To sell subscriptions on your Shopify store using a third-party app like Subi, you need to meet specific eligibility requirements set by Shopify. This article explains those requirements, including supported payment gateways, delivery options, and sales channels.
What payment gateways can I use for Shopify subscriptions?
To sell subscriptions, Shopify requires your store to use one of the supported payment gateways:
Stripe (availability may vary by merchant – please check your Shopify account for feature availability)
Gateways like Flow, Razorpay, or Gokwik are not supported. These limitations are set by Shopify and apply broadly across all subscription apps.
Customers can also pay for subscriptions using Shopify’s accelerated checkout methods, such as Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal. PayPal shows at a subscription checkout only once it is set up for subscriptions on your store, as explained below.
Important: Customers cannot purchase subscriptions using local payment methods like Klarna, mollie iDEAL, or Sofort. Additionally, unsupported gateways include Flow, Razorpay, and Gokwik, which are restricted by Shopify for subscription payments.
Why does PayPal not show at checkout for my subscription products?
PayPal Express is on the list above, but being supported is not enough. Shopify hides PayPal at the checkout of a subscription order until PayPal is set up for subscriptions on your store. A store can take PayPal on ordinary orders and still not offer it to subscribers.
In the United States and France
PayPal comes through Shopify Payments there, and Shopify says the PayPal wallet in Shopify Payments supports subscriptions. PayPal Express is not available to merchants in those two countries, so a store whose card payments run on another gateway can offer PayPal for subscriptions only through Shopify Payments.
In other countries
Use PayPal Express and finish the PayPal account setup. Once PayPal Express is active and an app such as Subi charges subscribers automatically, Shopify asks PayPal for approval of reference transactions on your account. Until PayPal approves, PayPal stays hidden at a subscription checkout. Shopify shows the status of the request on the Payments page of your Shopify admin settings. If PayPal declines it, contact your PayPal account manager or PayPal through its contact page.
If the status stays pending and you have heard nothing from PayPal, look first in the inbox of your PayPal account's email address: PayPal sometimes asks for more information before it approves. If there is nothing there, log in to your PayPal business account, open PayPal's contact page and ask to talk to a person rather than the automated assistant. Ask them to approve Reference Transactions on your account, the request Shopify sent to PayPal on your behalf, so that billing agreements can charge your subscribers automatically. Give them the email address of your PayPal account and your store's web address. Once PayPal approves, Shopify shows PayPal at your subscription checkout.
If your store is in a country Shopify Payments does not serve, PayPal Express is often the easiest of the supported providers for a small store to set up, so it is a common route to selling subscriptions there.
PayPal also has to accept your store currency. Shopify asks that, with PayPal Express, your store currency is one PayPal supports, and some are missing from PayPal's list of currencies, for example the South African rand or the Bosnian mark. If yours is missing, PayPal may not be offered at your checkout until you change the store currency to one on the list, such as EUR or USD. Only the store owner can change it: in your Shopify admin go to Settings > General, and under Store defaults open the menu next to Currency display and choose Change store currency (Shopify's steps). Before you do, resolve any pending payments. The change keeps every amount and only swaps the currency (Shopify's example: a product listed at 20 USD becomes 20 CAD), so product prices, discounts and shipping rates have to be re-priced by hand, and gift cards with a balance in the old currency stop working. If your store already has subscribers, contact Subi support before you change it, since their subscriptions were set up in the old currency. If your cards run through a provider other than Shopify Payments, Shopify also switches the currency of all your markets to the new one, so your customers see prices in it.
Check it in Subi
In Subi, go to Settings > Subscription payment methods. The PayPal card shows whether your customers can pay for subscriptions with PayPal. Subi checks this once a day, and the card shows the date of the last check.
On: customers can pay for subscriptions with PayPal.
Pending: PayPal hasn't approved your request yet.
Off: customers can't pay for subscriptions with PayPal. Set up PayPal Express, then ask PayPal for reference transactions, as described above. Open payment settings in Shopify takes you to the Payments page.
Check in Shopify: in the United States and France, Subi can't see the PayPal wallet setting, so check it on the Payments page in Shopify.
Not checked yet: results appear after the next daily check.
How to tell it worked
Check the status on the Payments page. Then put a subscription product in the cart on your storefront and go to checkout: PayPal should now be among the payment options.
Which sales channels and delivery methods support subscriptions?
Shopify subscriptions are supported only on specific sales channels and delivery methods:
Delivery options: Shipping, local delivery, and in-store pickup are supported for subscription orders.
Sales channels: Subscription products are only available on the Online Store and Custom Storefront sales channels.
Product bundles: Shopify sells its own product bundles one time only, so a Shopify bundle can't be part of a subscription plan. To sell the same items together on subscription, create a Fixed Bundle Subscription Plan in Subi. See how Subi handles Shopify bundles.
Why can't I add a Shopify bundle to my subscription plan?
You can't add a Shopify bundle to a subscription plan because Shopify sells bundles one time only. If a bundle were on a plan, your customers could choose the subscription on its product page and then get an error in the cart. Subi keeps Shopify bundles off your plans in these places:
Select products: in the plan editor, a Shopify bundle is greyed out and can't be ticked. Under it you see the reason: Shopify bundle. Shopify sells bundles one time only, so it can't join a subscription plan. If a product has both ordinary variants and bundle variants, only the bundle variants are greyed out, and you can still add the ordinary ones. On Build Box, Volume Discount, Mystery Box and Fixed Bundle plans, a product with any bundle variant is greyed out as a whole.
All products and collection plans: when Subi adds products to a plan automatically (all products, a collection, or new products you create later), it skips Shopify bundles and adds everything else.
Storefront & Portal: when Subi offers to add products that have no plan, a Shopify bundle is shown but can't be ticked, and it isn't counted among the products with no plan.
Your storefront: the subscription option isn't shown on a Shopify bundle, even if the bundle is still on a plan, so customers buy it one time.
Customer portal: when customers swap a product or add one to their subscription, Shopify bundles aren't offered.
What if a plan already has a Shopify bundle on it?
If a plan already has a Shopify bundle on it, the plan page shows a warning in the Applies to card, and the bundle carries a Shopify bundle label. The warning has two buttons:
Remove bundles from this plan takes the Shopify bundles off the plan and leaves every other product on it. On an All products plan, the bundles are added to the plan's excluded products, so they aren't added back.
Create a Fixed Bundle plan opens a new Fixed Bundle plan, where you can sell the same items together on subscription.
Existing subscriptions are not changed.
How do I check if my store is eligible to sell subscriptions?
If your Shopify store does not meet the eligibility requirements, Subi will display a banner when you try to create a new Subscription Plan:
If you see the banner, your store is not eligible to sell subscriptions.
If you do not see the banner, your store is eligible, and you can proceed to set up subscriptions.
FAQs
Is there a manual workaround for unsupported payment methods in Subi?
No, there isn’t a manual workaround in Subi for recurring billing outside Shopify’s supported subscription payment methods.
Is Subi compatible with Shopify Payments?
Yes, Subi is compatible with Shopify Payments, and subscriptions can be processed using this gateway.
Need Help?
Feel free to contact our support team. We're here for you anytime:
Live Chat: Message us from within the Subi app or your Shopify Admin.
Email: Reach us at [email protected].