Subscription frequency

What it is

This module adds a small drop-down to the cart lines in your drawer. The drop-down lists the delivery frequencies that item can actually be bought on, each with its own price, plus a one-time purchase option.

The frequencies come from Shopify. This module reads the selling plans on the product and shows them — it does not create subscriptions, and it cannot invent a frequency you have not set up. If a product is not sold on any selling plan, the drop-down does not appear for it.

In the builder the module is called Subscription frequency.

When to use it

• You sell subscriptions, and you want shoppers to correct a frequency they picked on the product page without going back to it.
• You want the trade-off visible: every frequency in the list carries its own price, so "every 60 days" and what it costs are in the same line of text.
• You are happy for a shopper to drop to a one-time purchase in the cart — or you want to stop them, which is what the one setting below does.

If you sell nothing on subscription, adding this module changes nothing for your shoppers. It is safe, but it is not useful.

Set it up

1. Set your subscriptions up in Shopify first, with whatever subscription app you use. This module shows the selling plans that already exist on each product.
2. Open the cart you are editing in Smart Cart.
3. Scroll to Add a module, choose Subscription frequency in the Module list, and press Add.
4. Press Settings on the new module row.
5. Decide whether Let shoppers switch to a one-time purchase stays on. It is on unless you turn it off.
6. Press Save.
7. Press Preview (or Open preview from the settings screen) to see it, then publish the cart from the Publish section. Nothing reaches your shoppers until you publish.

Settings

That is the whole of it. There is nothing here to choose which frequencies are offered, to reorder them, or to rename them — that list is Shopify's, in Shopify's order.

How it behaves

Where it appears

On the cart lines, not as a block of its own. A line that is already on a subscription also shows a small row with a repeat icon and the plan's name, and the drop-down sits beside it. A line that is not on a subscription shows only the drop-down.

What is in the list

• The frequencies come from the selected variant, not from the product. A plan that exists on the product but is not sold for that size or colour is not offered — offering it would offer a frequency the shopper cannot buy.
• Each option shows its own price, taken from Shopify and formatted in the cart's currency, for example Every 30 days · $18.00.
• Subscriptions are grouped under Subscribe. The one-time option is in its own group, Or buy once, separated by the browser's own rule.
• A plan Shopify gives no name for is left out rather than shown as a blank row.

When nothing appears

The drop-down only renders when there are at least two real choices. So:

• A product with no selling plans shows nothing at all, on every line, on every store. This is why turning the module on does not disturb a store that sells no subscriptions.
• A product with one frequency and the one-time option turned off also shows nothing — there is only one thing the shopper could pick, and it is what they already have.
• If the drawer cannot read the product's plan list — the shop is slow to answer, the shopper is offline, the store is password-protected and the request is bounced — the line stays read-only. No drop-down is drawn. A control that cannot work is worse than no control.

Moving a one-time item onto a subscription

If the product offers plans, a shopper can also go the other way: a line bought once shows the same drop-down, opened on the one-time entry, with the frequencies above it. Picking one puts that line on the plan.

What happens when a shopper changes it

• The plan changes on the existing cart line. The item is not removed and re-added, so it keeps its place in the cart and the tracking that ties the order back to this drawer.
• The line updates straight away, before Shopify has confirmed it, so there is no moment where the drop-down and the row disagree.
• If Shopify refuses the change, both the row and the drop-down go back to what they were and the shopper is told the cart could not be updated. Nothing changes silently.
• Screen readers get the change read out, and the drop-down itself is announced as Delivery frequency. It is a normal browser drop-down, never a pop-up window, so it behaves the way the shopper's phone or desktop already does.

Changing the wording

The shopper-facing words — Subscribe, Or buy once, One-time purchase · {{total}} and the spoken confirmation — are on the cart's Shopper copy screen, in the Subscriptions group, and can be translated per language.

Limitations

• Turning the one-time option off does not hide the drop-down from non-subscribers. On a product with two or more frequencies, a shopper who has not subscribed still sees the drop-down, and with the one-time entry removed it opens showing the first frequency in the list — as though that item were already on that plan. Nothing is charged differently unless they actually pick something, but the control reads wrong. If most of your shoppers buy that product once, leave the setting on.
• The setting only governs this drop-down. It does not stop anyone cancelling or changing a subscription on the product page, at checkout, or in their customer account.
• Its position in the builder does nothing. The drop-down always renders on the cart lines, so moving the module up or down in the list has no effect on where it shows.
• There is no per-product control. The module is on for the whole cart or off for the whole cart. A display rule can hide it, but a rule is about the cart as a whole, so hiding it hides it on every line at once. Display rules need the Launch plan.
• You cannot choose which frequencies to show, reorder them, mark one as recommended, or add your own savings label. The list, the names and the prices are Shopify's.
• There is no separate "Change" link. The drop-down is the control; a shopper opens it directly. The Subscription change link wording on the copy screen is not shown anywhere in the drawer today, so editing it has no effect.
• Nothing is added to the cart by this module. It edits lines that are already there; it cannot suggest a subscription for a product the shopper has not added.