This article explains how the discount on a Subi subscription plan is worked out: at checkout, on later orders, for shipping, and when a customer accepts a discount offer in your cancellation flow.
It covers ordinary subscription plans. Build a box, fixed bundle and volume discount plans work differently: their discount applies only when the cart qualifies (a full box, a complete bundle, or enough of one product), and it is applied at checkout.
Which price does a plan's discount come off?
A plan's discount comes off the product's price in Shopify at the moment the customer subscribes. On the plan, under Offer discount, you choose one of these:
Percent off: 15% off a $40.00 product makes it $34.00.
Fixed amount: $5.00 off a $40.00 product makes it $35.00.
With Flat rate instead, the customer pays the price you enter, whatever the product's price is.
What do later orders charge?
When a customer subscribes, their subscription keeps a record of the product's price at that moment and of the price after your discount. Later orders are charged from that record, not from the product's current price.
So a price change in Shopify does not reach subscriptions that are already running: they keep the price they started at. Price sync can move them to the new price, but only if you turn it on. Subscriptions that move keep their plan's percentage discount, taken off the new price. Subscriptions with a fixed-amount or flat-rate discount are not moved for you. See How do I move my subscriptions to a new product price?
Changing a plan's discount works the same way: the new discount applies to new subscriptions, and running subscriptions keep the discount they started with. If you or your customer change a subscription's delivery frequency later, it keeps the discount it has. The one exception is a customer who accepts a new frequency offered in your cancellation flow: their subscription takes the discount that frequency has in your plan at that moment. To change running subscriptions, open the Contracts page, select the subscriptions, click the three-dot More actions menu and choose Update price and discount. It works on Subscribe & Save subscriptions, and bulk actions depend on your Subi plan. Step by step: How to Bulk Edit Subscription Contracts
What if the discount changes after a number of orders?
With Adjust price after specified number of orders, both discounts come off the same recorded product price. The second one does not stack on the first. For example, with 20% off that changes to 10% off after 3 orders, a $40.00 product costs $32.00 for the first 3 orders and $36.00 from then on. Only successful payments count toward the change.
Does the plan discount apply to shipping?
No. A plan's discount only changes the price of the product. Shipping is charged on its own, and a subscription's shipping price is set at checkout and kept for its later orders.
So a plan can give 10% off the product, but it cannot take 10% off shipping. To charge subscribers less for shipping, go to Settings → Shipping in Subi. On the Subscription shipping page you can give the plans you choose free shipping, or create a custom shipping profile with your own rates for subscription orders. Free shipping and custom shipping profiles depend on your Subi plan.
Changes there apply to new subscriptions. Current subscribers keep their shipping price. Step by step: Set Up Subscription Shipping Profiles in Subi
How does a cancellation flow discount combine with the plan discount?
In a cancellation flow you build, a treatment can be a Discount: an offer the customer sees when they try to cancel. You set its Discount type (Percentage or Fixed amount), its Value and Apply to next orders. Treatments depend on your Subi plan, and Subi's default cancellation flow never offers a discount.
When the customer accepts the offer, Subi adds it to their subscription as an extra discount. It comes off the price the subscription already pays after the plan discount, not off the full product price.
For example, your plan gives 15% off every order and your cancellation offer is 5% off the next order. On a $40.00 product:
The plan discount brings the price to $34.00.
The offer takes 5% of $34.00, which is $1.70, so the next order charges $32.30 for the product.
From the order after that, the price is back to $34.00.
Together that is 19.25% off the full price for that one order, not 20%.
A few more things to know about the offer:
It covers the products on the subscription when the customer accepts it. Like the plan discount, it does not apply to shipping.
A Fixed amount offer is one amount off each discounted order, shared between the products on the subscription. It is not taken off each product. If the subscription bills in another currency, Subi converts the amount into that currency.
After the number of orders in Apply to next orders, the offer stops and the subscription pays its usual price again.
Each subscription can accept a discount offer only once. If the customer tries to cancel again later, the discount offer is not shown to them.
How to build a flow: How to Reduce Cancellations with a Cancellation Flow. For Shopify discount codes on subscriptions, see Create Shopify Subscription Discount Codes.