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Plans are the foundation of memberships. When a customer takes out a plan, Supercycle bills them on the interval you specify using a Shopify product.
Membership product displayed in a Shopify order showing billing through Supercycle
A plan defines how often the customer is billed and for how much, how many items they can rent at any one time, and how often they can swap items.
Critical: Plan products are technical placeholdersWhen you create a membership plan, Supercycle creates a “plan product” in Shopify. These are technical placeholders that should never be sold directly to customers.
  • Plan products are only used to attach selling plans and handle billing
  • Purchasing them directly (e.g., via direct URL) won’t activate membership features
  • Customers won’t be connected to Supercycle properly
  • Plan-management features won’t work
The correct way: Customers must enroll through the Supercycle membership block on your storefront. See the “Create a membership page” section below for setup instructions.What if a customer buys a plan product directly? If a customer somehow purchases a plan product directly (e.g., via URL), the order will process but the membership won’t activate. The customer won’t be connected to Supercycle, won’t receive credits, and won’t be able to use membership features. You’ll need to refund the order and guide them to enroll properly through the membership block.
When creating a Supercycle membership plan, a product with the same name is created in Shopify.
To add a description to the plan, find the plan product in Shopify and add the description.
This will then automatically display on the storefront in the membership app block.

We create a corresponding Shopify product when you create a membership plan in Supercycle to handle billing.

The plan title is the Shopify product title and is displayed in the cart, checkout, transactional emails, and orders in Shopify admin.

Shopify product title used as plan title in Supercycle

The maximum number of credits (or items) that a customer can spend at any one time.

Credit allowance field in Supercycle membership plan settings

The order and return allowances determine how often a customer can swap items on their membership.

Allowances are aligned with the billing anniversary but you can set a different cadence.

For example, a customer is on a plan that is billed monthly and they took the membership out on 1 January.
You’ve set the swap allowance so they are allowed 1 order and 1 return every 3 months.
They take 3 items out on 1 January and can return them anytime, but their order allowance won’t reset until 1 April,
meaning they can’t rent new items until then. They’ll continue to be billed monthly on 1 February and 1 March.

Swap allowance settings in Supercycle membership plan configuration

Swap allowances protect your margins. The majority of rental costs are in logistics, so it’s best to balance customer flexibility with cost control.
In an ideal membership, the customer keeps the same item indefinitely.

Purchase options define the different billing cycles you want to offer your customers.

A plan can have multiple purchase options.

For example, you may offer a plan on a £50 monthly payment or a £500 yearly payment,
giving customers the equivalent of 2 months free in exchange for a 12-month commitment.

Purchase options section in Supercycle membership plan

The billing cycle a customer chooses doesn’t affect how regularly they can swap items.

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Add or update a membership plan

1

Navigate to the plan in Supercycle

In your Shopify admin, navigate to Supercycle > Settings > Methods > Membership.
Supercycle settings page showing navigation to membership plan section
From the Membership page, click Add plan or select an existing plan to edit it.
Add or edit membership plan button in Supercycle admin
2

Add plan settings

Enter a title for your plan along with additional membership details.
Membership plan settings fields in Supercycle admin
Click Save.

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Delete a membership plan

When you delete a membership plan, it’s permanently removed from Supercycle and cannot be restored.
A plan can only be deleted if no customers are currently subscribed to it.
Remove membership plan option in Supercycle admin
Limitation: Plan products in membership collectionsCurrently, Shopify does not allow a product to be hidden from the main storefront while still being visible in a specific collection (like your membership plans collection). This means plan products will appear in the “all” collection.Workaround for developers: If you have a developer, they can modify your theme to filter out products with specific plan names from rendering in collection pages, while still allowing them to display in the membership block.

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What if a customer purchases a plan product directly?

If a customer somehow purchases a plan product directly (e.g., by accessing the product URL directly), the membership will not activate properly. The customer will complete the purchase, but:
  • Supercycle won’t recognize it as a membership enrollment
  • The customer won’t be connected to Supercycle
  • Credits won’t be assigned to their account
  • Swap and plan-management features won’t work
This is why it’s critical to ensure customers enroll through the membership block. If this happens, you’ll need to manually refund the customer and guide them to enroll through the proper membership page.

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Create a membership page

1

Create a membership collection

Create a collection in Shopify (for example, Membership plans) and add each plan product to it.
This collection controls which plans appear on the storefront and is required for the membership block to display plans.
Multiple collections for different audiencesYou can create multiple collections to display different plans to different audiences. For example:
  • Create a “Customer plans” collection with 3 plans for individual customers
  • Create a “Business plans” collection with 3 plans for businesses
  • Display them on different pages or in different blocks on the same page
Each membership block can be connected to a different collection, giving you full control over which plans appear where.
2

Create a new page

In Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Online store > Pages and create a new page for memberships (e.g., “Become a member”).
3

Add membership app block

Go to Sales channels > Online store > Themes > Customize.
Open the membership page you created, add the Supercycle app block called Membership plans,
and select the collection you created earlier.See the Membership plans app block documentation for detailed setup instructions.

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FAQs

By default, your membership tiers might not display in price order.
To reorder them, update the collection settings in Shopify so the tiers appear from lowest to highest price:
1

Open your membership collection

In your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections, and select the membership collection you created.
2

Sort memberships manually

In the collection, choose Sort > Manually. Then drag and drop the membership tiers into the order you want.
If a customer purchases a plan product directly (e.g., via direct URL or if they find it in search), the order will process in Shopify, but the membership won’t activate properly.What won’t work:
  • The customer won’t be connected to Supercycle
  • They won’t receive membership credits
  • They won’t be able to use any membership features (swapping, plan management, etc.)
How to fix it:
  1. Refund the order in Shopify
  2. Guide the customer to enroll properly through the membership block on your storefront
  3. Consider hiding plan products by setting them to “unlisted” status (see “Hide membership plan products” section above)
If you delete a membership product from Shopify, it breaks the link between your store and the Supercycle plan.
To fix it:
1

Delete the plan in Supercycle

In your Shopify admin, go to Supercycle > Memberships > Plans and delete the affected plan.
2

Recreate the plan in Supercycle

Create a new plan with the same settings.
Supercycle will automatically recreate the Shopify product linked to the plan.
3

Add the plan product to your storefront collection

Go to Shopify > Products, find the new plan product, and add it to the collection displayed in your membership app block on the storefront.