Manage Subscriptions, Emails and Reports

Sooner or later a subscriber asks you to move their billing date, swap a card ID, fix an address or cancel on their behalf. If that means poking at order meta or a database row, you’ll put it off, and the subscriber waits.

The Subscriptions module gives you a list screen, a full edit screen, thirteen emails and a dashboard widget for recurring revenue. Everything is under Stackless → Subscriptions, and it needs the manage_woocommerce capability.

The Subscriptions List

The list has an All view plus a view for each status that has subscriptions (Pending, Trial, Active, On hold, Paused, Pending cancellation, Cancelled, Expired), each with a count, and a search box that matches subscription ID, email or name. Columns:

• Subscription, with the customer name and email
• Status
• Items
• Recurring total
• Start date, Next payment and End date (“When cancelled” for open-ended plans)
• Renewal: Automatic, Manual, or Gateway when Polar bills it

Bulk actions: Cancel at period end, Cancel now, Put on hold and Reactivate.

Edit a Subscription

Click a subscription number to open its edit screen. The Details box lets you change:

• Customer (user ID) and Status. A status change runs the same steps as the matching action, so schedules and gateways follow.
• Billing schedule: Every 1 to 365 days, weeks, months or years.
• Renewal: Automatic or Manual (invoice).
• Payment method and Token ID. The token must belong to the customer.
• Trial end, Next payment and End dates, in your site’s timezone. Start and Last payment are read-only.

Periods shows how many billing periods are paid, like “3 of 12 paid”, and Parent order links the first order.

A paused subscription also shows Paused, with the date it was paused and when it resumes, or “when resumed by hand”. When the customer gave a reason for cancelling, Cancellation reason shows it with their comment.

Recurring items lets you edit quantity and line total. Tick Recalculate taxes from the address after saving item changes when taxes should follow. Addresses has full billing and shipping fields, and Related orders lists the parent, renewal, early renewal and switch orders.

The side column has three boxes:

• Actions: Process renewal now, Retry failed payment, Email renewal invoice, Email renewal reminder, Put on hold, Skip next renewal, Resume (paused), Reactivate, Cancel at period end and Cancel now. Pick one, then click Save subscription.
• Scheduled actions: the next renewal, trial end, end of term, retry, overdue check and reminders.
• Notes: the subscription’s history, plus a box to add a private note.

Order edit screens get a Subscriptions panel too. It shows each linked subscription and whether this order created, renewed or switched it.

Date Rules

• The next payment date must be in the future and before the end date.
• Changing the next payment date also moves the billing day of the month for later renewals.
• For Polar subscriptions, the next payment date can’t be changed because Polar controls it, and schedule changes here don’t change Polar’s billing.

Pause, Resume and Skip

To pause a subscription, set Status to Paused and click Save subscription. It stays paused until you resume it: pick Resume (paused) in Actions, or set Status back to Active. The customer can resume it from My Account too.

A pause from here follows the same rules as a customer pause, whether or not Customer pause is on for customers. Only an Active subscription with nothing unpaid can be paused, and not one billed by Polar, Dodo Payments or Creem. The paid time left is given back on resume, and the customer gets the Subscription paused and Subscription resumed emails.

Put on hold and Paused aren’t the same. On hold keeps the dates as they are and waits for a payment or for you. Paused gives back the paid time left when it resumes and moves a fixed-length plan’s end date.

Skip next renewal moves the next payment one billing period later without charging it, like the customer’s button, whether or not Skip a renewal is on for customers. Both are covered in What Customers Can Do from My Account.

The Thirteen Subscription Emails

All thirteen are in WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, where you can turn each one on or off and edit its subject, heading and extra content.

1. New subscription (admin): to the store when a subscription starts. Recipients default to the site admin email.
2. New subscription: to the customer when it starts.
3. Subscription renewal invoice: manual renewals, with a pay link. Also used for unpaid-renewal reminders.
4. Subscription renewed: when a renewal payment succeeds.
5. Subscription payment failed: when a renewal payment fails, with a link to pay.
6. Upcoming renewal reminder: a few days before each renewal.
7. Free trial ending: a few days before a trial ends.
8. Subscription cancelled: when a subscription is cancelled or set to end at the period’s close.
9. Subscription expired: when a fixed-length plan reaches its end.
10. Subscription switched: when a customer switches plans.
11. Card expiring: before a renewal, when the saved card it will charge expires first. The timing is the Card-expiring email setting, covered in Renewals, Failed Payments and Retries.
12. Subscription paused: when a subscription is paused, by the customer or by you, with the resume date when there is one.
13. Subscription resumed: when a paused subscription starts again.

Subjects and headings can use {subscription_number}, {order_number} and {next_payment_date}. To restyle a template, copy it from templates/subscriptions/emails/ in the plugin to stackless/subscriptions/emails/ in your theme. The Copy file to theme button in the email settings does the same.

The Dashboard Widget

The Subscriptions widget on the WordPress dashboard shows:

• Active: subscriptions that are active, in trial or pending cancellation
• Churn (30 days): subscriptions cancelled or expired in the last 30 days, divided by those plus the ones still active
• Renewals in 7 days
• Monthly recurring revenue, one line per currency, with each plan converted to a monthly amount
• trial, on-hold and paused counts, and up to 10 upcoming renewals with links

Trials, on-hold and paused subscriptions aren’t counted in MRR. The numbers are cached for up to an hour and refresh when a subscription changes status or a renewal is paid.

For problems rather than numbers, such as overdue renewals or charges that never finished, see Find Billing Problems with Billing Health.

Coexisting with WooCommerce Subscriptions

Stackless pauses its Subscriptions module while WooCommerce Subscriptions is active, so the two never process the same renewals. The same applies to Subscriptions for WooCommerce, YITH WooCommerce Subscription and SUMO Subscriptions. Its card on Stackless → Dashboard shows “Paused because [plugin] is active and does the same job.”

To move your WooCommerce Subscriptions subscriptions into Stackless, see Migrate from WooCommerce Subscriptions.

Limits

• The importer brings subscriptions over from WooCommerce Subscriptions only. Other subscription plugins aren’t imported.
• Cancellation reasons show on the subscription and in Billing Health. WordPress’s personal data export includes the reason and the customer’s comment, and erasing the customer’s personal data removes the comment and keeps the reason.
• MRR is reported per currency and isn’t converted into one total.