SolutionsTea brands
The Shopify subscription app for tea brands.
Run refills of your everyday teas, pick-your-own sampler sets, a tea-of-the-month box and gift subscriptions from one app, on Shopify's own checkout. Subscribers skip or pause when the caddy is still full, failed cards get retried, and every plan has 0% Curobi transaction fees.
- Free up to 50 active subscriptions
- Works on any paid Shopify plan
- 0% transaction fees
What makes tea subscriptions hard to run
Tea is drunk at very different speeds. At the usual 2 to 3 grams a cup, a 50 g pouch makes 17 to 25 cups: about a week for someone on three cups a day, three weeks or more at one. Tea shops also stock far more teas than any one customer will try, and many of their best teas come once a year in small lots. A tea subscription has to cope with all three.
Tea piles up between deliveries
A fixed monthly delivery assumes everyone drinks at the same pace. Slow drinkers end up with a cupboard of unopened pouches, and green tea and matcha are best drunk within about a month of opening. Receiving more than they use is a common reason people cancel: 17% of subscription cancellers gave it in a 2022 PYMNTS survey.
What Curobi doesSubscribers skip a delivery or pause from the self-service portal on every plan, without emailing you. From Starter they can also move their next order to a later date and change quantities, and anyone who goes to cancel is offered a skip or a pause first.
The same tea every month gets dull
Many people join a tea subscription to try teas they wouldn't pick themselves. Sending the same blend on repeat takes away the reason they signed up, and a subscriber who has stopped looking forward to the parcel is easy to lose.
What Curobi doesRun a tea-of-the-month box: you choose each month's teas, this month and up to three ahead, and Curobi puts them on every subscriber's renewal automatically. If members would rather choose, Build-a-Box lets them pick their own teas each cycle from a menu you set, either one stable menu or a monthly one you line up the same way.
Small orders, thin margins
A pouch of loose-leaf tea is light and low-priced, so packing and postage take a large share of every order. In the US, USPS dropped its 4 oz and 8 oz Ground Advantage commercial price tiers in July 2026, so a single pouch now ships at the rate for a parcel just under a pound. An app that also takes a percentage of each renewal cuts further into a small margin.
What Curobi doesMix & Match sampler sets let shoppers pick several teas into one order, with the price dropping as they add more, so each parcel carries more revenue. Curobi charges a flat plan price with 0% Curobi transaction fees, so a bigger order never means a bigger cut.
Seasonal teas arrive in small lots
First-flush Darjeeling, Japanese shincha and other spring teas come once a year in limited quantity, and once a lot sells out it doesn't come back until next season. To put one in a subscription box you need to know how many boxes you are packing before you commit the stock.
What Curobi doesEach curated month has a cutoff. When curation closes the box locks, and the month's teas go onto every subscriber's renewal, so you know the count before you pack. On Pro, the Risk Center flags a month that isn't ready and stock that won't cover it.
Tea is bought as a gift, and gifts run out
Tea is an easy gift, and the buying bunches up at the holidays: The Spice & Tea Exchange puts Thanksgiving to New Year's at roughly a third of its annual sales. Most tea gift subscriptions are prepaid for a fixed term, and when the term ends the recipient, who may have liked it, simply stops receiving tea.
What Curobi doesSell prepaid 3- or 6-month terms on every plan. On Business, gift subscriptions give the recipient a claim page in your store's theme, and win-back emails go to customers after they cancel, with an optional single-use discount code.
Why Curobi suits tea brands
- Boxes and sets in the same app
Refills, Mix & Match sampler sets, a tea-of-the-month box and Build-a-Box all run in Curobi, so a growing tea program doesn't need a second bundling app.
- A flat price on small orders
Plans run from $0 to $69.99 per 30 days with 0% Curobi transaction fees. On low-priced tea orders a per-order percentage costs more than it looks. See how the apps compare.
- Shopify's own checkout
Renewals are Shopify Subscription Contracts, so your email, reviews and loyalty apps see them as normal Shopify orders. There is no redirect, and Curobi never handles card data.
- Failed cards get another try
From Starter, a failed renewal is retried on days 2, 4 and 7 with an email asking the customer to update their card. If every retry fails, the subscription pauses instead of cancelling.
