A Shopify subscription consultant designs and fixes the parts of a subscription programme that decide whether customers stay: the subscribe-and-save offer, the choice of app, the customer portal, the cancellation flow and failed-payment recovery. The work also covers moving subscribers between apps without double charges or lost customers.
I lead each engagement and work across Shopify Subscriptions, Recharge, Loop and Skio. The Night Marketer team handles implementation.
Client result
Meal subscriptions, Prince Edward Island, Canada. A plan-first builder with 4, 6 and 12-meal tiers, price per meal shown upfront, a sticky progress bar on mobile, and nutrition figures on every meal card.
Read the Fuel Your Body case study →Fix the step where you lose the most subscribers. That is usually one of four places: the offer on the product page, the portal, the cancellation flow, or failed payments.
| Where | What goes wrong | What is changed |
|---|---|---|
| Product page offer | The saving, delivery frequency or commitment is unclear, so buyers pick one-time | Offer design, plan tiers and how the saving is shown |
| Customer portal | Customers cannot skip, swap or change dates without emailing support | Portal layout and the self-service actions on it |
| Cancellation flow | The only option is cancel, even when the customer just needed a pause | Pause, skip and swap offers before cancelling, with reasons recorded |
| Failed payments | Cards fail and nobody follows up, or the follow-up feels like spam | Retry timing and recovery messages |
| App migration | Billing dates, discounts or payment methods break during the move | A staged cutover with reconciliation |
It depends on where your programme leaks and on your subscriber numbers, so the baseline is agreed before any retention claim is made. One published example:
Fuel Your Body (meal subscriptions, Prince Edward Island, Canada), January to September 2025:
Other things changed in the same months, so the redesign is not the only possible cause. Read the Fuel Your Body case study for the method and its limits.
Fix the current app when the problem is the offer, the portal or payment recovery. Migrate when the app cannot do what the programme needs, or its cost no longer fits your subscriber count.
| Fix the current app | Migrate to another app | |
|---|---|---|
| Best when | The app supports what you need but is set up poorly | A required feature is missing or costs have outgrown the plan |
| What changes | Offer, portal, cancellation flow and recovery settings | Subscriber records, payment methods, billing dates and messaging |
| Risk | Low: one flow at a time | Higher: needs a tested cutover and reconciliation |
| Time | Weeks for a single flow | Planned around billing cycles, agreed separately |
Scope, cost and delivery
Review one subscription programme, then scope a portal, cancellation or payment-recovery improvement. Migration is a separate workstream when needed.
Current and target app; active subscriber count; payment-provider compatibility; custom portal work; messaging and reporting requirements.
The proposal separates discovery, implementation and ongoing support. Software licences, hosting and usage charges are identified separately. We confirm the price against your samples and acceptance criteria before implementation starts.
Indicative planning ranges for the focused scope above, starting once access and samples are ready. These are estimates; the proposal confirms dates and dependencies.
Bring a redacted cancellation report, the portal journey and examples of failed payments. We review pause, skip, swap, recovery and customer communications against the installed app. We agree what success means before making a retention claim.
Shopify agency profile and reviews →Before you commit, agree which sample records, screens or reports the pilot must demonstrate and who will accept them. Any before-and-after result needs an agreed baseline and measurement period.
Tell me which subscription app you use and whether the issue is cancellation, payment recovery, the portal or migration.
Review my subscription programme →Agree a small deliverable, fee and acceptance checks in writing. Review the work, pay after acceptance and decide whether to continue. Remote delivery in English, led by Raghav with The Night Marketer.
The pattern behind the request
Launch, fix or migrate Shopify subscriptions: offer design, app choice, customer portal, cancellation flows, failed-payment recovery and retention reporting.
A clear path, not a black box
You stay close to the important decisions without becoming the project manager for every specialist. The process is deliberately practical: understand, shape, prove, hand over.
We start with the current workflow, the data that enters it, the people who touch it, and the point where useful work starts waiting.
The right path may be a cleaner process, a connector, a page change, a CRM rule, or a focused build. The design makes ownership and exceptions explicit.
We prove the important scenarios, document the operating rhythm, and leave your team with a system they can actually run.
What gets built
The implementation is shaped around how work needs to move in your business. That means decisions, exceptions, data quality, and team adoption get attention alongside the actual build.
We make the current state legible before deciding what deserves to change.
The rules, inputs, owners, and tools are arranged around the outcome rather than a generic template.
The build is checked against the real moments where work normally breaks down.
Your team gets the operating notes needed to keep the work moving after handover.
Your team gets the operating notes needed to keep the work moving after handover.
Direct access, execution depth
I diagnose the problem and stay responsible for the path to delivery. When the work needs design, engineering, SEO, automation, or specialist support, The Night Marketer team adds depth without making you coordinate the room.
Common questions
There is no fixed package price. The quote depends on your current and target app, the number of active subscribers, payment-provider compatibility, custom portal work, and messaging and reporting needs. You review a first milestone before paying for it.
The subscription audit and baseline take 2 to 5 business days once access is ready. One portal, cancellation or recovery flow takes 1 to 3 weeks with acceptance checks. Results are reviewed after a billing cycle, and migration timing is agreed separately.
Failed-payment recovery, also called dunning, is the sequence of card retries and customer messages that follows a failed subscription charge. Good recovery retries at sensible intervals and asks the customer to update their card, without sending so many messages that they cancel.
Fuel Your Body, a meal subscription brand in Canada, grew from 220 to more than 350 subscribers and cut drop-off in its order flow from 63% to 12% after its plan builder was rebuilt in 2025. Results vary by programme, and other things changed in the same months.
It depends on your plan, catalogue, bundles, portal needs and budget. Shopify Subscriptions suits simple programmes; Recharge, Loop and Skio add more control over portals, flows and retention tooling. We compare them against your actual requirements before recommending one.
Yes. A migration needs a tested plan for payment methods, billing dates, discounts and customer communication. We run a staged cutover with reconciliation so subscribers are not double-charged or lost.
We look at why people cancel, then fix the causes: offer fit, delivery frequency, portal friction, and payment failures. Pause, skip and swap options in the cancellation flow often keep customers who only needed flexibility.
Yes. We work with Shopify brands worldwide and schedule calls to fit your time zone.
Keep exploring
These are practical reads for understanding the job, asking better questions, and spotting the risks that are easy to miss in a first call.
