Getting started with Essential Subscriptions

Essential Subscriptions lets you offer recurring purchases on your store. Customers subscribe on the product page, get their orders delivered on a schedule, and manage everything themselves from their account — while you track it all from the app.

This guide walks you through the Setup Guide on the app's Home page. There are five steps, and most stores are live in a few minutes.

The Setup Guide

When you open Essential Subscriptions, the Home page shows a Setup Guide with five steps. Work through them top to bottom. Each step has an action button and a way to mark it done. If you get stuck on any step, use the Contact support button.

Step 1: Activate the app embed

This makes the subscription widget appear on your product pages.

1. On the Home page, click Activate on Activate app embed in Shopify.
2. This opens the Theme Editor. In the left sidebar, under App embeds, find Essential Subscriptions.
3. Toggle it on and click Save in the Theme Editor.
4. Return to the app.

The widget is now live. It automatically appears on any product that has a published subscription campaign assigned to it (you'll set that up next).

Step 2: Create a subscription campaign & customise the widget

A campaign defines the subscription offer customers see on your product pages — which products it applies to, the delivery and billing schedule, the discount, and how the widget looks.

Click Create campaign to begin. See How to Create a Subscription Campaign and How to Customise the Subscription Widget for the full walkthrough.

Step 3: Enable the customer portal

The customer portal lets subscribers manage their own subscriptions — pause, skip, cancel, change frequency, and update their payment method or address.

Click Set up customer portal. See How to Set Up the Customer Portal for details.

Step 4: Review customer notification emails

Essential Subscriptions sends automatic emails to your customers for subscription events like upcoming charges, confirmations, and payment failures. The important ones are on by default.

Click Review notifications to check them, then click I've done it. See Customer Notification Emails for details.

Step 5: Confirm subscriptions are working

Place a test order to make sure everything runs end to end.

1. Open your online store and go to a product that has your campaign assigned.
2. Confirm the subscription widget appears with your options.
3. Add a subscription to the cart and check out using Shopify's test payment gateway (Bogus Gateway).
4. Open your customer account page — the subscription should appear with management options.
5. Back in the app, open Subscriptions in the sidebar — your test subscription should show with status Active.
6. If everything looks good, click Everything's fine on this step. If not, click I need help.

What's on the Home page after setup

Once you're set up, the Home page shows a Past 30 days snapshot:

• Active Subscriptions — how many subscriptions are currently active
• MRR — your Monthly Recurring Revenue

Click View analytics for the full breakdown. See Understanding Your Analytics.

Last updated June 2026