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Glossary

Introductory Offer

Also known as: First-order discount, Introductory price, Step-down discount, Tiered subscription discount

An introductory offer is a reduced price for the first order or first few orders of a subscription, after which the regular subscribe-and-save price applies.

An introductory offer lowers the price of a subscription's opening orders, such as 30% off the first three, before the plan's usual discount takes over, such as 10% from the fourth order on. On Shopify it can be built into the selling plan. A plan can hold at most two pricing policies: an initial one that applies from the first order, and a recurring one that takes over after the number of billing cycles set in its afterCycle value. The Subscription Contract keeps that schedule, but Shopify doesn't change the price at the step by itself. The subscription app has to apply the later price, so check a test subscription billed past the step before relying on it.

A checkout discount code is the other route, and it behaves differently. When a code is used on a subscription, Shopify saves a snapshot of the discount on the contract, so expiring the code afterwards doesn't stop it. The code's Recurring payments for subscriptions setting decides how many payments it covers: the first payment only, a set number of payments, or all of them. A code left on all recurring payments stops being introductory and becomes a permanent price cut for every subscriber who used it.

Whichever route is used, the later price belongs on the product page before checkout. Shopify's subscription UX guidelines ask merchants to explain the current payment and how payments will change, and some US automatic-renewal laws, New York's among them, require a temporary price to come with a clear explanation of how and when it changes and what will be charged after.

In Curobi, a subscription plan's discount can be tiered on every plan, Free included: one percentage off for the first N charges and a different percentage after that. Edits to a plan apply to new signups, and existing subscribers keep the terms they signed up with.

Related terms

  • Selling Plan — A selling plan is Shopify's definition of how a product can be purchased on a recurring basis — the frequency, any subscription discount, and billing terms — and a selling plan group bundles related plans and attaches them to specific products, variants, or collections.
  • Subscription Contract — A Subscription Contract is Shopify's native record of a recurring agreement between a store and a customer — it stores what is being sold, how often it renews, the price, and the vaulted payment method, and every renewal charge is keyed to it and its due date.
  • Prepaid Subscription — A prepaid subscription is a recurring plan where the customer pays upfront for a fixed number of deliveries — such as a 3-month or 6-month term billed in one charge — instead of being billed each cycle as products ship.
  • Churn — Churn is the rate at which subscribers cancel or lapse over a given period — the share of recurring customers a business loses — and it is the single most important number in a subscription business because retained revenue compounds while churned revenue must be re-acquired.

← All subscription commerce terms

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