Shopify Subscriptions Setup for Indian Stores

Description

Service Shopify subscriptions and recurring orders for Indian stores

Shopify stores a subscription as a selling plan and a subscription contract, and its own recurring billing runs only on Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Authorize.net, Adyen and Stripe. Shopify Payments is not offered in India, so an Indian store collects renewals through an Indian gateway's mandate (UPI Autopay, card or eMandate) and writes each paid renewal back to Shopify as an order. WavX configures or builds that.

Discuss a Shopify requirement Last updated 2 October 2026

How subscriptions work on Shopify

Shopify does not treat a subscription as a kind of product. It treats it as another way to buy a product, and four objects carry it.

Object

What it is

Who manages it

Selling plan

An alternative way to buy a product or variant, for example delivery every 30 days at a lower price

The subscription app

Selling plan group

The selling method the customer sees, such as "Subscribe and save"

Subscription contract

The agreement between the customer and the merchant for recurring purchases

Created by Shopify at the first purchase, changed by the app

Billing attempt

One attempt to charge the stored payment method for a billing cycle

Started by the app, processed by Shopify

When a customer buys with a selling plan, Shopify creates the transaction and the order, then the subscription contract. Every renewal after that is the app's job. Shopify's documentation is specific about the split: the app schedules the payments, creates each billing attempt through the API and handles failed payments; Shopify stores the subscription data and processes the charge.

So a subscription on Shopify always involves an app. It can be Shopify's own Shopify Subscriptions app, an app from the App Store, or a custom one.

Why it is different for an Indian store

Shopify can only renew a subscription on a gateway that lets it charge a stored payment method again. As of October 2026 its help centre lists five: Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Authorize.net, Adyen and Stripe, with Stripe open to select merchants only. The same page warns that local, manual and non-credit-card payment methods might not be available for subscriptions.

Two facts follow.

Shopify Payments is not available in India. India is not on Shopify's list of supported countries.

Razorpay's Shopify plugin covers its Payment Gateway product only. Razorpay's documentation marks Subscriptions as not supported on the plugin.

The usual Indian setup, Shopify's checkout with an Indian gateway plus cash on delivery, therefore cannot renew an order by itself. A UPI Autopay mandate is created and debited at the gateway, outside Shopify's subscription contract. Something has to connect the two.

The mandate rules that shape the build

Recurring debits in India run on e-mandates, under RBI rules that the gateways enforce. They decide what your subscription can and cannot do.

Rule

What it means for the store

The mandate is registered with the customer's authentication

The customer approves once, in their UPI app or with their card, at sign-up

Debits up to ₹15,000 per transaction go through without fresh authentication. RBI raised this to ₹1,00,000 only for mutual funds, insurance premiums and credit card bills

A product subscription under ₹15,000 renews without the customer doing anything. Above it, the customer must approve each debit

A debit cannot exceed the mandate's maximum amount; Razorpay's UPI Autopay documentation says the payment fails

Set the mandate ceiling with room for a price change or an add-on, and say so on the sign-up screen

The customer is notified at least 24 hours before a charge

A renewal cannot be charged and shipped on the same hour's decision. Billing has to be scheduled

The customer can withdraw the mandate at any time

A revoked mandate must cancel or pause the subscription in your system too

Razorpay Subscriptions supports three methods: cards, UPI Autopay and eMandate. The UPI Autopay integration page and the UPI AutoPay developer's guide go through the mandate flow in detail.

Four routes, and which one fits

Route

How the renewal is paid

Fits

Watch for

Reorder reminders, no mandate

The customer gets a WhatsApp or email reminder with a link to a pre-loaded cart and pays each time, by any method

Testing whether customers reorder at all; small volumes

No automatic revenue. It depends on the customer acting

Shopify Subscriptions, or another app on Shopify's subscription APIs

Shopify bills the stored method through an eligible gateway

Stores that hold a PayPal Express, Adyen or Stripe account, usually for customers abroad

No UPI Autopay. Shopify Subscriptions is not compatible with bundles

An App Store subscription app built around Indian gateways

The app takes the mandate through an Indian gateway and records renewals in Shopify

Most stores starting subscriptions with standard plans

The app's fee model, how it creates renewal orders, and what happens to your subscribers if you leave it

A custom app

Your own app takes the mandate through the gateway's subscription API and creates the Shopify orders

Rules an app cannot express: build-your-own boxes, skips tied to stock, prices driven by an ERP, your own customer portal

Build and upkeep cost. You own the retry logic

On the third route, read each listing carefully. Easy Subscriptions, for example, states that it integrates with Razorpay, Cashfree and PayU, including UPI AutoPay. That is the vendor's description, not a test WavX has published.

The first route deserves more respect than it gets. Shopify's cart permalinks open a cart with chosen products already in it, so a reminder message can take the customer straight to payment. If you do not yet know whether customers will reorder, this answers the question for almost no cost.

If the subscription is the whole business and not an add-on to a store, a standalone subscription or membership platform may fit better than Shopify.

What WavX sets up or builds

Work

What it covers

Route selection

Your products, order values, payment mix and gateway account checked against the four routes above, with a written recommendation

App configuration

Selling plans or app plans, the subscribe option on the product page, the customer portal, renewal notices

Gateway mandate setup

Plans and subscriptions on the gateway, mandate ceilings, webhook endpoints, test mandates before launch

Custom subscription app

An app that holds the subscription record, listens to the gateway and writes orders to Shopify

Order write-back

Each paid renewal created in Shopify as an order, so stock, fulfilment, shipping and accounting carry on as they do for any other order

Failed-payment handling

Retries, a reminder with a payment link, and a rule for when to pause

Reporting

Active subscribers, renewals due, failed debits and cancellations in one place

WavX builds custom Shopify apps ; the comparison of a custom app against an App Store app covers when each is the right call.

