About Subscription Upgrades and Downgrades

A subscription upgrade or downgrade occurs when a shopper chooses to change their current subscription product to another subscription product. 

Shoppers can upgrade or downgrade during their current subscription term or when they manually renew. How (and when) the upgrade or downgrade is processed and priced is determined by how you set the Upgrade/Downgrade Products option in the Subscription settings.

Why Use Upgrades and Downgrades?

The upgrade and downgrade feature is meant to be used to offer shoppers products of varying functionality (for example, standard versus professional, or bronze versus silver). You use the Upgrade/Downgrade Products settings to define which products are upgrades and/or downgrades options for a specific subscription product.

We do not recommend using the upgrade and downgrade feature to offer shoppers a way to change their subscription term (for example, upgrading to a yearly subscription from a monthly subscription). If upgrade and downgrade is used to change terms, the prorated pricing calculation may produce undesirable results.

If you do use upgrades and downgrades to offer shoppers a way to change their subscription term, you should use the process as renewal pricing option described below and set the number of days before expiration to the length of the subscription itself (for example, if the Recurrence is set to weekly you would set the number of days prior to expiration to 7). If you do this and a shopper upgrades or downgrades they will immediately be charged for a new term of the new subscription product and the expiration date will change to be the length of the new subscription.

How Pricing Works

When a shopper upgrades or downgrades their subscription, when and what they are charged is based on the pricing method selected in the Upgrade/Downgrade Products  settings. You can choose to prorate the price or process the upgrade or downgrade as a renewal. Both of these options are discussed more in detail below.

Note: The prices for upgrade and downgrade products do not necessarily have to differ from the original subscription product. Most clients use upgrade and downgrade feature to create a suite of products that vary in features and price but there are no specific requirements for how upgrade or downgrade products must be priced.

Prorate On or Before Expiration Date

The following happens if you select to prorate the price for upgrades and downgrades:

• Shopper immediately gets the new upgrade or downgrade product.
• The expiration date for the subscription does not change.
• Shopper is charged based on how many days remain in the subscription and the difference between the original subscription price and the upgrade or downgrade product price.
• Renewals for the subscription will use the new upgrade (or downgrade) product.

How Prorating is Calculated

A prorated price is calculated using the difference in the daily list price between the current subscription product and the upgrade or downgrade product for the days remaining in the subscription term.

Note: If the current price is more than the upgrade or downgrade price (most likely this would only occur with downgrades) no additional cost is charged to the shopper. Shoppers do not get a refund for any difference in pricing.

Prorating Pricing Example:

1. Current product is a monthly subscription for $10
2. Upgrade product is a monthly subscription for $30
3. Current product was purchased on June 1
4. Customer upgrades on June 20th
5. Current product daily price ($10/30 days) = $0.33/day
6. Upgrade product daily price ($30/30 days) = $1.00/day
7. Daily price difference ($1.00 - $0.33) = $0.66/day
8. Remaining days (July 1 - June 20) = 10 days
9. Total price ($0.66/day * 10 days) = $6.67

Formulas:

• Current product daily price = current product list price/current product duration in days
• Upgrade product daily price = upgrade product list price/upgrade product duration in days
• Daily price difference = max(upgrade product daily price - current product daily price, 0)
• Remaining days = Subscription expiration date - today's date
• Total price = Daily price difference * remaining days * current quantity of subscription

Process as Renewal

The following happens if you select to process upgrades and downgrades as renewals:

• Shopper immediately gets the new upgrade or downgrade product.
• The expiration date for the subscription changes to reflect the renewal date.
• Shopper is charged based on how many days remain in the subscription and the difference between the original subscription price and the upgrade or downgrade product price.
• Renewals for the subscription will use the new upgrade (or downgrade) product.

Renewal Example:

1. Current product is a monthly subscription "standard" edition product for $30
2. Upgrade product is a monthly subscription "premium" edition product for $60
3. Both products are configured to treat upgrades as renewals within 15 days of expiration.
4. Shopper purchases standard edition on June 1. The expiration date for the subscription is July 1.
5. Shopper upgrades to "premium" edition on June 21. Since the upgrade occurs 10 days before the expiration date the upgrade is processed as a renewal.
6. Shopper is charged the full renewal price for the premium edition ($60).
7. The subscription expiration date is changed to July 31.
8. Renewals will be processed for the "premium" edition and price ($60).

Note: In this example, the shopper effectively has the "premium" edition for 40 days, which gives them 10 days of that subscription at no additional charge.

 

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