Digital subscriptions allow you to offer memberships, courses, streaming services, and other digital products through Ordergroove. This article covers how to configure these digital Plans in your Ordergroove dashboard.
Requirements
Feature Access: This feature is currently in Early Access. Please reach out to Ordergroove Support and we'll get it enabled for your store.
eCommerce Products: Before creating a plan in Ordergroove, the corresponding product variant must already exist in your eCommerce platform. Ordergroove cannot create these for you; we sync them from your store.
Note: You need a distinct product variant for every billing frequency you intend to offer (e.g., "Bronze Monthly" and "Bronze Annual" must be two separate products in your store).
Understanding Digital vs Physical Subscriptions
Digital subscriptions work differently from physical subscriptions in one key way: fulfillment is continuous rather than discrete.
With physical subscriptions, the subscription status only matters when an order ships. If a customer changes their mind about turkey vs. chicken-flavored treats between order dates, nothing happens until the next shipment.
With digital subscriptions, every change matters immediately. When customers switch plans, cancel and reactivate, or upgrade/downgrade, Ordergroove continuously syncs this information to your platform so you always know who has access to what.
One example is an eLearning company. Students enroll (subscribe) to the platform, then get access to courses and certifications:
Key Concepts
Plans
Plans are a new product type specifically for digital subscriptions. While you could theoretically use plans for physical products, they're designed for access-based subscriptions like memberships, courses, and digital services.
Entitlements and Resources
Digital subscriptions introduce two new concepts:
Entitlements are the customer's access rights—think of this as their wallet or ledger showing what they can access right now. For example: "Chris has 70 days of Hulu Plus remaining."
Resources are the specific benefits customers are entitled to. In the example above, "Hulu Plus" is the resource.
Currently, all entitlements are time-based (days, months, years). Usage-based access (like "4 movies remaining" or "10GB of streaming") is planned for the future.
Creating a Digital Plan
To set up a Digital Subscription, you will convert an existing eCommerce product into a "Plan" within Ordergroove.
Step 1: Create the Product in your eCommerce platform
Before creating a plan in Ordergroove, make sure the product and all variants exist in your eCommerce platform. (e.g., Gold Monthly, Gold Annual)
Step 2: Create a New Plan
Log in to Ordergroove and go to Subscriptions > Plans. Click + Create Plan
- Note: The Plans page is only visible if you have access to the Digital Subscriptions alpha, please reach out if you don't see it.
Step 3: Access Entitlement
Every plan automatically includes an access entitlement that tracks whether the customer is currently entitled to the plan. This entitlement:
- Has an ID that matches your external product ID
- Has a name that matches your product name
- Cannot be edited
- Is used for analytics and reporting
Step 4: Add More Specific Entitlements (Optional)
You can optionally track and display specific benefits (resources) in Ordergroove, such as:
- Tickets to events
- Discount percentages
- Free shipping
- Access to specific features
If you prefer to manage benefit details on your own platform and just need Ordergroove to track active plan status, you can skip adding specific entitlements.
Step 5: Set Billing Frequency
Choose your billing frequency. Unlike physical subscriptions, each plan can only have one frequency. If you want to offer both monthly and annual options, create separate plans for each.
Different frequencies often have different benefits (like annual members getting exclusive perks), which is why they're treated as distinct plans.
Step 6: Configure Grace Period (Optional)
A grace period grants customers additional access beyond their subscription expiration date. This is useful for:
- Allowing access while renewal payment retries are in progress
- Accounting for time zone differences
- Providing a buffer so customers aren't immediately cut off
A good rule of thumb is to set your grace period to match your payment retry cadence (typically 1-5 days).
Step 7: Set Free Trial (Optional)
You can offer a free trial period. By default, this gives customers one full billing period free, but you can customize it (for example, a 10-day or 14-day trial for a monthly plan).
Step 8: Configure Enrollment Eligibility
This setting controls whether customers can currently sign up for this plan. It works like subscription eligibility for physical products.
Note: Disabling eligibility won't cancel existing subscriptions, but will prevent new signups.
Step 9: Save the Plan
Click Create Plan to save.
Here is an example of what a completed Digital Learning membership might look like, click for full size:
In this case it's an annual subscription (frequency of 12 months), has a grace period of 3 days where customers can access the platform after a failed payment, and has a large number of entitlements (benefits) customers get for subscribing.
FAQ
Can I offer a lifetime membership?
There's currently no explicit "lifetime" or "in perpetuity" option. As a workaround, you would need to set an extremely long frequency period.
Why do I need separate plans for monthly and annual frequencies?
Different frequencies often come with different benefits. For example, annual members might get exclusive perks that monthly members don't receive. Keeping them as separate plans gives you flexibility to differentiate benefits.
How do I offer a limited-time promotion?
Create a new product in your e-commerce platform (for example, "Gold Plan - Black Friday 40% Off"), then convert it to a plan in Ordergroove. Use price locking if you want to grandfather customers into promotional pricing without creating separate plans.