How can I offer free shipping exclusively for subscribe and save customers?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

Merchant wants to give free shipping only to subscription (“subscribe and save”) orders, while keeping paid shipping for one‑time purchases. They also note subscription checkout currently only shows local pickup, not paid shipping options.

Suggestions shared:

  • Add a $0 shipping rate in Shopify Settings > Shipping and Delivery. However, this makes free shipping available to everyone, not just subscribers.
  • Consider a third‑party app (SAPP Subscriptions) that advertises flexible subscription and free‑shipping options.
  • Use Shopify’s native automated shipping discount targeted to subscriptions (storewide for all subscription orders):
    • Discounts > New shipping automated discount > choose “Subscription.”
    • Optionally set minimums and apply to all recurring payments.
    • Enable combination with other product/order discounts so free shipping still applies when a promo is used.

Key limitations and open items:

  • The native automated discount applies to all subscription orders, not a subset.
  • The issue where only “customer pickup” appears for subscribers likely requires reviewing shipping profiles/rates for subscription orders. No final confirmation from the original poster, but the automated discount is the most concrete actionable path shared.
Summarized with AI on December 12. AI used: gpt-5.
1

We just started charging for shipping on our website, but I do not want that to apply to our subscription and save customers. Unfortunately, whenever someone tries to subscribe and save, the only option they are provided is our customer pickup option for free (not even the paid options for shipping?).

I want to offer only subscribe and save customers free shipping, but if I make a free shipping option in the admin, it makes it available to everyone - not just subscribe and save.

We use RecurrinGO! as our subscription software and when I reached out to them, they told me shipping is only controlled by Shopify.

The only other solution I see is to have a discount code for free shipping that only applies to subscriptions, but I cannot make it an automatic discount so this doesn’t work either…

How can I offer free shipping to only my subscribe and save customers?

1 Like
2

Hey @Natasha-P , check out the SAPP Subscriptions App, it offers flexible subscription options based on custom intervals and discounts with free shipping. Also, try following the steps given below.

  • Log into your Shopify admin dashboard.
  • Go to Settings, then Shipping and Delivery.
  • On the shipping profile that you want to change, select Manage rates.
  • You can then click Add rate, where you want to add a free shipping rate.
  • Set the Price field to 0.
  • Click Done, then Save.

Hope this helps! :grinning_face:

3

If anyone stumbles upon this topic, you can do this natively with Shopify discount. But be aware this will be for all subscriptions in your store.

  1. Go to discounts
  2. Create new shipping automated discount
  3. Choose “Subscription”
  4. Optionally set your minimum requirements
  5. Set the discount to all recurring payments (or choose a different option if needed)
  6. Make sure you activate the combination with other product or order discounts, otherwise shipping will apply when a customer uses a promotional discount.
1 Like