Repeat orders & subscriptions

Daily milk, weekly groceries, monthly refills — the order creates itself, priced from today's catalogue.

5 min readUpdated 14 Sep 2026

In this guide

If customers buy the same thing on a rhythm — a litre of milk every morning, groceries every Sunday, a refill every month — subscriptions create those orders for you. This guide covers turning it on, how the price is decided each time, and what the customer can change themselves.

What it is, and what it is not

A subscription is a standing order: the same basket, on a schedule you and the customer agree. On each due date the order is created exactly as if the customer had placed it — it appears in Orders, decrements stock, raises an invoice and sends the usual WhatsApp updates.

It is not an auto-debit. Nothing is charged to a saved card. Each order is paid the way you already take money — cash on delivery, UPI, or a pay link.

Due date arrivesDaily, weekly or monthly
Order is createdPriced from today's catalogue
You fulfil itExactly like any other order
Customer is toldThe usual WhatsApp updates

The price is never stale

This is the part that matters most and the part shopkeepers most fear getting wrong. Every generated order is re-priced from your current catalogue. If you raised the price of milk last week, the order created tomorrow morning uses the new price.

A weekly basket, after a price change

Milk 2L — was ₹66, now ₹70: ₹70
Bread — unchanged: ₹45
Eggs (6) — unchanged: ₹54
This week's order: ₹169
No stale price is ever carried forward from the original basket: —

Because prices refresh, a customer can be surprised by a bigger bill. If you raise a price on something many people subscribe to, send them a line on WhatsApp first. It costs nothing and prevents a refused delivery.

Turning it on

Enable subscriptions

Open Subscriptions — until it is on, the page is reached from the row of chips on your Orders page rather than the sidebar — and turn on Let customers subscribe to repeat deliveries. The switch saves on its own and the page then says Live — subscriptions are on for this store; Subscriptions also joins your sidebar. Until you switch it on, nothing repeats and customers never see the option.

Decide which products make sense

Consumables: milk, water, vegetables, medicines, pet food, refills. A saree is not a subscription.

Watch the first cycle

Open Subscriptions the morning after the first due date and confirm the orders look right — quantities, addresses, the day they landed.

Work the list, not your memory

If you deliver on your own van, pair this with Zone Delivery Days and you get a route list for tomorrow with the repeat orders already on it.

What else it can do

You can sign customers up yourself — took the details at the doorstep or on a call? Create the subscription from the Subscriptions page (phone, items, schedule, payment way). The customer manages it from their account afterwards.
Weekday schedules — not just "every N days": Mon–Sat tiffin, Mon/Thu water rounds.
Product-page Subscribe box — open any product's Subscription (repeat deliveries) section and choose: Buy only (normal), Buy or subscribe (both options shown, with an optional subscriber saving %), or Subscribe only (no one-time purchase — tiffin services, water contracts). Subscribe-only is enforced on our servers too, not just hidden buttons.
Wallet-paid subscriptions — the customer loads money once; each delivery is paid from the wallet automatically at that day's price. You choose what happens when the balance runs out: pause (with a clear reason the customer sees) or deliver that day as Cash on Delivery. Store credit has to be switched on first — the setting links you straight to the Customer Wallet console (Wallet in your sidebar).
Vacations and quantity changes — customers set a holiday range or bump quantities from their account; you can set an order-change cut-off time ("changes for tomorrow close at 9 PM").
No-delivery days — mark a festival date once and every subscription skips it; nobody is charged.
Load sheet — the Subscriptions page shows the next 7 days' deliveries rolled up per product ("tomorrow: 42× 1L full cream").
Zone routes respected — with Zone Delivery Days on, each cycle lands on that customer's van day automatically.

What the customer controls

From their account they can pause, skip, change quantity or stop entirely. That matters: the single fastest way to lose a subscriber is making them phone you to skip a week while they are travelling.

A subscription is judged like an order when it starts: if the saved address is outside your delivery area, or outside the product's own area (Where you deliver), it is refused with the reason instead of creating deliveries that could never go out.

Example · Prakash, a dairy in Pune

Ninety-four households on a daily milk subscription. Nobody messages him at 5am any more — they pause in the app when they travel, and his morning list is already correct when he loads the van.

Running them well

Do this

Start with your ten most regular customers, not a launch
Check the generated orders every morning for the first week
Warn subscribers before a price rise on their item
Keep the basket small — one or two items renew far more reliably

Not this

Subscriptions on things people buy once
Assuming a paused subscriber has left — most come back
Editing a generated order's price by hand instead of fixing the product

A subscriber is worth many times a one-time buyer. Treat a pause as normal and a cancellation as worth one polite message asking why.

Common questions

What if an item is out of stock on the due date?

The order is created and you see it as normal — you decide whether to substitute, part-deliver or hold. Nothing is silently dropped.

Do coupons and loyalty apply to generated orders?

No. Repeat orders skip coupons, loyalty earning and influencer attribution deliberately — a code meant for one purchase should not apply forever.

Can I create a subscription for a customer myself?

Yes — set it up from their order, and it repeats from there. Most owners start this way.

What happens if I pause ordering for a holiday?

Repeat orders keep generating so your standing customers are not cut off; only new public orders pause. If you are closing for days, tell subscribers directly.

Can I charge the card automatically?

No, and that is deliberate. Auto-debit needs a separate mandate under RBI rules; here each order is paid the same way your other orders are. Customers who keep a store wallet balance can choose the wallet — each delivery then settles from it automatically, and if the balance runs short the subscription pauses (or falls back to Cash on Delivery, your choice) instead of failing silently.

How do I collect a month's payments together (khata style)?

Open Subscriptions → Monthly statement, pick the month, and you get every subscriber's deliveries and what is still to collect. Tap Send bill to WhatsApp them the amount, and Mark received once they pay you — it settles all that month's pending Cash-on-Delivery orders in one go.

Can I sell plans for digital products — courses, downloads?

Yes. In Subscriptions → Plans & digital library, link a plan to one of your digital products (that product's price is the plan price), choose the period and how many downloads it includes. Your site gets a /plans page automatically, buyers pay through the normal checkout, and their files appear under My Account → Librarywith the download limit enforced for you. Buying the plan again simply extends it. One tip: write "After payment, open My Account → Library for your files" in the plan product's description, so buyers know exactly where to go. Two things to check: add the /plans page to your menu from Website → Navigation, and make sure UPI or a payment gateway is set up — downloads can't be paid by cash on delivery.