Will Deleting a Customer Automatically Cancel Their Subscription?

[mich_aroma360]

The company I just started working at migrated from PayWhirl v2 to Recharge v2 and deleted the former, but some customers were not migrated properly. I don't have any of that data.
Turns out,  those customers' subscriptions cant be cancelled or updated anywhere in the admin or from their portals… they just keep getting charged for their subscriptions, which is making people pretty angry.
I just applied for access to the subscription api scopes that I need to make queries to the API ... BUT I'm looking for a quick fix for a few customers, since I'm not sure how long approval will take, and since I'm not too familiar with making queries outside private apps and GraphiQL app (which I understand don't offer the necessary subscription scopes)

1. Would deleting a customer in effect cancel their active subscriptions? Please say yes.
2. Any recommended tutorials on custom app setup in PostMan or similar tool?
3. Does Shopify plan on adding subscription api scopes to private apps anytime soon? Would love to add that in as a feature request 🙂

[Brian_S]

I wasn't 100% clear but it sounds like the merchant migrated from PayWhirl to Recharge, then delete PayWhirl. You said some were not migrated properly but I assume that all were migrated in one way or another to Recharge. If that's true, you should use the Recharge app to pause or cancel subscription contracts. I would just cancel the account in Recharge because that can be undone if needed. Also, I'd ping Recharge support if you really can't use their app to stop future billings of Subscriptions. That would be really bad (but not terribly surprising). If there are some still in PayWhirl v2 (ie using Shopify Subscriptions API) and Paywhirl is uninstalled, then Paywhirl shouldn't be able to bill the merchants' customers anymore because their app would have lost API access.   

Here's the best I can do for your questions.. hope it helps: 

Would deleting a customer in effect cancel their active subscriptions? Please say yes.

If you could delete a customer, it should also nullify their payment methods BUT I don't think you can delete a customer in Shopify Admin and you should not be able to delete customers (or their PaymentMethods) via API if they're still connected to an active Subscription Contract. You'll get an error message like..

Customer cannot be deleted because of existing subscription contracts

Any recommended tutorials on custom app setup in PostMan or similar tool?

I'd recommend Insomnia for API testing, especially if you're using the GQL api (which I would also recommend). If by "Custom App" you mean a private app vs a public or unlisted public app, I'm not sure what the difference is (the differences probably exist, like scopes as you mention).  

Check out these Shopify docs on hitting the API:

- https://shopify.dev/api/partner/getting-started#using-curl

- https://shopify.dev/api/admin/getting-started#graphql-admin-api

And there are a lot of docs on Subscription Apps: https://shopify.dev/apps/subscriptions

Does Shopify plan on adding subscription api scopes to private apps anytime soon? Would love to add that in as a feature request

I haven't heard anything about this. You'll probably need Shopify Support for this one. 

If you or the merchant is interested in migrating to a different, better, subscription app then check out the link in my signature or DM me : )  Maybe we can help get you out of the mess

[MMcMahon]

@Brian_S The first thing I tried was cancelling them from within Recharge, but I'm getting a 'Customer not found' error. I've reached out to both Shopify and Recharge support but no luck yet removing the active subscription.

As for the bit about private vs custom apps, as of now only custom apps with approval from Shopify can update Shopify subscriptions

[Brian_S]

I'm really sorry to hear that!

two more possible suggestions: 

• If it's Recharge V2, meaning they're using Shopify's new(ish) Subscription API, then deleting the app should keep them from being able to renew subscriptions.
• I think you could just cancel recharge at the account level without uninstalling, so you'd have your data still available. Then when you reactivate, you'd have to adjust the next billing on any subscriptions that didn't get renewed.