Selling subscriptions from a small shop: options compared

Short answer: If your shop is on Shopify, start with Shopify's own Subscriptions app; on WooCommerce, the official WooCommerce Subscriptions extension is the usual route; and if you're selling a subscription without a full shop (a bread club, a members' box), Stripe Billing with its hosted pages can be enough. The software is the easy part. What decides whether a subscription works for a small business is the fulfilment rhythm, how failed payments are handled, and whether customers can skip a month without emailing you.

A bag of beans every fortnight, a sourdough loaf each Saturday, a quarterly box of candles: the product works on repeat. The trick is making the repeat run itself.

The three main routes

	Shopify Subscriptions (app)	WooCommerce Subscriptions (extension)	Stripe Billing (hosted)
Best for	Shopify stores adding a "subscribe" option to products	WordPress shops that want subscriptions inside their existing store	Simple recurring plans sold by link, no full shop needed
Renewal frequencies	Weekly, monthly or yearly, with several plans per product	Set per subscription product	Set per price
Customer self-service	Customers sign in to their account to skip, resume, cancel, change payment method and address	Customer "My Account" area	Stripe's customer portal (update payment details, cancel, with optional cancellation reasons and offers)
Failed payments	Card auto-updater with Shopify Payments; other details in app settings	Retry system, off by default; five default rules over 7 days when enabled	Smart Retries; recommended default is 8 tries within 2 weeks
Watch out for	Supported payment gateways only; bundles not compatible	Retry system doesn't trigger for SEPA payments	You'll need another tool for shipping labels and stock

All details are from each provider's own documentation as of November 2026; check the current pages before deciding, as features move quickly.

Shopify Subscriptions: what to know

Shopify's help centre lists what the app does: auto-billed subscriptions renewing weekly, monthly or yearly; modify, skip, pause and cancel; discounts on subscription products; a widget on the product page; email notifications; and analytics on active, paused and cancelled subscriptions.

The considerations page is the one to read before committing:

Supported gateways only. Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Authorize.net, Adyen and Stripe, depending on region. Local or manual payment methods may not work for subscriptions.
Billing time. Customers are billed the day after the subscription is due, at 10:00 in your store's local time. Plan your roasting or baking day around that, not around the order date you see first.
Gift cards and some discounts apply to the first payment only. Don't promise "use your gift card for the whole subscription."
Bundles aren't compatible with the app, so a "pick three items" box may need a different approach or a third-party app.
Card updates. With Shopify Payments, automatic card updates reduce failures when customers get new cards.

WooCommerce Subscriptions: what to know

The extension turns a product into a subscription inside WooCommerce. Its Failed Recurring Payment Retry System is worth switching on deliberately: WooCommerce's documentation says it's off by default. When enabled, five default rules retry over 7 days (the first retry 12 hours after the failure), putting the subscription on hold between attempts and emailing you and the customer as each rule specifies. It doesn't run for SEPA payments, and it only works where the payment gateway lets WooCommerce control the billing schedule.

Stripe Billing: what to know

For a bakery selling a "bread club" to fifty locals, a full shop may be overkill. A Stripe payment link for a recurring price, plus Stripe's no-code customer portal, covers sign-up, card updates and cancellation. Smart Retries reattempts failed payments; you can choose from 1 week to 2 months, and Stripe's recommended default is 8 tries within 2 weeks. What you won't get is stock management or shipping labels, so this route suits collection or local delivery better than posted boxes.

Choosing quickly

Already on Shopify and shipping products? Shopify Subscriptions.
Already on WooCommerce and happy there? WooCommerce Subscriptions.
No shop, local collection, one or two plans? Stripe Billing.
Complex boxes (customer picks contents each month, curated variants)? Look at a specialist subscription app or a custom build, and test the "change contents" flow before anything else.

Operations checklist

The software renews payments. Everything else is on you, so set these up before launch:

Rhythm

[ ] Fix one renewal day per cadence (e.g. all fortnightly coffee bills on a Monday) so production happens in batches.
[ ] Decide the cut-off: changes made after it apply to the next delivery, not this one. Say so on the account page.
[ ] Put the dispatch day on the product page: "Roasted Tuesday, posted Wednesday."

Stock and capacity

[ ] Before each renewal day, export upcoming renewals to see quantities by product and grind or size.
[ ] Cap new sign-ups if you can't make more than a set number per week. A waiting list beats late boxes.

Failed payments

[ ] Turn on retries (and on WooCommerce, check it's actually enabled).
[ ] Decide whether a box ships before a retried payment succeeds. Most small shops shouldn't.
[ ] Write a friendly failed-payment email with a direct link to update card details.

Customer self-service

[ ] Test skip, pause and cancel as a customer, on a phone.
[ ] Make sure the account login link is in every renewal email.

Shipping

[ ] Check subscription orders flow into your label or courier tool like normal orders.
[ ] Price shipping into the subscription or show it clearly; surprise postage is a common reason people cancel.

Review monthly

[ ] Active, paused and cancelled counts (Shopify's analytics shows these), failed payments recovered, and the most common cancellation reasons if you collect them.

FAQ

Can customers buy a subscription and a one-off item in the same order?

On Shopify and WooCommerce, mixed baskets are generally supported, but check how your shipping rules and discounts behave with both types in one checkout before launch.

Can I offer a prepaid three-month gift subscription?

Many subscription tools support prepaid plans; on Shopify you can even add recurring and prepaid subscriptions to draft orders. Test how the gift recipient's address and messages work.

What happens to subscriptions if I change platform?

Payment details usually can't be moved freely between gateways, and Shopify offers an import and export tool for subscription contracts. Plan any migration with your payment provider first.

Do I need a developer?

Not for the standard set-ups above. You'd want one for custom box-builders, unusual delivery schedules, or connecting renewals to a production planning sheet.

If you'd like next week's renewals to land as a production list instead of a pile of orders, we can help set that up.