ReCurr Tutorial Series — Part 2: Creating Subscription Products

Welcome back to the ReCurr tutorial series. In Part 1 we installed and configured the plugin. Now we’ll create your first subscription product.

ReCurr turns standard WooCommerce Simple products into subscription products. There’s no separate product type — you simply enable the subscription option on any Simple product and configure the billing details.

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Before You Begin

Make sure you have completed Tutorial 1: Getting Started and that:

• ReCurr is installed and activated
• Your license key is active
• Basic settings have been configured

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Step 2: Set the Regular Price

In the General tab of the Product data section:

1. Enter the Regular price — for a monthly product this is the monthly price (e.g., 499.00 for R499 per month)

For a monthly product this price is also the base for pro-rata amounts. How it is used for a quarterly or annual product depends on the discount settings — see Step 5 and Step 6.

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Step 3: Enable the Subscription

Still in the General tab, look for the subscription fields below the pricing fields:

1. Tick the Enable Subscription checkbox — “Make this a subscription product”
2. Additional subscription fields will appear once you tick this checkbox

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Step 5: Select the Billing Period

The Billing Period dropdown determines the billing frequency. The available options are:

Billing Period	What It Means	Example
Day(s)	Billed daily	R10/day
Week(s)	Billed weekly	R125/week
Month(s)	Billed monthly	R499/month
Quarter(s)	Billed every 3 months	R1,497/quarter
Year(s)	Billed annually	R5,988/year

Select the appropriate period for your product. The default is Month(s).

What is charged per period (v2.7.29): without a discount or custom price, the Regular price is charged once per billing period, as it stands — to bill R5,988 a year, enter 5988.00 as the Regular price of a Year(s) product. To enter a monthly price and have ReCurr work out the year, tick Enable Annual Discount (Step 6, Plus).

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6a. Enable the Annual Discount

1. Tick the Enable Annual Discount checkbox — “Offer a discount for annual subscriptions”
2. Two additional fields will appear: Discount Type and Discount Value

With the discount enabled, the Regular price is treated as the monthly base: the customer is charged twelve times it, less the discount, every year — on the product page, at checkout and on every renewal.

6c. Enter the Discount Value

Enter the discount amount:

• For Percentage: enter the number without the % sign (e.g., 15 for a 15% discount)
• For Fixed Amount: enter the Rand value (e.g., 500 for R500 off)

Step 7: Publish the Product

Once you’re happy with the subscription settings:

1. Scroll up to the Publish panel on the right-hand side
2. Click Publish (or Update if editing an existing product)
3. Your subscription product is now live on your store

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Example: Creating a Monthly Hosting Subscription

Here’s a quick walkthrough for a typical monthly product:

Setting	Value
Product name	Website Hosting – Monthly
Regular price	299.00
Enable Subscription	Ticked
Billing Interval	1
Billing Period	Month(s)

Result: Customers are billed R299.00 every month.

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Example: Creating an Annual Plan with Discount

Here’s how to set up an annual product with a 15% discount:

Setting	Value
Product name	Website Hosting – Annual
Regular price	299.00 (monthly base)
Enable Subscription	Ticked
Billing Interval	1
Billing Period	Year(s)
Enable Annual Discount	Ticked
Discount Type	Percentage (%)
Discount Value	15

Result: Annual base = R299 x 12 = R3,588. After 15% discount = R3,049.80/year. Customer saves R538.20.

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Important Notes

• Simple products — and variable products on Plus (v2.8.0) — ReCurr subscription fields appear on Simple products. With a Plus licence and Subscriptions → Settings → General → Variable subscription products switched on, they also appear on Variable products, so each option (size, plan, buy once or subscribe) can be sold as a subscription — see Plus Tutorial 7: Variable Subscription Products. Grouped and External products never carry subscription fields.
• Regular price = the price of one billing period, unless an annual or quarterly price setting says otherwise (v2.7.29) — For a monthly product the Regular price is the monthly price. For an annual or quarterly product with no discount and no custom price, the Regular price is charged as it stands, once per billing period — enter the yearly (or quarterly) price. With Enable Annual Discount ticked (or the quarterly discount), the Regular price is the monthly base: ReCurr charges twelve (or three) times it, less the discount. A Custom Annual Price or Custom Quarterly Price (Plus) is charged as entered. Whichever applies, the product page, checkout, the recorded subscription amount, trial conversions, manual EFT invoices and plan switches all use the same figure. Products with the billing cycle toggle always use the Regular price as the monthly base.
• One product per billing cycle — If you want to offer the same service as both monthly and annual options, create two separate products (one set to Month, one set to Year with the annual discount). On Plus you can instead use the billing cycle toggle, or (v2.8.0) one variable product with a Monthly and a Yearly option (Plus Tutorial 7: Variable Subscription Products, Example 2).
• Pro-rata billing — By default, monthly subscribers who sign up mid-month are charged a pro-rated amount for the remaining days, with their first full payment aligned to the 1st of the following month. This is a store-wide setting (Subscriptions → Settings → General → Pro-rata billing, v2.4.30) — switch it Off to charge the full price on signup and renew on the same calendar day each month (anniversary billing). It applies to all monthly products; it is not configured per product.

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What’s Next?

Your subscription product is created and ready for customers. But before anyone can pay, you need to configure the PayFast payment gateway.

Up next: Tutorial 3: Configuring PayFast — Gateway credentials, sandbox vs live, and ITN callback setup.

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Quick Checklist

• [ ] New Simple product created with a name and description
• [ ] Regular price set (your monthly base price)
• [ ] “Enable Subscription” ticked
• [ ] Billing Interval set (default: 1)
• [ ] Billing Period selected (Day/Week/Month/Quarter/Year)
• [ ] Annual discount configured (if applicable)
• [ ] Discount preview reviewed (if applicable)
• [ ] Product published
• [ ] Frontend product page verified

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Need Help?

• Email: [email protected]
• Support Hours: Monday to Thursday, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM (SAST)
  Friday, 09:00 AM – 12:00 PM (SAST)
• Website: cyberdummies.co.za/recurr

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This is Part 2 of the ReCurr Tutorial Series. All tutorials are available at cyberdummies.co.za/recurr.

Tutorial	Topic
1. Getting Started	Install, activate, and initial configuration
2. Creating Subscription Products	Billing periods, pricing, and discounts (you are here)
3. Configuring PayFast	Gateway credentials, sandbox vs live, ITN setup
4. Managing Subscriptions	Admin dashboard, status management, details
5. Manual EFT Subscriptions	Corporate clients paying via bank transfer
6. Customer Experience	Checkout flow and My Account subscription management
7. Invoicing	Invoice generation, PDF attachments, email delivery
8. Settings Reference	Complete reference of all available settings