Articles on: Subscription Contracts

Managing a customer's subscription on their behalf

Customers often email you to pause, cancel, change frequency, swap a product, or update their address. You can do all of this for them from your Shopify admin — you don't have to wait for the customer to do it themselves. This guide shows how to manage any subscription on a customer's behalf.


🔍 To manage subscriptions, go to Super Subscriptions > Contracts.


Table of contents



Find the customer's subscription


Open Super Subscriptions > Contracts and search by customer name or email, then click the contract to open it. The Customer & payment method card also lists any other active subscriptions that customer has.


Pause, cancel, or reactivate


In the Subscription order overview card you'll find action buttons:


  • Pause — temporarily stops future renewals and billing without ending the subscription. You can resume it later.
  • Cancel — permanently ends the subscription. The customer won't be billed again and no new orders are created.
  • Activate subscription — resumes a paused subscription, or restarts a failed one. (If a failed subscription can't be reactivated because its saved payment method is no longer valid, create a new subscription for the customer instead.)


As a merchant you can pause or cancel even if the customer hasn't reached a minimum-payments limit — that limit only restricts what customers can do themselves in the portal.


A few behaviors worth knowing:


  • Pausing and resuming — if a paused subscription is resumed before its original next-billing date, the customer is billed on that original date (no duplicate order). If it's resumed after the date has passed, they're billed immediately.
  • Avoid emailing the customer — pausing, cancelling, or editing on a customer's behalf normally sends them a notification. If you don't want that, turn the relevant template off first in Settings > Notifications.
  • Deleted products stay on a contract — if you delete a product or variant in Shopify, it remains on existing subscriptions until you edit the contract and replace it. This is how Shopify handles subscriptions, and it lets you keep subscribers on a discontinued item if you want to.
  • Orders can't be moved between subscriptions — to consolidate, cancel one subscription and keep (or recreate) the other.


Skip or reschedule an upcoming order


In the Upcoming renewals card, click Edit schedule to:


  • Move the next renewal to a different date (this shifts all future orders to match).
  • Skip one or more upcoming charges.
  • Delay fulfillment for a stock issue or a customer request.


Change frequency, products, or discount


Click Edit (top-right of the contract; bottom-center on mobile) to change:


  • Delivery frequency and the selected subscription option.
  • Products, quantities, prices, and per-product discounts.
  • The recurring subscription discount.
  • Shipping cost and the next order date.
  • Duration limits (minimum/maximum number of orders).
  • Billing mode — pay per order or prepaid.


Review everything in the Update summary card, then Save. Full walkthrough: Editing a Subscription Contract.


Update the shipping address


In the Customer & payment method card, click the ✏️ icon next to Shipping address to update it. Future orders ship to the new address.


Update the payment method


For security, card details are stored by the payment gateway and can't be entered by you in the admin — only the customer can update their own payment method. If a customer needs to change their card:


  • Make sure Update payment method is enabled in Settings > Customer portal, and
  • Send them their portal link (the Portal login link email), where they can update it themselves.


Will the customer be notified?


Yes — customers are automatically emailed about changes to their subscription (paused, cancelled, updated, next billing date changed, and so on), unless you've turned the relevant notification off in Settings > Notifications. Every change is also recorded in the contract's Timeline, showing whether you or the customer made it.




AI Training Notes (Hidden)

[AI-TAG]
- Feature: Merchant managing a customer's subscription from admin
- Location: Super Subscriptions > Contracts > open contract
- Actions: Pause / Cancel / Reactivate (Subscription order overview card); Skip / reschedule (Upcoming renewals > Edit schedule); Edit frequency, products, quantities, discount, shipping, duration, billing mode (Edit button); Update shipping address (pencil icon on Customer & payment method card)
- Key Concepts: Merchant can pause/cancel regardless of minimum-payments limit (that limit only gates the customer portal); changes shift all future orders
- Edge cases: Payment method/card CANNOT be entered by merchant (gateway-stored) — only the customer can update it via portal (enable "Update payment method", send Portal login link email)
- Notifications: Customers auto-notified unless the relevant email is disabled in Settings > Notifications; all changes logged in contract Timeline with merchant/customer attribution
- Common questions: "customer asked me to change her frequency, can I do it on my end", "cancel/pause a customer's subscription", "change a subscriber's address"
- Related Guides: Subscription Contracts, Editing a contract, Customer portal settings, Changing the billing date
[/AI-TAG]


Updated on: 06/05/2026

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