The subscription business model is especially popular today because it allows established businesses to receive a stable additional income. However, which platform should you choose for its implementation so that you don’t have to write code from scratch? In the vast majority of cases, the choice falls on Shopify, and below, we will explain to you why.
Table of contents
Why Is The Subscription Business So Viable?
Subscription services are convenient for both parties – for customers and online store owners since the former can receive their favorite products without the need for a repeat order, and the latter – a stable income source. In particular, instead of one-time sales, businesses can forecast regular revenue, increase customer loyalty, improve the customer lifetime value indicator (since now, they will be confident that their customers will stay with them for a long time), reduce the cost of attracting new customers, as well as optimize logistics tasks and inventory management processes.
As for Shopify, this is one of the best platforms for launching a subscription service, rich in numerous tools for automating subscriptions and order management. Although they are not included in the default Shopify templates, you can download them quickly from the Shopify marketplace. In general, the team of this platform contributes to the development of this business model since it even has internal statistics that claim that companies with a subscription-based service increase revenue by an average of 30-50% in the first year of operation.
Which Shopify Apps Are Best for a Subscription Business?
Shopify, as we noted above, does not offer a built-in subscription system. However, there are some cool third-party solutions that will help you automate recurring payments and subscription management. Here are some of the most popular ones:
- Recharge, a subscription service app that supports flexible subscription plans, allows for automatic debits, and can be integrated with Shopify Checkout;
- Bold Subscriptions, another great solution with flexible settings that lets you change the frequency of subscriptions yourself, manage them, and schedule deliveries;
- Skio, an app worth checking out if you are looking for a more modern solution with seamless integration with payment systems supported by Shopify;
- PayWhirl, another solution that is ideal for smaller stores and allows you to add subscriptions without dozens of settings.
Launching Shopify Subscriptions: A Step-by-Step Process
Now, we suggest you figure out how to set up a subscription process:
- Choose a product or service for a subscription. It is important to note that subscriptions are most effective for consumables, such as drinks, cosmetics, pet food, or exclusive content, such as online courses.
- Analyze your audience. Try to find out what type of product or service your customers will be willing to pay for a subscription.
- Set up a subscription service. To do this, install a subscription app (for example, one of the above), determine the optimal plans (weekly, monthly, quarterly), and determine the pricing policy – it should be beneficial to your customers, but still remain profitable for you.
- Add payment tools. Considering that Shopify has an internal payment system Shopify Payments, and supports more than a hundred third-party ones, including Stripe and PayPal, you will just need to connect those that are already integrated into your online store.
- Create an attractive subscription page. To do this, you will need to explain the benefits of subscribing to potential buyers, add reviews and examples as social proof, and take care of the user experience to make the subscription process as easy as possible.
- Optimize delivery and logistics processes. To do this, you will need to keep track of the regularity of shipments and establish cooperation with trusted courier services to avoid delays.
- Launch marketing to attract subscribers. This may be receiving bonuses for the first subscription or an additional discount, the main thing is that it is valuable for customers. Also, do not forget to use email marketing with subscription reminders and personalized offers. Finally, do not neglect launching targeted advertising on social networks – it is likely that your customers will learn about your offers from there.
So, Why Is Shopify the Best Choice for a Subscription Business?
Starting a subscription business on Shopify in 2025 will be one of the best decisions to increase your profits and create a stable source of income, and here’s why: Shopify makes it easy to implement subscriptions through easy-to-use apps that guarantee stability, security, and convenience for customers. Also, this platform provides powerful tools for marketing, analytics, and scaling, which makes it suitable for both small businesses and large brands.
That’s why if you would like to start a subscription business, increase revenue, and reduce the costs of retaining existing and attracting new customers, Shopify will be a great choice. By the way, if you are looking for a reliable Shopify agency, feel free to contact us.
