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Getting started

This guide walks you through installing bc-subscriptions and getting your first subscription offer live on a product. By the end you'll have a working subscription plan that customers can choose at checkout.

What you'll set up

  • bc-subscriptions installed on your BigCommerce store
  • A payment processor connected for automatic renewals
  • At least one product with an active subscription plan
  • The storefront widget published so customers can subscribe

Before you start

You'll need:

  • BigCommerce store admin access — to install apps from the Marketplace
  • A payment processor — either BC Payments (if your store has it enabled) or a Stripe account
  • About 10 minutes for the initial setup

Step 1 — Install bc-subscriptions from the BC Marketplace

  1. Sign into your BC admin.
  2. Go to Marketplace and search for bc-subscriptions.
  3. Click Install.

BC shows a permissions screen listing the scopes bc-subscriptions needs — these cover reading and writing products, orders, and customers, registering the in-admin panels, managing webhooks, and injecting the storefront widget on Stencil stores. Click Confirm to proceed.

After confirming, you'll land on a Welcome page inside your BC admin. The install handshake completes in under 10 seconds under normal conditions.

What good looks like: the Welcome page loads with your store name and a setup checklist showing 5 items.

If the page doesn't load: wait 30 seconds, then close the tab and relaunch the install from the Marketplace. If two attempts both fail, contact support — there may be a BC platform issue that needs diagnosis.

Step 2 — Connect a payment processor

bc-subscriptions requires a payment method that supports merchant-initiated transactions (MIT) — these are the automatic charges that fire at each renewal.

From the setup checklist on the Welcome page:

  1. Click Connect a processor — this takes you to Settings → Payment in the bc-subscriptions admin.
  2. Follow the per-processor setup for BC Payments or Stripe.

The checklist marks this item complete once a compatible processor is connected. If your current payment method doesn't qualify, the checklist surfaces a warning at this step.

Step 3 — Enable subscriptions on a product

With the app installed and a processor connected, you're ready to make a product subscribable.

  1. Go to Products → View in BC admin.
  2. Open the product you want to sell as a subscription.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the product edit page — the Subscriptions panel appears (injected by bc-subscriptions).
  4. Click Create plan to open the 6-step wizard.

The wizard covers:

  • Intervals — how often subscribers are charged (weekly, monthly, etc.; you can offer multiple options)
  • Pricing — use the product's regular price, a subscriber discount, or a custom per-interval price
  • Options — whether subscribers can skip, swap, pause, or cancel on their own
  • Eligibility — which variants can be subscribed (if the product has variants)
  • Scope — which channels, customer groups, or countries the plan applies to
  • Review + activate — click Activate to go live

You can Save draft at any step and return later. Storefront propagation takes up to 60 seconds after activation.

To verify: open the product page in an incognito tab. A Subscribe & save option should appear alongside the Add to cart button.

Step 4 — Publish the subscription widget to your storefront

The widget is what customers interact with to choose a subscription. Without it, an active plan has no UI affordance on the product page.

Stencil stores: the widget is auto-installed via BC's Scripts API when you install the app — nothing extra to do. To verify, go to Settings → Storefront integration in the bc-subscriptions admin. You should see a "Stencil — script registered" confirmation. If it's missing, click Re-register script.

Catalyst and headless storefronts: see Storefront widget for the full setup steps (a React component install for Catalyst, or direct API integration for custom storefronts).

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