Free settings

To create a subscription-based product, go to the editing page and enable the checkbox “Subscription”. Now set the price for the subscription plan you are creating.

After enabling the checkbox, a new section will show; Subscription settings. This is where you can configure the options for the subscription plan that we will analize below.

• Users will pay every: users are required to pay for a fixed amount (Regular Price) every xx days or xx months.
• Subscription ends: decide if the subscription has an end time or not by using the options Never or Set and end time. By selecting Set an end time, you will be able to define the number of days/months after which the subscription will end.
• Apply subscription limits: enable if you want to set limitations to the purchase of the subscription.
• Limit subscription: Decide if user can purchase multiple subscriptions for the same product or if there is a limit:
  • Limit user to allow only one active subscription: while the subscription for this product is still active, the user cannot purchase the same subscription again. Once the subscription is cancelled/ended the user can purchase it again.
  • Limit user to allow only one subscription of any status, either active or not: the user will never be able to purchase this subscription product again, regardless of the active/inactive status. If the user wishes to activate the subscription again, they can use the ‘resubscribe’ button on their My account page.

This is how the customer will see the product.

The subscription is started when the order is completed, as well as for any other product in the store. Available payment methods for the first payment are the ones that you enable in WooCommerce > Settings.

Yet, for renewals, we have to distinguish between automatic charges and manual payments.

1. Automatic charges

The only supported gateway for automatic charges in the free version is PayPal gateway when you use WooCommerce PayPal Payments (integration available since version 3.0 of YITH Subscriptions).

You simply have to install and activate both of them and configure PayPal Payments as explained here.

For the renewals to happen automatically, please make sure to enable the option Vaulting in the plugin settings after requesting PayPal approval as explained here.

If you need to use another gateway for automatic charges, we suggest you consider the premium version and the supported gateways listed here.

2. Manual charges

In case you want to use another payment method with the free version to let your customers pay for a renewal order, this is possible, but only if they manually complete the payment. In this case, all payment gateways enabled for your store can be used.

For more details about how to process a manual payment, please, refer to this page.

Subscription & order status

The subscription will be added to the list of active subscriptions only when the associated order goes to “Completed”.
If the subscription has been paid through PayPal, the order will first go to “Processing” and the subscription will start at this stage.

All subscriptions registered in your store will be available in the table that you can find in YITH > Subscription > Subscriptions.

You can access the following information for each subscription in your shop:

• Univocal subscription ID;
• Start date;
• Subscriber’s name and email;
• Recurring amount;
• Renewal date;
• Status (active, paused or cancelled);
• Product associated to the subscription;
• Expiry date;
• Number of renewals;
• Payment method linked to the subscription;
• Failed attempts;
• Subscription status.

The plugin also offers you the possibility to filter your subscriptions by date, status, payment method, and customer. Moreover, through the Bulk actions, you can also delete subscriptions.

From the General settings tab, you can set all the general plugin options.

Here you will find three different sections.

1. General settings

• Allow users to manually renew a subscription: decide whether the user can pay for a subscription renewal manually or not. If you select “No, only use the supported gateways enabled for automatic payments”, the checkout page will only show PayPal as the payment method since this is the only gateway supporting automatic renewals in the free version.
• Stock management with recurring payments: through this option, you can decide whether renewal orders will affect the stock count of subscription products or not.
• Delete subscription if the main order is cancelled: enable this option if you want to delete the subscription when main order is cancelled.
• Enable log: this allows enabling the plugin logs.

Extra settings

• Shop manager can manage subscription settings: by enabling this option, you can allow the shop managers to edit the subscription setting options.

GPDR & Privacy

• Delete personal info after an account erasure requests: by enabling this option, all personal information will be deleted if a request is made by the customer.
• Delete pending and cancelled subscriptions: by enabling this option, subscriptions will be trashed after a specific number of days, weeks, months, or years, entered in the related fields.

Users can neither pause nor cancel their subscription unless they have purchased it using PayPal or WooCommerce PayPal Payments. Only in this case, they will be able to cancel the subscription from their own PayPal account.

Despite this, the subscription is canceled in case of a missing payment or it can be canceled manually from the plugin admin panel. You just have to select the subscription and apply the bulk action.

The plugin automatically creates a Subscriptions endpoint that allows adding a section to the My account page where users can find the complete list of their subscriptions.

By clicking on each subscription, customers will be able to check the details.

There are two options available for the renewal orders, automatic charges and manual payments.

Automatic charges through PayPal in WooCommerce PayPal Payments

For what concerns automatic charges, the free version of YITH Subscription supports only PayPal gateway if you use WooCommerce PayPal Payments.

The renewal order will be created one day before the due date, when it will be actually processed.

Manual payment – User

For all other payment gateways you can refer to the information below and let your users pay for renewal orders manually.

One day before the renewal date, a new order will be generated automatically. This order will be visible for the users in ‘My account > My Subscriptions‘.

Customers can just click on the ‘Pay’ button that will redirect them to checkout page and complete the payment with any gateway.

From the Customization section, you will be able to insert a custom label for the Add to cart button shown on the product pages and the Place order button shown on Cart and Checkout pages.