Migrating to Essential Subscriptions from Another Subscription App

Moving from Recharge, Kaching, Appstle, Seal or another subscription app? Our support team can import your active subscriptions in bulk. This guide shows what to get from your current app, and the safe order of steps.

The Short Version

1. Set up Essential Subscriptions and go live for new customers.
2. Export your active subscriptions from your current app as a CSV file.
3. Send the CSV to our support team. We check it and import it.
4. For each subscription: cancel it in the old app, then activate it here.
5. Keep the old app installed until it has no ongoing subscriptions left.

Before You Start: Where Are the Payment Methods Saved?

Subscription apps do not store payment details themselves. A customer's payment method, whether a card, PayPal or another method, sits in one of two places:

• In Shopify, through Shopify Payments or Shop Pay.
• In an outside gateway, such as Stripe, Braintree or Authorize.net.

We can only import subscriptions whose payment method is saved in Shopify. To check, open a subscriber under Customers in your Shopify admin and look for a saved payment method. If you are not sure, ask your current app which gateway your subscriptions bill through.

Which Situation Are You In?

Step 1: Go Live for New Customers First

Set up the new side before you touch the old one:

1. Work through the Setup Guide on the app's Home page: activate the app embed, create your subscription campaigns and turn on the customer portal.
2. Place a test order to check the widget and checkout.
3. In your old app, turn off its widget and remove its subscription plans from your products. Customers should see one subscription option, not two.

You can run both apps at the same time. New subscribers check out through Essential Subscriptions. Existing subscriptions keep running in the old app until their contracts are imported into Essential Subscriptions.

Step 2: Export Your Subscriptions as a CSV

Export all active subscriptions from your current app as a CSV file. If you cannot find an export, ask the app's support for one. For every subscription, the file must include:

• Shopify subscription contract ID
• Shopify customer ID
• Shopify payment method ID
• Products and variants (Shopify IDs), quantity and unit price
• Currency
• Delivery and billing frequency
• Next billing date
• Delivery address and shipping price, if it ships

The unit price is the price in the subscription contract, not the current price in your store.

The three Shopify IDs matter most. Without the payment method ID we cannot connect the subscription to the customer's payment method. The full list of required and optional fields is in How to Import Subscriptions in Bulk from Another App.

Tip: Export a few days before the next charges are due. Every imported subscription needs a next billing date of tomorrow or later.

Step 3: Send the CSV to Our Support Team

Contact support from the app and attach the CSV. We check every subscription against your store and run the import. If something needs fixing, we tell you what.

Step 4: Cancel in the Old App, Activate Here

Imported subscriptions arrive Paused, with an Imported badge. Nothing is charged until you activate them. Your old app keeps billing until you cancel there.

Before you start, turn off cancellation emails in your old app, or ask its support to cancel without sending them. Otherwise customers get a "your subscription was cancelled" email and think it has ended.

Then work through your subscriptions one at a time:

1. Cancel the subscription in your old app.
2. Here, open the matching subscription from the Paused tab in Subscriptions.
3. Check the products, price, schedule and next order date against your export.
4. Click Activate subscription, then Activate imported subscription.

Orders are created from the next billing date. We send no email when a subscription is imported or activated.

Note: Customers see imported subscriptions as paused in the customer portal and can resume them there. Do not leave a subscription running in the old app for long after the import, or a customer who resumes can be charged twice.

Step 5: Keep the Old App Until It Is Empty

Do not uninstall the old app while it still has ongoing subscriptions, including prepaid ones that still have deliveries to ship. Uninstalling stops it from handling them.

Once every subscription has been moved or has ended, you can uninstall it. Uninstalling may also remove its reports and history, so export anything you want to keep first.

Prepaid Subscribers

A prepaid customer already paid for the whole term. Never recreate or import a prepaid subscription that is already paid. The customer would be charged a second time.

Leave prepaid subscriptions in the old app until their term ends. The old app keeps handling the remaining deliveries. When the term ends, invite the customer to subscribe again through the widget on your store. See Prepaid and Pay as You Go Subscriptions Explained.

Already uninstalled the old app? The original order stays in your Shopify admin. Open it under Orders. If it has upcoming scheduled fulfillments, ship each one on its date as usual. If none remain (some apps created a separate order each month), create the remaining orders yourself:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Orders and click Create order.
2. Add the customer and their subscription product.
3. Apply a 100% discount so the total is 0. The customer already paid, and your sales reports stay correct.
4. Click Collect payment, then Mark as paid. Fulfil the order when the delivery ships.

Common Questions

Can I import the subscriptions myself? Not yet. Our support team runs the import for you.

I only have a few subscribers. Should I create them by hand? Import is still the better option. You can create a subscription by hand in Subscriptions with Create subscription, but the customer then gets the New subscription email unless you turn it off first. See How to Create a Subscription for a Customer Manually.

Can I run both apps at the same time? Yes. That is the recommended way during the move.

Will my customers be charged twice? Not if you cancel each subscription in the old app before you activate it here.

What about subscribers whose payment method is in Stripe or Braintree? We cannot import those. Invite them to subscribe again through your store.

Last updated September 2026