, or a custom length up to 365 days;
- Short description: what the plan includes.
Use the arrows to change the order of the plans. A subscription must keep at least one plan.
Some options are not available for subscriptions: pay what you want pricing and the quantity selector.
Lifetime plans
A Lifetime (one payment) plan charges once and never renews. It is a good way to offer a one-time price next to monthly and yearly plans. A lifetime plan cannot have a free trial.
Free trials
The buyer enters their payment details at checkout, and the first payment is taken when the trial ends. Each customer can use the trial of a given plan only once.
Add the content subscribers receive
Open the Content tab. Under Content for, choose the plan you are editing and add pages, text, files and videos. Each plan can have different content: for example, the Pro plan can include extra pages.
Make content identical copies the content of one plan to another.
Add benefits that follow the subscription
Benefits are added when the subscription starts and removed when it ends:
- Add buyers to a newsletter group: with MailerLite, you can also choose Remove from this group when the subscription no longer grants access;
- Give buyers a Discord role: pick one or more roles per plan, and keep Remove ScaleEdges-managed roles when access ends enabled;
- License keys in the content stop being valid when the subscription ends. See how to deliver license keys.
You can also use a subscription as a key to other products. In the Publication tab of another product, choose Private and Open this product to existing customers, or Scheduled and Allow early access for existing customers, then select your subscription.
When subscribers have access
A subscriber keeps access while the plan is active or in its free trial.
If a renewal payment fails, Stripe retries it automatically. Access continues while Stripe still plans a new attempt, and ends if all attempts fail.
When a subscription is canceled at the end of the period, access continues until the last paid day.
Manage your subscribers
Open Sales → Subscribers to see every subscription with its customer, plan, status, next renewal and revenue. Filter by product, plan or status, and select Details to see payment history and failed attempts.
Change a subscriber's plan
In the subscriber's details, select Change plan, choose the New plan and select Change with Stripe. Stripe calculates and invoices the price difference for the current period. A lifetime plan cannot be changed this way.
Cancel a subscription
Select Cancel subscription, then choose:
- End of paid period: the subscriber keeps access until the paid period ends;
- Immediately: access ends as soon as Stripe confirms the cancellation.
Customers can also cancel on their own. In the Subscriptions section of their account on your store, they select Cancel at period end.
Good practices
- Offer a yearly plan with a discount next to the monthly plan. It improves cash flow and reduces cancellations.
- Keep plan names short and explain the differences in each plan's description.
- Publish new content regularly and tell subscribers about it by email, so they see the value of staying subscribed.
