Prepaid plans
A prepaid plan charges for several deliveries at once. The customer pays for three months today and receives a delivery every month — one payment, three shipments.
Merchants use prepaid to pull revenue forward and because prepaid subscribers churn far less: the decision to continue has already been made and paid for.
How it is set up
On a delivery option, set prepaid cycles to the number of deliveries billed together.
| Deliver every | Prepaid cycles | Customer pays | Customer receives |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 month | 3 | Every 3 months | Monthly |
| 1 month | 12 | Once a year | Monthly |
| 1 week | 4 | Every 4 weeks | Weekly |
| 2 weeks | 6 | Every 12 weeks | Fortnightly |
There is no separate "prepaid" switch in Shopify. Prepaid is the billing interval being a multiple of the delivery interval, which is exactly what this setting produces.
What the customer sees
Both halves of the arrangement are always stated, because either one alone misleads.
On the product page:
$18.90 today · $6.30 × 3, delivered monthly
In the portal:
$18.90 · every 3 months · delivered monthly
Quoting only the per-delivery price would understate the charge threefold at the exact moment someone decides to buy. Quoting only the total hides how often it arrives.
Skipping is refused on prepaid
A customer on a prepaid plan cannot skip a delivery, and the portal says so plainly rather than hiding the button.
Skipping works by moving the next charge date. That only makes sense while a charge and a delivery are the same event. On a prepaid plan they are not — the delivery is already paid for, so "skipping" it would quietly give away a shipment the customer had bought.
Pausing, cancelling, changing the address and swapping products all work normally.
Limits
Shopify has to accept the resulting billing interval, so some combinations are refused at the plan builder rather than failing later:
- 3 × yearly would be a three-year billing interval — rejected
- The maximum is 24 prepaid cycles
When a combination is invalid the builder names the control and explains why, instead of letting Shopify return an error that never mentions prepaid.
Renewals
At the end of a prepaid block the next block is charged in full and the cycle repeats. A 3-month prepaid subscriber is billed every three months indefinitely, unless a maximum cycle count ends it.
Pair prepaid with a better price
Prepaid is a bigger ask at checkout. Most merchants pair it with a deeper discount than their monthly option — the customer is committing more, so the saving should reflect that.