Is A Subscription A Product Or Service

WooCommerce Subscriptions & Subscriptions by WooCommerce provides two unlike, but related items:

subscription products; and
subscriptions.

This guide provides an caption of the differences between a subscription product and a subscription. It also provides examples to illustrate those differences.

If you lot oasis't already, you should read the Subscriptions guide for Store Managers before continuing to get a more full general introduction to the Subscriptions extension. The information hither volition also be easier to understand if you have read the subscription renewal process document and are familiar with WooCommerce orders.

Subscription Products ↑ Back to tiptop

Subscription products are an extension of WooCommerce products. They are created past shop managers via the Edit Production screen. They are displayed to customers in your store via the forepart-end of your website.

A subscription product has still data equally standard WooCommerce products, including:

price
auction toll
tax class and condition
virtual and downloadable flags
attributes (optional)
inventory (optional)
shipping weight, dimensions and course

Like any other WooCommerce product, subscription products can be added to the cart and purchased by customers via checkout. The purchase of a subscription product is recorded in an order and the terms for future payments are added to a new subscription.

Subscriptions ↑ Back to top

Whereas a subscription product is something offered to customers to purchase, a subscription is an agreement between your store and a customer for future transactions.

Like an society, a subscription tin incorporate one or more products as line items. This is how subscription products are associated with a subscription. Nevertheless, a single subscription can comprise multiple subscription production line items, non-subscription product line items or even no product line items at all.

Subscriptions are created when:

a customer completes the checkout process and the cart contains subscription products; or
a store manager manually creates one via the Add Subscription assistants screen.

Subscriptions are an extension of WooCommerce Orders. They accept all the same data as an order, including:

status
customer
payment method
billing/aircraft address
downloadable product permissions
product, fee and shipping line items
notes
totals

Every bit well as subscription specific meta data like:

billing interval and period
next payment date
trial end date
end date
related orders, including the original order used to purchase the subscription, renewal orders and switch orders

The principal difference betwixt a subscription and an order is that an order is a tape of a transaction in the by, whereas a subscription is an understanding for transactions in the future. Because of this, a subscription likewise has a billing schedule to make up one's mind when time to come transactions will exist processed.

Billing Schedule ↑ Back to acme

Both subscription products and subscriptions have a billing schedule.

A subscription product's schedule is made upwards of:

Billing interval and period: defines the schedule on which renewal payments should recur for this production. For example, every second calendar week or per month
Billing length: defines the number of payments that will exist processed before the subscription ends. For case, a subscription with the billing interval and period of every 2 weeks and a length of 26 volition terminal for 1 twelvemonth.
Trial flow and interval: defines how much time should be provided equally a free trial at the starting time of the subscription. This length is added to any billing length. For example, a subscription with the billing interval and menses of every week, a length of 52 and a costless trial of 2 months will last for i year and ii months.
Synchronisation date (optional): a day of the week, month or year on which the first and future renewal payments should be candy. This engagement is but set when renewal synchronisation is setup.

A subscription'southward billing schedule is made upward of:

Billing interval and period: defines the schedule on which renewal payments should recur for the subscription. For example, every 2nd calendar week.
Trial end date: a engagement in the past or future on which the subscription trial menstruation will end or has ended. For subscription products purchased via the shop, this is calculated based on the production'southward trial menstruum and interval.
Side by side payment date: the date on which the next renewal payment will be candy, calculated using the subscriptions billing interval and flow added to the last payment engagement.
Terminate date: a date in the future on which the subscription will expire or be cancelled, or a date in the past on which the subscription expired or was cancelled. For subscription products purchased via the store, this is initially calculated based on the product'southward length.

A subscription product's schedule is used to display the product's billing terms to the customer on the product, cart and checkout pages in your store. It is also used to determine how subscription products should exist grouped in the cart. However, a subscription's billing schedule is what is used to make up one's mind the bodily renewal schedule of a subscription. This schedule will override the billing schedule assault whatsoever products added to that subscription as line items.

Examples ↑ Back to top

To demonstrate the deviation betwixt a subscription product and subscription, consider the following examples.

