Selling subscriptions (overview)
An overview of how to sell recurring subscription products with WooCommerce, including what's needed and how it works.
Subscriptions let customers pay you on a recurring basis — weekly, monthly, annually, or any schedule you choose. This is ideal for memberships, box subscriptions, software access, and any product or service that repeats.
Quick summary
WooCommerce does not include subscriptions by default. You need the WooCommerce Subscriptions extension (paid). It adds subscription product types, automatic recurring billing, and customer account management. Your payment gateway must also support automatic recurring charges — Stripe and PayPal both do.
What you need to sell subscriptions
Required
- WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin (official extension from WooCommerce, paid annually)
- A payment gateway that supports recurring billing (Stripe or PayPal recommended)
Optional but useful
- WooCommerce Memberships — pairs with Subscriptions to gate content and member benefits
- A subscription management dashboard for customers
How subscriptions work
You create a subscription product. In WooCommerce, when Subscriptions is installed, you'll have a new product type: "Simple subscription" or "Variable subscription." Set the price, billing period (weekly, monthly, etc.), and any free trial or sign-up fee.
A customer subscribes. They go through checkout like any normal order. Their payment details are saved securely with your payment gateway.
Automatic renewal billing. On the renewal date, WooCommerce automatically charges the customer's saved payment method. No action needed from you.
You manage subscriptions. Under WooCommerce → Subscriptions, you can see all active, paused, and cancelled subscriptions. You can manually suspend, cancel, or issue refunds.
Customers manage their own subscriptions. From their "My Account" page, customers can update their payment method, pause, or cancel their subscription (if you allow this).
Subscription product types
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Simple subscription | One product with a single recurring price |
| Variable subscription | Multiple variants — e.g., monthly vs. annual, or different tiers |
Pricing options for subscriptions
When creating a subscription product, you can configure:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Price | The recurring amount |
| Billing period | How often to charge (daily, weekly, monthly, annually) |
| Billing interval | Every 1, 2, 3 periods (e.g., every 3 months) |
| Free trial | Days or weeks before first charge |
| Sign-up fee | One-time fee charged at signup, in addition to the recurring price |
| Subscription length | Fixed number of billing periods, or ongoing until cancelled |
Handling subscription management
Test thoroughly before going live
Subscription billing involves automatic charges and saved payment details. Test the full flow — sign up, renewal, cancellation, and refund — using your payment gateway's sandbox mode before accepting real customers.
What you can do from the Subscriptions screen:
- View all active subscriptions
- See the next payment date
- Change a subscription's status (Active, On hold, Cancelled)
- Manually trigger a renewal payment
- Issue a refund for a subscription charge
Common questions
Related guides
- WooCommerce extensions explained
- Payment methods explained
- Accepting credit cards (Stripe & more)
- Selling bookings & appointments (overview)
Need a hand?