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Glossary

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.

Prepaid (sometimes called a prepaid term or prepaid gift subscription) collects the full value of a multi-delivery commitment at once. Merchants like it because it improves cash flow and locks in retention for the paid term; customers often get a discount for prepaying. It's common for gift subscriptions and for coffee or wellness plans sold as a season.

The distinction from a standard 'pay-as-you-go' subscription is the billing shape: one payment covering several shipments, versus one payment per shipment.

Curobi supports prepaid subscription terms alongside standard recurring plans, build-your-own and curated boxes, bundles, and memberships.

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 Shopify uses it to create each recurring charge.
  • Monthly Recurring Revenue — Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable revenue a subscription business expects to collect each month from its active subscriptions, normalized to a monthly figure — the core measure of the size and growth of recurring revenue.

← All subscription commerce terms