Purchasing a Monthly Coffee Subscription Product ↑ Back to pinnacle

A typical flow of a customer subscribing to a product in your store is:

Customer visits your online store which sells coffee
Customer views a coffee bean subscription product offered by your shop that ships a bag of beans every calendar month
Customer adds the coffee bean subscription product to their cart
Customer proceeds to checkout
Customer completes checkout to buy the java bean subscription production
WooCommerce creates an lodge to record the transaction. The coffee bean subscription product will be included as a line item on that order.
WooCommerce Subscriptions creates a subscription to record the agreement for future transactions. The coffee bean subscription product will also be included as a line item on that subscription.
Ane month later, the subscription will renew according to its billing schedule
WooCommerce Subscriptions creates a renewal guild to record the renewal payment transaction. The coffee bean subscription product will be listed equally a line item on that renewal society.

Manually Create a Subscription for a Monthly Service Fee ↑ Back to top

Imagine a shop that wants to manage payments for a regular service of $100 / month. The store does not publicly sell this service, so it does not need to create a subscription product to offer information technology to the public in the store.

Instead, it is possible to manually create a subscription that is not associated with any products and charges a $100 fee each month.

To practice this, the shop manager can:

Go to WooCommerce > Subscriptions > Add together Subscription screen
Add together a subscriber/client to the subscription
Prepare the billing schedule to renewal each month
Add a fee to the subscription for $100 (but do not add product line items)
Calculate recurring totals
Gear up subscription status to agile
Salve the subscription

This will create a subscription that renews each month and creates a renewal lodge for $100 as a fee line detail. It is not associated with any subscription products.

Notation: This example is provided to illustrate the divergence between products and subscriptions. Creating subscriptions with just fee line items is non recommended. Doing and so leads to a number of issues, including:

it won't be possible to go sales statistics for that line item using the WooCommerce Reports, as the reports only work for products.
the customer will not be able to manually pay for orders associated with the subscription, including renewal orders, because Subscriptions uses the WooCommerce cart to pay for these orders, and WooCommerce requires products to be added to the cart for checkout to exist possible.

Adding a Monthly Subscription Product to an Annual Subscription ↑ Dorsum to superlative

To illustrate how a subscription'due south billing schedule can override the billing schedule assail individual products added to that subscription equally line items, consider the following 2 items:

a subscription for $100 / year;
a subscription product for $25 / month.

If the $25 / month subscription product is manually added as a line detail to the subscription, it will not change it'due south billing schedule. The subscription will continue to renewal annually, unless the the billing schedule is besides manually changed.

Changing Product Line Items Over a Subscription's Lifecycle ↑ Back to superlative

Using additional plugins, like AutomateWoo or All Products for WooCommerce Subscriptions, it'south as well possible for a subscription'southward product line items to modify over its lifecycle.

For example, with AutomateWoo'due south Add together/Remove Product actions it's possible to setup monthly magazine subscriptions and have a dissimilar product and SKU for each month's mag included on each month's renewal club. This is done past creating a workflow which:

Runs after a renewal payment; and
Removes the previous month'southward magazine equally a product line item
Adds the next month'southward mag as a product line detail so that

While the products on the subscription change, no other subscription details, similar its billing schedule or aircraft accost, will be inverse.

Each month's mag as well does not need to be a subscription production, it can be a simple product available for one-off purchases in your shop.

Similarly, with All Products for WooCommerce Subscriptions, it'southward possible to add a not-subscription product to an existing subscription. For example, a customer could add together a different kind of java bean to their existing monthly subscription to some other type of coffee bean.

Over again, while the products on the subscription change, no other subscription details, similar its billing schedule, will exist changed when the new production is added.

Subscription Products vs Subscriptions Summary ↑ Back to top

A subscription product is something offered to the customer for purchase in your shop. For near stores, store managers will only ever need to create subscription products. When customers purchase those products, subscriptions volition be created automatically. These subscriptions continue a tape of the understanding for future transactions of those products. They volition also manage the renewal process to process payments and create orders to record those transactions.

Is A Subscription A Product Or Service,

Source: https://woocommerce.com/document/subscriptions/subscription-product-vs-subscription/#:~:text=a%20new%20subscription.-,Subscriptions,more%20products%20as%20line%20items.

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