In this article, we’ll discuss the best Shopify Monthly Subscription app to get and why.

You’ll learn which app to use and why it will provide you the most benefits to your Shopify store.

We will also cover why monthly payment plans are a great thing to offer on your store to generate more revenue. And lastly, we’ll cover which types of products are perfect for monthly subscriptions.

Make sure to read until the end of the article so you’ll absorb all our tips and tricks for making more sales on your Shopify store with subscriptions.

Topics to be covered:

• Why offer monthly Subscriptions on your store?
• Which types of products are perfect for monthly subscriptions?
• Monthly subscriptions are perfect for Refill products
• Monthly Subscriptions are great for Replenishment Products
• How to offer a monthly subscription on Shopify
• Best Shopify Monthly Subscription App
• Ongoing– Best Shopify Monthly Subscription App PROS
• Ongoing – Best Shopify Monthly Subscription App CONS
• Shopify Monthly Subscription App Wrap up

Why offer monthly Subscriptions on your store?

When it comes to setting up a subscription on Shopify, a monthly plan is the easiest and most simplest way to start.

We recommend setting up a one month subscription because it’s one of the most common delivery preferences customers will have.

It’s also one of the most common billing preferences your customers will have.

With a monthly subscription, that delivers and bills the customer, this is called pay per delivery. It’s also known as pay as you go.

Which types of products are perfect for monthly subscriptions?

While most products would be perfectly fine with a monthly subscription plan option, not all will be.

If you have a product that is used less often, like every 3 months, a quarterly plan might be a better option to offer on your store.Things to consider:

• How often your customer is going to want to receive the product
• How often your customer will use the product

You can create any type of subscription plan on Ongoing, including a quarterly delivery or 6 month delivery so you can play around with the delivery and billing frequency to make it whatever you would like.

So now that we covered which products wouldn’t fit a one monthly subscription model, let’s dig deeper into the products that would fit a one month recurring payment model perfectly.

Monthly Subscriptions are Perfect for Refill Products

Most products can be delivered on a monthly basis for refills.

Refills are usually products that someone uses and runs out of .

An example is toothpaste, cleaning supplies, tampons, diapers, doggie treats, shavers, soap, etc.

Refills are the perfect way to get someone to subscribe because they will want more of your product on a regular basis.

And they don’t have to reorder it. It’s all automatic when you offer subscriptions on your store.

Plus with an automatic subscriptions, the customer doesn’t have to enter their credit card details over and over again, they are just charged automatically based on their plan they choose.

That means convenience for both your customer and you as the merchant.
You don’t have to fight to get them to come back to your store, and they don’t have to remember to re-buy that super awesome product they need more of.

Monthly Subscriptions are great for Replenishment Products

Replenishment products are pretty much the same thing as refills.

To replenish, means the customer will need to re-up on their supply.

A great example of this is hygiene items you use on a daily basis like deodorant or pantry items you go throw rapidly like spices.

These can all become subscription products!

The bottom line is this. If you think your product is something people would want to order on a frequent basis, then you can offer it as a subscription.

And by offering it as a subscription, you’ll be able to offer your products with recurring payments.

Customer will be charged on a recurring basis regularly and you will get that money deposited in your bank account regularly.

It’s seamless, automated, and extremely efficient for scaling up your business and increasing sales.

Best Shopify Monthly Subscription App

Okay, so far we’ve gone over all the reasons why monthly subscriptions are incredible and why you would want to use them.

Next up, we’ll cover the best Shopify Monthly subscription apps out there.

First off, we recommend checking out Ongoing.

Ongoing is the best Shopify subscriptions app.

Ongoing is an app made specifically just for Shopify.
This means it’s fully integrated, native, and works perfectly on your shop no matter what theme you’re using. That’s right, it works right out of the box.

We also offer free installation support so we can do free customizations on your theme to make it perfectly match the look and feel of your store.

Ongoing Subscriptions is the perfect solution if you’re looking for the best Shopify Monthly subscription app.

It lets you convert any regular product into a subscription product in just a couple clicks.

The set up is super easy, and you can have a fully live, functioning subscription product within a couple minutes.

Ongoing gives you the choice of offering your subscription product as only a subscription or offering the ‘One Time Purchase’ as well.

You can add as many subscription plans as you would like (example: weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly delivery).

You can also add in subscription discounts if you’d like although they are totally optional.

An example of this is creating a monthly subscription plan and offering 10% off.

