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Pausing and resuming subscriptions
Pausing and resuming subscriptions

Pause and resume a subscription on Firmhouse

Jeroen Roosenboom avatar
Written by Jeroen Roosenboom
Updated over a month ago

In this article, we'll walk through the different ways to pause. These are:

  1. As a merchant from the Firmhouse Portal;

  2. As a customer from their Self Service Center (only on Smart order-based projects)

  3. Automatically pause subscriptions without active products (only on Smart order-based projects)

  4. Via the Firmhouse GraphQL API using a PauseSubscription mutation call

As well as additional details on billing, orders, and available notifications.

1. Pausing a subscription from the Portal

To pause an active subscription, go to the subscription page in the Firmhouse portal and select the "Pause subscription" button in the top right of the screen:

A modal will pop up with some details on the effects and to confirm the pausing:

Resume a paused subscription

The paused state is visible on the subscription by a blue bar. There's also a "Resume" button, this will show up a modal to confirm the resume:

2. Pausing a subscription from the Self Service Center

💡 This functionality is only available for smart Order-based projects.

  1. First, you need to enable the functionality for your customers. You can find the Customers can pause and resume their subscription checkbox under Self service center settings.

  2. The next time the customer visits their Self-Service Center they will see the option to pause their subscription.
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  3. Once selected, they will be prompted to confirm pausing their subscription:
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  4. That's it! The subscription will be paused and the customer can return at any time to resume their subscription. This is how their Self Service Checkout will look like:
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  5. If your customer is ready to return they will be able to resume at any time they please. Clicking the "Resume subscription" will tell them all they need to know about when their subscription is going to be active again:
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3. Automatically pausing subscriptions without active products

💡 This functionality is only available for smart Order-based projects.

When the customers are enabled to manage their products by themselves, it's possible to remove all active products from the subscription. In this case, their subscription remains active even though there are no products left or future shipments scheduled, which can clutter analytics and make subscription management harder.

To prevent this, we now offer an option to automatically pause subscriptions without active products every night. This functionality is enabled by default for smart order-based projects created after November 13, 2024. For existing projects, you can choose to opt-in and enable this functionality if you’d like to take advantage of it.

  1. You can find the Pause subscriptions without products checkbox under Self service center settings.

    Once enabled, subscriptions without any active products will automatically pause daily at 3:10 am. Products marked as inactive (owned/returned) or deleted from subscriptions are not considered active.

  2. If auto-pausing is enabled, the customers will see a message in their dashboard letting them know. If they add new products before the scheduled pause, the message will disappear, and the subscription will remain active:

  3. Paused subscriptions can be resumed through the usual SSC resume flow, provided you have Pausing a subscription from the Self Service Center option is enabled.

4. Pausing a subscription via API

Subscription can be paused via pauseSubscription mutation. Please refer to the developer documentation for more details.

Billing & Orders Upon Resuming a Subscription

Once a subscription is paused, no orders or payments will be created. When the subscription is resumed, the next order will be scheduled while maintaining the original timeline, ensuring the schedule continues seamlessly.


​Notifications & events

1. Outgoing Webhooks

You can take advantage of subscription paused and subscription resumed webhooks to set up additional automations.

2. Email Notifications

  • Project events email notifications

If you have set up an email to receive project email notifications, we will send you an email when a subscription gets paused:

  • Upcoming Order Emails when Paused

Upcoming order emails are also sent out to paused customers. You can use the {{subscription.status}} liquid tag to conditionally adjust the email content for this use case. For example:

{% if subscription.status == "paused" %}
  oh no your subscription is paused! resume in the next few days to receive this order in time!
{% endif %}

You can adjust the email content from Email configuration settings:


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