Subscriptions app Customer Notification Emails

Essential Subscriptions automatically emails your customers about important subscription events — upcoming charges, confirmations, pauses, cancellations, and payment problems. The important ones are on by default, and you can edit the wording of each.

To manage them, go to Settings → Email notifications to customers.

The Email Types

The New subscription email is sent in addition to Shopify's standard order confirmation email. It also goes out when you create a subscription for a customer yourself.

Three things about this list are worth knowing before a customer asks:

• Nothing is sent after the final failed attempt. The last thing the customer hears about the payment is the before last attempt email. After that they get the paused or cancelled email instead.
• Orders that fail because a product is out of stock send the customer no email at all. Only you are notified.
• There is a tenth email the app sends that is not in this list and cannot be switched off: Action required to complete your subscription payment, when a customer's bank asks for extra verification. Without it the charge cannot go through.

The full failure sequence is in When Customers Are Charged, and What Happens When a Payment Fails.

Turning an Email On or Off

In Settings, the Email notifications to customers section lists every email with a toggle. The summary line shows how many are currently on (e.g. 7 out of 9 on). Turn any email off if you'd prefer not to send it.

Editing an Email

Click an email to open its editor. You can customise:

• Subject — the email subject line.
• Heading and Content — the main message body.
• Button text — the labels on the View your order and Manage your subscription buttons.
• Order summary labels — the wording for Subtotal, Shipping, Taxes, and Total.
• Customer information labels — the wording for Shipping address, Billing address, Payment, and Shipping method.
• Footer text — a custom footer.

Click Reset to defaults at any time to restore the original wording. It refills the fields, and you still need to Save.

Variables

Click the {} button beside a field to insert a value that is filled in when the email is sent, such as the customer name, your shop name, the billing interval, the next charge date or the order total. The list shown is the one that applies to that email.

Note: A variable you type by hand that is not on the list is sent to the customer exactly as written, brackets and all. Use the {} button rather than typing.

Translations

If your store has more than one language, each email editor has a Translations card. Click Add translation, pick a language, and translate the wording. Customers are emailed in their own language where you have provided it.

Charge reminder timing

The Upcoming subscription charge reminder has an extra setting, Send reminder email, which controls how many days ahead of the charge the email is sent. You can set 1 to 30 days. The default is 1 day.

Sending a Test Email

Each email editor has a Send test email button. Three things to expect:

• The test goes to your store email address, not to the address of whoever clicks it.
• The subject is prefixed with [TEST] and the content uses sample data, not a real subscription.
• It sends your saved settings, so save your edits before testing them.

Saving Changes

When you edit an email, a save bar appears at the top. Click Save to keep your changes or Discard to undo them.

Related

• To change the button and text colours in your emails, go to Settings and Email template customisation. You can set the primary button, the secondary button and links, and two text colours. Logo upload is not available yet, so emails carry no logo.
• To control which address your emails are sent from, see How to Customise Your Sender Email.
• To get yourself or your team notified about subscription events, see Staff Notifications.