How to configure subscription settings

Access Smart Subscriptions settings by navigating to WordPress admin → WooCommerce → Settings → Smart Subscriptions.

General settings

Control how subscriptions work in your store and what actions customers can take.

Enable Subscriptions – Turn subscription functionality on or off across your entire store.

Default Billing Period – Choose the default billing cycle for new subscription products: Day, Week, Month, or Year. This can be changed for individual products.

Default Billing Interval – Set how often subscriptions renew by default (e.g., every 1 month, every 2 weeks). You can override this for each product.

Allow Customer Cancellation – Let customers cancel their subscriptions from their My Account page, or restrict cancellations to admin-only.

Allow Customer Pause/Resume – Give customers the flexibility to pause and resume their subscriptions whenever they need a break.

My Account Page Title – Customize what customers see in their account dashboard. The default is “My Subscriptions”, but you can change it to match your brand voice.

Email settings

Automated email notifications keep customers informed about their recurring payments and subscription status changes.

Enable Email Notifications – Master switch for all subscription emails. Turn this off to disable all automated subscription notifications.

Admin Email Recipients – Enter the email addresses that should receive admin notifications (like new subscriptions or cancellations). Use commas to separate multiple addresses.

Send Customer Emails – Notify customers about important subscription events like renewals, cancellations, and payment issues.

Send Admin Emails – Keep your team in the loop with admin notifications for subscription activity.

Customize Email Templates – Want to further customize emails? Copy email templates to your theme’s /woocommerce/emails/smart-subscriptions/ directory and customize them however you like.

Test Email – Before going live, send yourself a test email to make sure everything looks perfect. Choose from different email types (Subscription Created, Renewed, Cancelled, Paused, or Payment Failed) and send it to any email address.

No need to save settings first – the test function works immediately, making it easy to iterate on your email setup.

Payment settings

Set up intelligent payment retry logic to recover failed payments and maximize your recurring revenue.

Retry failed payments

Sometimes payment methods fail temporarily – a card might be at its limit, or a bank might flag a transaction. Instead of losing that customer immediately, Smart Subscriptions automatically retries failed payments to give the transaction another chance to succeed.

Payment Retry Attempts – Choose how many times to retry before giving up (1-100 attempts). The default is 4 attempts, which balances persistence with not annoying customers.

Retry Schedule – Configure when each retry happens:

• First Retry: Wait 12 hours (default) before trying again
• Second Retry: Wait 24 hours (default) after the first retry
• Third Retry: Wait 48 hours (default) after the second retry
• Fourth Retry: Wait 72 hours (default) after the third retry

You can adjust these timing intervals anywhere from 1 to 168 hours to match your business needs.

Subscription Revenue Recovery Tip: Most successful retries happen in the first 24-48 hours. The default schedule is optimized based on payment processing data.

Failed payment handling

Auto-Cancel After Failed Retries – When all retry attempts fail, automatically cancel the subscription and notify the customer. Turn this off if you prefer to handle failed subscriptions manually.

Stripe integration

Smart Subscriptions integrates with the WooCommerce Stripe Gateway to securely process automatic recurring payments. Stripe handles payment method tokenization, PCI compliance, and automatic charging for subscription renewals.

Advanced settings

Developer and system administrator options for fine-tuning plugin behavior.

Enable Logging – Track subscription events and debug information. Helpful for troubleshooting issues or monitoring subscription activity.

Log Retention Period – Choose how long to keep logs (0-3650 days). Set to 0 for unlimited retention, or choose a shorter period like 365 days to keep your database lean.

Cron Processing Batch Size – Control how many subscriptions are processed per scheduled task (1-500). Lower numbers reduce server load but take longer to process all subscriptions. The default of 50 works well for most stores.

Enable REST API – Turn on API endpoints for external integrations, mobile apps, or custom integrations with other systems.

API Rate Limiting – Protect your server from abuse by limiting how many API requests can be made in a given timeframe.

Debug Mode – Enable detailed debugging information for troubleshooting. Warning: Only use this on development or staging sites, never on live production stores.

Template Override Path – If you’re using custom template locations, specify the path here (relative to your theme directory).

System information

View real-time system status including:

• Smart Subscriptions plugin version
• WooCommerce and WordPress versions
• PHP version and server configuration
• Stripe Gateway connection status
• Total subscription count (all statuses)
• Active subscription count
• Next scheduled renewal processing time
• Next scheduled payment retry time