How a custom build runs

Model the plans. Frequency, price, mandate ceiling, what a skip or a pause means, and what happens when an item is out of stock on the renewal date.

Add the subscribe option. A block on the product page that shows the plan and its price next to the one-time price.

Take the mandate. The customer approves it at the gateway, in their UPI app or with their card. The gateway holds the mandate, not the store.

Charge on schedule. The gateway debits on the due date and sends a webhook with the result. The app verifies it and creates the Shopify order, marked paid and tagged as a renewal.

Handle failures. A failed debit is retried on a schedule, the customer is told why and given a link to pay, and after a set number of failures the subscription pauses.

Give the customer control. Pause, skip, change address, cancel. A cancellation in your portal cancels the mandate at the gateway, and a mandate withdrawn in the UPI app cancels the subscription in your portal.

Hand over. The code, the gateway configuration and a written description of every rule the app applies belong to you.

Limits to know before you commit

Renewal orders written through the API do not pass through checkout. Discount codes, shipping-rate rules and checkout apps do not run on them. The app has to apply the same rules itself, and the two can drift apart if nobody maintains them.

Shopify's own route has gaps too. Gift cards used to pay for a subscription apply only to the first payment, subscriptions cannot be used with draft orders, and Shopify's B2B checkout does not support subscriptions.

Cash on delivery does not renew. A scheduled COD order can still be refused at the door. That is the reminder route with extra shipping risk.

High-value plans lose the automatic debit. Above ₹15,000 per charge the customer must approve every time, which behaves more like an invoice than a subscription.

The gateway account has to allow recurring payments. Confirm with your gateway that subscriptions are enabled on your account before any build starts.

When you should not build this

Do not commission a custom subscription app to find out whether customers want a subscription. Run reminders or install an app first. A custom build is worth it when you already have subscribers and the app is the thing stopping you: its fee grows with every renewal, it cannot express your rules, or it does not connect to the systems you run.

Do not offer a subscription on a product people buy once. The guide to building a subscription business covers how to choose products and plans before any software is involved.

The work is quoted after scoping. Subscriptions are one part of Shopify and app development at WavX.

Frequently asked questions

Can a Shopify store in India take subscriptions on UPI Autopay?

Yes, but not through Shopify's own recurring billing. The mandate is created and debited by an Indian gateway such as Razorpay, and an app (from the App Store or custom) records each paid renewal in Shopify as an order. Razorpay's standard Shopify plugin does not include its Subscriptions product, so the plugin alone is not enough.

Does the Shopify Subscriptions app work in India?

It installs, but as of October 2026 Shopify lists Shopify Payments, PayPal Express, Authorize.net, Adyen and Stripe as the gateways it can bill through, and Shopify Payments is not available in India. Unless your store holds one of the other accounts, usually for customers abroad, the app has nothing to charge a renewal against.

Can customers subscribe with cash on delivery?

Not as an automatic payment. A COD subscription is a scheduled order the customer can still refuse at the door, so it carries the same return-to-origin risk as any COD order. If you want to offer it, treat it as a reorder reminder and confirm each order before dispatch.

What is the ₹15,000 limit on recurring payments?

RBI allows a recurring debit under an e-mandate to go through without the customer authenticating again up to ₹15,000 per transaction, and up to ₹1,00,000 only for mutual funds, insurance premiums and credit card bills. Above the limit the customer has to approve each debit. Most product subscriptions sit well under it.

How much does a Shopify subscription setup cost?

It is quoted after scoping, because configuring an existing app and building a custom subscription app are very different amounts of work. We do not publish a figure for it. App fees and gateway fees are separate and are paid to those providers.

Sources

Shopify developer docs: about subscriptions (selling plans, contracts, APIs) · read 2 October 2026

Shopify developer docs: modelling a subscriptions solution (who does what) · read 2 October 2026

Shopify developer docs: selling plans · read 2 October 2026

Shopify developer docs: subscription contracts and billing attempts · read 2 October 2026

Shopify Help Center: considerations and payment gateways for subscription products · read 2 October 2026

Shopify Help Center: Shopify Subscriptions app eligibility considerations · read 2 October 2026

Shopify Help Center: Shopify Payments supported countries · read 2 October 2026

Shopify Help Center: B2B considerations (subscriptions not supported) · read 2 October 2026

Shopify developer docs: cart permalinks · read 2 October 2026

Razorpay docs: Shopify plugin (supported products) · read 2 October 2026

Razorpay docs: Subscriptions · read 2 October 2026

Razorpay docs: Subscriptions supported payment methods · read 2 October 2026

Razorpay docs: UPI Autopay recurring payments · read 2 October 2026

RBI: Processing of e-mandates for recurring transactions (12 December 2023) · read 2 October 2026

RBI: Processing of e-mandate on cards for recurring transactions (21 August 2019) · read 2 October 2026

Easy Subscriptions: Shopify subscriptions for Indian merchants (vendor page) · read 2 October 2026

Related

UPI Autopay integration

Razorpay integration

Subscription and membership platforms

Custom Shopify app development

UPI AutoPay integration for subscriptions: developer's guide

Shopify and app development

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