Where Curobi fits in a tea business
Find the row that matches what you sell. Each plan includes everything in the plans before it, and every plan has 0% Curobi transaction fees.
| If you sell | Run it with | Plan you need |
|---|---|---|
| Refills of the teas people drink every day | Subscribe & Save | Free$0 / 30 days |
| Refills where subscribers adjust quantity, swap teas or move a delivery | Portal editing | Starter+$9.99 / 30 days |
| Sampler sets: pick any three or five teas at a set price | Mix & Match | Business+$29.99 / 30 days |
| Tea given to someone else, for the holidays or a birthday | Gift subscriptions | Business+$29.99 / 30 days |
| A tea-of-the-month club you curate | Curated box | Pro$69.99 / 30 days |
| A monthly box where members choose their own teas | Build-a-Box | Pro$69.99 / 30 days |
Where it doesn't fit yet
- Subscribers can skip, pause or move their next order, but they can't switch to a different delivery frequency from the portal yet.
- Inside a curated tea-of-the-month box, subscribers can't swap individual teas; the month's selection is yours. If members should choose, run Build-a-Box instead.
- Boxes need Pro. The one-time 14-day trial on Free includes Curated Boxes, but box programs pause when the trial ends unless you move to Pro.
Already on another app?
Business and Pro include CSV migration from Recharge, Appstle, Loop, Bold or Seal, without interrupting active subscriptions. See the steps for Recharge, Appstle or Loop, or compare first: Curobi vs Recharge.
How a tea-of-the-month box runs each month
This is the box timeline in Curobi, with a seasonal tea as the example. You set your own cutoff and shipping days.
- Before the cutoff
You curate the month
Choose this month's teas in the box editor, for example a first-flush Darjeeling with a spring green.
- Cutoff
Curation closes
The box locks and its teas go onto every active subscriber's next renewal. You know how many to pack.
- Through the month
Renewals bill and ship
Each renewal is charged through Shopify on the subscriber's date, or on one shared charge day if you put the box on a fixed calendar. Until then, they can skip or pause from the portal.
- Next month
The next box opens
Curation for the next month begins. On Pro, the Risk Center flags a month that isn't ready.
Setting up a tea subscription
Install from the Shopify App Store, then work through these in the Curobi admin. Nothing moves to a separate checkout.
Create your refill plans
Set the delivery cadence and a Subscribe & Save discount (percentage, fixed or tiered), and apply it to your everyday teas, specific pouch sizes, or a whole collection.
Add the widget to your tea pages
The purchase-option widget sits on the product page in your theme and is styled in the theme editor, so shoppers choose one-time or subscribe with no separate checkout.
Build your box or sampler set
For tea of the month, create a curated box and set its cutoff (Pro). For sampler sets, create a Mix & Match bundle with a minimum and maximum number of teas and optional volume discounts (Business).
Turn on the portal, retries and save offers
The portal (skip, pause, cancel, address, card) is on every plan. From Starter, add quantity and swap edits, rescheduling, failed-payment retries and cancellation save offers.
Tea subscription questions
Anything else? The full FAQ covers pricing, setup and billing.
Is there a Shopify subscription app for tea brands?
Yes. Curobi runs the formats tea shops sell most: Subscribe & Save refills on everyday teas, Mix & Match sampler sets, a curated tea-of-the-month box, Build-a-Box sets where members choose their teas, and prepaid or gift subscriptions. Renewals run on Shopify's own checkout, and every plan has 0% Curobi transaction fees.
Which Curobi plan does a tea subscription need?
It depends on what you sell. Refills alone run on the Free plan up to 50 active subscriptions, or Starter ($9.99 per 30 days) for up to 250 with portal editing and failed-payment retries. Mix & Match sampler sets and gift subscriptions need Business ($29.99). A curated tea-of-the-month box or Build-a-Box needs Pro ($69.99). Each plan includes everything in the plans before it.
How do I stop tea piling up for subscribers who drink it slowly?
Let them control the timing. In Curobi's customer portal, subscribers can skip a delivery or pause on every plan, and from Starter they can move their next order to a later date and change quantities. When someone tries to cancel, a save offer can suggest a skip or pause instead. Subscribers can't yet switch to a different delivery frequency from the portal.
Can I sell a tea-of-the-month box and refills at the same time?
Yes. A curated box and Subscribe & Save refills are separate subscriptions, so a customer can have a monthly box and a refill of their everyday tea, each renewing on its own schedule, and manage both from the same customer portal. The curated box needs the Pro plan.
Can I move my tea subscribers from Recharge or another app?
Yes. The Business and Pro plans include CSV migration from Recharge, Appstle, Loop, Bold or Seal. Subscribers come across without their active subscriptions being interrupted.
Run your tea subscriptions on Curobi.
Free up to 50 active subscriptions, flat plans after that, and 0% Curobi transaction fees on every one.
- No card required
- Billed through Shopify
- Cancel anytime