Onboard a subscription in WooCommerce to automatic renewals

Send a reminder before renewal to subscribers whose subscriptions don’t have a payment method. The email can link each customer to the payment-method page for their subscription.

Before you begin

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• Install and activate AutomateWoo and WooCommerce Subscriptions.
• Set up a payment gateway that supports automatic renewals. Adding a payment method alone doesn’t guarantee that every gateway or subscription supports automatic payments.
• This workflow is useful when a customer starts a subscription without a payment method, such as during a free trial or a zero-total initial checkout. See allowing checkout without a payment method.

Create the workflow

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1. Go to AutomateWoo > Workflows and select Add New Workflow. Give the workflow a descriptive name and set its Status to Disabled while you configure it.
2. Under Trigger, select Subscription Before Renewal. Set Days before renewal to give subscribers enough time to add a payment method. For example, enter 7 for a reminder seven days before renewal.
3. Optionally, set Time of day for the daily check. If left blank, it runs at midnight in the site’s time zone. You can also limit the trigger to selected subscription products.
4. Under Rules, select + Add Rule Group, choose Subscription – Has Payment Method, and set it to No.

The trigger checks subscriptions daily for the specified number of days before their next renewal. It doesn’t run immediately when you save, and a subscription whose reminder date has already passed won’t match that day’s check.

Set up and test the email

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1. Under Actions, select + Add Action and choose Send Email. In the Variables panel, select customer.email, copy it, and paste it into To.
2. Write a subject and email asking the subscriber to add a payment method before renewal.
3. In Variables, select subscription.change_payment_method_link. Enter the link text, select Copy to clipboard, and paste the variable into the email content. It produces a link to the payment-method page for that subscription.
4. Save the disabled workflow, then select Preview in the action header. Check the message using a suitable test subscription and send a test email. Open the link as the subscriber and confirm an eligible payment method can be added.
5. When the message, link, timing, and rule are correct, set Status to Active and select Save.

If the workflow doesn’t find a subscription, check its next renewal date, the reminder interval, and whether a payment method is already assigned. For payment-method and renewal options, see the subscription renewal process.