Our app is on a one-time plan, and we want to switch it to a yearly subscription plan.

Shopify Apps

Topic summary

A developer is transitioning their Shopify app from a one-time payment model to a yearly subscription using the appSubscriptionCreate GraphQL mutation.

Key Questions Raised:

  • How to handle the migration process from one-time to subscription billing
  • Whether subscription prices can be increased for existing subscribers without requiring cancellation and re-subscription
  • How to grandfather existing one-time purchasers while making new users subscription-only
  • App access behavior after subscription cancellation or uninstallation
  • Possibility of reactivating subscriptions without charging again
  • Pricing implications for users who uninstall and later reinstall

Proposed Solution:
Create a new yearly subscription plan while hiding (not deleting) the existing one-time plan. This allows:

  • Existing one-time customers to retain their access
  • New customers to see only the subscription option
  • Grandfathered users to maintain their original payment terms

Status: Partial answer provided; several technical questions about subscription management, price changes, and reactivation remain unanswered.

Summarized with AI on October 31. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi all! Regarding the app subscription, I have a few questions

We will be using this for creating app subscriptions:appSubscriptionCreate - GraphQL Admin

Currently, our app is on a one-time plan, and we want to switch it to a yearly subscription plan.

  1. What general actions do we need to take?
  2. Let’s say a user subscribes, and later we want to increase the price charged to this customer. Is this possible? In other words, is it possible to increase the price for subscribed users under the same subscription ID, or do they need to cancel and subscribe again?
  3. We want our previous customers who purchased the one-time plan to still have access to the app, but also allow them to purchase a subscription (to access certain features in our app). For new customers, we want full access to the app to be entirely subscription-based. Is this possible?
  4. In case of subscription after cancellation or app uninstallation, does Shopify allow access to the app?
  5. Is it possible to reactivate the subscription without taking another payment?
  6. If a user uninstalls the app and later reinstalls it, will they need to purchase a new subscription at the current price, even if the pricing has increased?
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2

Hi @mtalhaseker

You can create a new plan and hide your current one-time plan, and old merchants who have already purchased it can still use it as a one-time option, while new merchants can upgrade to the yearly plan.

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