Limited subscriptions (aka "payment plans) are subscriptions that end after a specified number of billing cycles (ex: 3 payments of $50). Subscriptions can be billed monthly, yearly, quarterly, or even according to a custom schedule of your choosing. They can be created with free trials, or paid trial periods. SamCart gives you the flexibility to sell however you see fit.
If you want to create a subscription that does not stop, check out the Unlimited Recurring Subscription help article.
Create Your Limited Subscription Product
Start by navigating to your Products (1) tab and clicking + New Product (2).
You will define your product’s pricing structure in the popup that appears. Let’s take a look at each of the options:
- Product Name: This is the product name that will appear in your customer’s receipts and emails.
- Description: Enter a brief description of your product. This section is optional and used for internal use only.
- Product Type: Select if your product will be Digital or Physical subscription. You will then need to select either Recurring or Limited. To create a limited subscription, select Limited Subscription. Limited subscriptions bill at regular intervals until a designated number of payments are completed. If you would like to create a subscription with no end date, check out our Recurring Subscriptions article.
- Recurring Period: This is how often your subscription will bill - weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or custom days.
- No. of charges: Enter the total number of charges for your limited subscription. For example, if you are creating a payment plan that is 4 payments of $100, enter '4'.
- Pay What You Want: Toggle this "On" this if you would like your product to be a Pay What You Want product.
- Subscription Price: The recurring subscription price.
- Trial Period: Toggle this to ‘On’ if you would like your subscription to include a trial period.
- Create Product: When you’re all done, click Create Product to move on to setting up your product page and details!
Subscription Examples
Below are a few examples of different types of limited subscriptions, and the settings you would enter to make them happen in SamCart.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I change the recurring price for an existing product?
A: Any subscription-based product that has (or had) active subscribers cannot have its pricing structure changed. If you want to update the price, we suggest creating a duplicate product at the appropriate price and setting up a checkout redirect that points to the newly remade product.
Q: Can I create a limited subscription with a single payment (No. of Charges = 1)?
A: You cannot create a limited subscription with a single payment. Instead, try creating a one-time payment product!
You can, however, create a limited subscription with a single payment (No. of Charges = 1) if there is a free or paid trial. For example, an initial charge of $100 and then 1 payment of $50 30 days later.
Q: What happens to my Limited subscriptions when I close my SamCart account?
A: Any active limited subscriptions, such as payment plans that will end after a set number of payments, are stopped immediately and will not continue to bill. This is due to the fact that they are directly managed by SamCart itself, not your connected processor(s).
Q: Can I pay off a subscription without charging the customer anything?
A: Yes you can! When you click the button to pay off a subscription, the popup will have a Discount Payoff toggle. If you toggle this on, you will have the option to discount the payoff by a percentage or fixed amount. 