Turn any WooCommerce product into a subscription

What is the difference between simple and variable subscription products?

A simple subscription has one recurring offer: one price, one billing period, one trial policy. Use it when the decision you want from the buyer is just yes or no — a single membership, one software plan, one box.

A variable subscription is one product with multiple variations, and every variation carries its own subscription terms. Monthly vs yearly billing, Starter vs Pro vs Agency tiers, small vs large box — each variation can have a different price, period, trial, signup fee, and renewal price. Variable products keep plan families on one page, which is better for comparison shopping and for SEO than scattering near-identical products across the catalog.

• Simple: one recurring price — fastest to set up and clearest to buy
• Variable: one product, many plans — each variation has independent billing terms
• Both types support trials, signup fees, intro pricing, and plan switching

Which billing cycles, trials, and fees can I configure?

Billing periods run from daily to yearly with custom intervals — every week, every 3 months, every 2 years — and each plan can either renew until cancelled or stop automatically after a set number of cycles. That covers everything from a weekly meal box to a 12-payment annual contract.

On top of the cycle you can layer three pricing levers. A free trial delays the first charge while the subscription starts immediately. A one-time signup fee collects setup or onboarding revenue at checkout without inflating the renewal price. And a different renewal price lets you sell an introductory rate that steps up (or down) to the standing price after the cycles you choose — the cleanest way to run launch offers without coupons.

Can customers choose their own subscription length?

Yes — with Pro, each product has a Subscription Type switch. In Flexible Length mode, buyers pick how many billing cycles they want, up to a maximum you set. In Full Flexible mode they also pick the billing period itself from a list you approve — weekly, monthly, yearly — and the product page shows a live summary of the terms they built.

Every choice is re-validated on the server, carried through cart and checkout, and written into the subscription record, so renewals and automatic expiry follow exactly what the customer selected. It is prepaid flexibility with guardrails: the customer feels in control while your billing stays predictable.

Can I sell fixed-date, seasonal, or cohort subscriptions?

Fixed-Date Subscriptions (Pro) end on a calendar date instead of a relative length — perfect for annual memberships that run January to December, sports seasons, school cohorts, and licensing windows. Enrollment windows control when customers can join, and you decide whether the subscription expires at the cutoff or rolls into the next period.

Combined with Flexible Renewal Sync, late joiners can be charged a prorated amount, the full amount, or the full amount covering the next cycle — so mid-season signups stop being a manual bookkeeping problem.

How does plan switching and proration work?

Customers outgrow plans, and forcing cancel-and-repurchase is how stores lose them. ArraySubs supports upgrades, downgrades, and crossgrades between eligible products and variations — self-service from the customer portal or staff-assisted from wp-admin — while the subscription record, history, and notes stay continuous.

Money movement follows one of three proration methods you choose per switch policy: charge or credit the difference immediately, settle at the next renewal, or switch with no adjustment. Renewal dates stay aligned with the method, so the invoice a customer sees always matches the plan they are on.

Can I control which subscriptions can be bought together?

Conditional Subscription Rules give the store guardrails at the cart level. Limit customers to one active subscription per product (no accidental duplicates) or one subscription per customer for single-relationship business models — with optional auto-migration that replaces the old plan when a customer checks out with a new one.

You also decide whether subscriptions can share a cart with one-time products, and whether plans with different billing cycles can be purchased in a single checkout. One-click checkout URLs round it out: link a buyer from any sales page or email straight into checkout with the right plan already in the cart.