work arounds for not accepting codes for subscription products?

[dentoollibrary]

Hi All, we are a non-profit that relies heavily on subscription based products. Square does not allow customers to enter discount codes during check out for subscription products which is important to use for gift cards and financial assistance discounts. If anyone has any work arounds that doesn't involve a lot of manual work, we'd love to know. Thanks!

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @dentoollibrary.  Honestly, we need you to be a lot more clear in order to help you here.  Are you saying that your subscribers sometimes use gift cards to purchase discounts?  If so, all they have to do is enter that gift card information on the payment screen — discounts are not needed.  Otherwise, if that’s not what you are saying, can you give us an example or two — what the subscriber is purchasing, why they would want to apply a discount, etc.  I’ve read your post a half-dozen times and can’t quite figure out where it is going.  Solid examples would help clarify that, I’m sure.

[dentoollibrary]

Thanks for trying! Let me but a bit more clear.

In Square, if you pay for the "Plus" plan, it opens a product Square calls "Subscriptions". This allows you to charge customers for a product on a regular time frame, like monthly. When a customer purchases one of these Square subscription products online, there is no place for them to enter a gift code on check out. I spoke to Square customer service, and they say there is no way to accept discount codes if an online product is subscription based. A regular one time product yes, but not a subscription product. This is a huge problem for our business so I'm trying to find a work around.

For an example, go to https://square.link/u/iZbVKU0I - you'll see a "one-time purchase" option, and a "subscription" option. If you click the one time, and then press checkout, there's a field to enter a code. If you click the subscription option, and then press checkout, there is no field to enter a code.

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

@dentoollibrary That’s a great clarification.  Thank you so much.  And, yes, I can confirm that I see your issue clearly now.  For this one, I’ll have to admit defeat, however.  Not only can you NOT enter a coupon code during checkout for subscriptions, but there is truly no work-around that could help you in this situation.  

This is because Square did not design Subscriptions to also need coupons.  I believe (but remember I’m not Square so I’m only guessing) that they assumed that any discounts/coupons would be built into the actual subscription, and that therefore coupons would be effectively redundant.  I sort of participated in the beta and early tests of this redesign, but don’t remember this coming up at all.  But I could have missed something since I dropped out of that beta early since it did not offer any fulfillment types other than shipping, which made it useless for my needs.  Still, I’m pretty confident that the concept of Subscriptions included the implicit concept of coupons/discounts being built-in.  Sure, that might have been a bad assumption for some sellers, but it was a reasonable one at the time.

That’s a long-winded way of saying that your issue falls into the category of a feature request.  Feature requests can be submitted on the Ideate Board.  Just remember that these only start an evaluation process, and this process takes time to evaluate the request, get feedback, etc, before a decision is made to put it on a future product roadmap.  Square Subscriptions as we see it is a compete overhaul of the original design which was not even usable for most folks.  While this one is so much better, it is still (IMO) in its infancy. I know that changes and enhancements are actively being worked on, but of course I don’t know the timeline for a new round of upgrades.

Lastly, it sounds like you might be just starting to set up Subscriptions for your business.  If so, I would strongly recommend heading over to the Square App Marketplace and searching for third-party subscription apps that integrate with our Square accounts.  In my opinion, one of the best is called Submatic, but there are others.  I use a number of third-party apps like this one to enhance Square, especially early on in a new Square product’s life when it just doesn’t quite do what I need.  Also, third-party apps are great to enhance Square in areas that Square will probably never go (automatic language translation of websites, for example).

Anyway, sorry I can’t be more helpful.  But I think this should give you an idea of your options as things stand right now.

Good luck.

[dentoollibrary]

thank you for taking the time to address the issue! much appreciated. 

[TheRealChipA]

@dentoollibrary Of course you are welcome. That’s why we are here. To help our fellow sellers, even if that help is not exactly satisfying every time. Please don’t hesitate to return here if you have any other concerns. I, or someone, will do our best.

And if you have the time join us in sharing your experience and knowledge to assist other sellers when they post questions. That’s the entire point of this community — sellers helping other sellers. After all, we are the ones with the real-world experience.