How to offer custom subscription packages to customers

Widgets can be chained together to create a custom subscription checkout funnel. This allows your customers to order exactly what they want.

Larry Brager avatar
Written by Larry Brager
Updated over a week ago

All PayWhirl payment widgets can be linked together to create an embedded, custom "checkout funnel," so your customers can select exactly what they would like to receive and build a customized subscription plan.

Note: This is a feature exclusive to our multi-platform app and won't work on Shopify. That functionality is coming soon.

It works like a "build-a-box" offering where customers start by selecting a "base" or "main" subscription plan to set the interval for their custom subscription and then continue to additional upsell widget(s) where they can continue to customize their subscription further before checking out.

It's very common to set up three "base plans" as frequency options for your customers in "build a plan" type scenarios to let the customer select their desired interval...

For example, three common base plans are:

  1. Weekly - $0 / week

  2. Monthly - $0/ month

  3. Quarterly - $0/ every 3 months

It's also common to make the base plans cost $0 and to hide the pricing on the 1st widget where the customer selects their interval/base plan. You can build in a "base cost" for these base plans but, $0 works well because customers are just really setting the interval by choosing their desired base plan in the first widget. 

After the customer makes their choice in the initial widget and selects the main plan, they are forwarded to a series of upsell widgets.

Note: If you want everything the customer chooses to end up on ONE INVOICE for customers, then you will want to use a PRICING TABLE widget for the base plans. 

This way, the customer can only select ONE base plan, and therefore, the upsells will only have ONE plan to attach to and re-bill with.

Pricing-Table Widget: This only allows customers to select ONE plan before proceeding. In other scenarios, you might want to use a different widget type.

For this example, we are starting off with a Pricing Table Widget:


Once customers have selected their base subscription and set the frequency for their custom plan, you can forward them to one or more upsell widgets. 

Your upsell widgets can contain both one-time and/or recurring add-ons. You can also string as many upsell widgets together as you need to create a custom checkout funnel for your customers.

For example, a coffee company might have the customer select their frequency in the 1st widget (weekly, monthly, quarterly) then forward the customer through a series of upsell widgets so they can select their favorite coffee(s) to build a custom subscription plan.

The first upsell widget might be all dark roasts, then the 2nd widget could be their light & medium roasts, and finally, the last upsell widget could be all the one-time add-on options like coffee filters, etc.

Eventually, the customer is forwarded to the cart for checkout, rather than another upsell widget using the same "Forward to Widget" settings (select cart when ready).

Linking Widgets Together:
Once you have two or more widgets complete, you need to link them. To set this up, go back and edit your first widget (should be a pricing table in most scenarios). Under the advanced settings, there is a setting's menu for "Chained Widget Settings." This lets you link widgets together. By default, all widgets are set to forward directly to the cart, but you can change that to forward to another widget(s) before the cart:

Make sure to EDIT ALL SECONDARY WIDGET(S) in the chain. By default, all widgets are set to "Clear cart on reload," however, this will cause any previous items added to the cart to be removed when the widget loads. It should be set to NO on all widgets except the FIRST widget in your chain.

With several widgets chained together, customers can build a custom subscription as they flow from upsell widget to upsell widget. Everything is added to their cart behind the scenes. Notice below how the recurring items mixed with non-recurring items in the customer's cart:

When using a pricing table, you can also forward customers to a specific widget, depending on the plan they selected. Say you are selling a box subscription for pets and have a box for dogs and a box for cats. Using the forwarding option in the widget section settings, you could forward all the customers who click on the dog subscription to an upsell with dog treats/toys. Likewise, you can forward all the customers who click on the cat option to an upsell with cat treats/toys.

This setting lets you make custom forwarding options based on the initial plan the customer selects.

Note: If you use UPSELL WIDGETS for all of your subsequent widget(s), everything will be grouped onto ONE recurring invoice with the main base subscription.

After the initial purchase is completed, any "one-time" (non-recurring) products will "fall off" the next invoice, and customers will be informed of their next billing date for any upcoming recurring charges.

NOTE: If you enable your widget(s) in the customer portal, customers can easily add more products/services from within their portal. Scroll down to the Advanced Settings > Enable in Customer Portal option and switch it to yes:

Once enabled, customers will have a "Browse" menu item displayed in the customer portal so they can easily navigate to buy more products/services. You would want to have the FIRST widget in your chain enabled, but the rest can be disabled, so customers will have to go through the entire funnel when the purchase from within the portal.

Customers can also login to their accounts to further customize their subscriptions with just a few clicks if you enable this feature under Advanced Settings in your PayWhirl account.

Once enabled, customers will be able to edit their custom subscriptions from the customer portal. To edit custom subscriptions, customers just need to find their most recent, unpaid subscription invoice, and then they can add/remove items as needed. 

Any changes made to unpaid invoices before they are processed will be carried forward onto future invoices and default selections.

There is no limit to how many widgets can be connected to create custom upsell funnels on PayWhirl. If you get creative and break your products down into categories, you can create some sophisticated "build a subscription" type offerings for your customers. 

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Please let us know if you have any questions. 

Sincerely,
The PayWhirl Team

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