This helps incentivize your customers to go ahead and buy the subscription so they will get the savings.

Ongoing – Best Shopify Monthly Subscription App PROS

• Works on all Shopify stores!
• No code
• PCI compliant
• Chat available on app
• Works out of the box
• A+++ Customer Support
• Works on any product!
• Helps you earn recurring revenue
• 5 star rating on the Shopify app store
• Create subscription only products
• Takes care of recurring billing for you
• Handles recurring payments automatically Fully customizable (change text and colors)
• Recurring AutoPay for all subscriptions orders
• Orders automatically created!
• Complimentary technical support
• Company trusted by thousands of users
• Manage and track subscription orders
• Features gift subscriptions (max billing cycles)
• Made in California, USA by top notch engineers
• Hands-on support to give you advice and personalized tips
• Create subscription products with one time purchase option
• Works in any language, translate the text to your language
• Earnings Reporting (see how much the app made you)
• Simple to use dashboard is powerful but easy to use
• Works in any currency (for you and your customers)
• Offers automatic monthly subscriptions for Shopify
• Offers subscription discounts baked right into subscription plans
• Safe and Secure, using Shopify Payments API so fully integrated
• Offers a customer portal for your customers to manage their subscription orders
• Credit card data stored by Shopify, not us (keeps you and your subscribers safe!)
• Ongoing was Awarded early access to Shopify’s Subscriptions API
• Ongoing offers safe & secure payment processing with Shopify’s 3-D checkout

Ongoing – Best Shopify Monthly Subscription App CONS

If you don’t have a Shopify store, then you can’t use Ongoing as it only available on Shopify app store.

How to offer a monthly subscription on your Shopify store

Great. So now we’ve covered which app to get for Shopify to handle your subscriptions.

Now we’ll talk a little bit about how to use this app to create your subscription.

Step 1: Install Ongoing on the Shopify App Store

You go there now, click here.

Step 2: Create a Subscription Group

A subscription group is a collection of your subscription plans and products.

For example, let’s say I had a subscription group called “subscription box”.

Just name it something that makes sense to you, it won’t be shown to the customer.

You’re going to be adding a subscription plan to this group or a couple subscription plans,

This of subscription groups as an overarching umbrella, and everything under it is the plan and products.

By having subscription groups, it makes your life way easier! You don’t have to recreate the plan over and over again for different products. All the plans you create in the group will be applied to the products you add to the group.

It might take a moment to wrap your head around the concept of subscription groups, but once you get it, it’s super simple to use once you get the hang of it.

Step 3: Create a Subscription plan

Create a subscription plan called “Monthly Delivery”.

It would be set up with delivery every 1 month and billing every 1 month.

This means the customer will get a delivery every month and be billed every month.

Step 4: Connect to Product(s)

You can add just one product to the subscription group. And that’s fine.

Those subscription plans in the group will be applied to that product.

Here is what a subscription product would look like. I’ll click save.

And BOOM! My subscription product has been created instantly in just a couple minutes!

Once you create a subscription group with at least one subscription plan and product, you’re all set.

You’ve learned how to successfully set up a monthly plan using a Shopify Monthly Subscription app like Ongoing.

Can I add more than one product to a group?

Yes!

You can add as many products as you’d like to a group!

For example, in my previous example, I could have added 5 products to this group if I wanted all these products to have the ‘monthly’ subscription plan available to them.

Let me show you what that would look like!

Above you can see I added a total of five products to my group.

It works instantly as soon as I click Save.

As soon as a I add the products to the group, those plans are now available on those 5 products.

So if I were to go to those products now, they would all be subscription products.

Can I get rid of the one-time purchase option?

Yes!

You can choose to make your product a subscription only product.

This means people can only buy your product as a subscription (i.e. on a recurring basis)

You can change the settings of your product on the Shopify admin dashboard by checking the box that says “Only allow purchase of this product as a subscription”

This will make the “One time purchase” option disappear from the widget on your product page.

Here is what that will look like now.

Wrap Up

Thanks for reading our article on the best Shopify Monthly Subscription app. We hope you’ve enjoyed our overview of the app and how it can benefit your store.

Make sure to give Ongoing a try today, and start selling offering recurring orders today on Shopify.

I hope you’ll enjoy using the app we recommended and feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions about how to set up a monthly subscription on your Shopify store.

Feel free to leave a comment letting us know how you set up your monthly subscription and how it’s going on your Shopify store.