Use Bolt Subscriptions to sell digital goods on a recurring basis, from an external storefront or inside your app or game.

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Prerequisites

Create a Bolt Merchant account and finish onboarding first.

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Quickstart

To get started with Bolt Subscriptions, complete the following steps:
  1. Create and activate your Bolt Merchant account
  2. Complete Merchant Dashboard setup
  3. Configure products and plans
  4. Get checkout links
  5. Manage subscriptions
  6. Configure failed payment recovery
  7. Review shopper notifications
  8. Configure a tax provider

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Create and Activate Your Bolt Merchant Account

  1. Create a Bolt Merchant account.
  2. Provide your company Website URL.
  3. Provide your company and personal details.
  4. Accept the terms and submit the form.
  5. Open the activation email from Bolt and follow the link to complete your setup.
After activation, sign in to your Bolt Merchant account.

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Complete Merchant Dashboard Setup

Sign in to your Bolt Merchant account and finish the remaining setup tasks in the dashboard. Dashboard setup tasks
  1. Go to Checkout settings.
  2. Under Configuration, click Browse Files to upload your logo.
Company logo upload

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Provide Customer Support Contact

  1. Go to Administration settings.
  2. Select Business Info.
  3. Find the Shopper Support Contact Information section and enter your support contact info.
Shopper support contact

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Configure Products and Plans

To enable a digital subscription:
  1. In the Commerce section of the left navigation, click Subscriptions.
  2. Click the Products tab, then click Create Product.
  3. Fill in the product form and select at least one plan.
Create product button The form collects information about the product you will sell and the subscription plans you want to offer. Each product can have multiple plans (for example, monthly and yearly), but at least one plan is required. Product form Plan example
You can choose weekly, monthly, or yearly subscriptions. Changing the Frequency value allows extra flexibility; for example, Frequency = 3 and Unit = monthly yields a quarterly subscription.
Quarterly plan example After creating a product:
  1. Open the Product view to see all plans associated with it.
  2. Navigate to each Plan to get the Bolt checkout link for the subscription.
  3. Add those checkout links to buttons wherever shoppers should subscribe.
Product view Checkout link on plan

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Manage Subscriptions

Subscriptions appear on the Subscriptions tab. The table shows active and canceled subscriptions across products.
  • Use the search box to find a specific subscription.
  • Click a subscription to view details, orders, and the next scheduled charge.
Subscriptions table The subscription view shows all orders associated with the subscription, including the next scheduled charge. Subscription details

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Cancel a Subscription

  1. Open the subscription details.
  2. Click Cancel Subscription and confirm.

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Configure Failed Payment Recovery

Bolt automatically retries failed renewal payments and reminds subscribers before each renewal. Configure this from the Payment Recovery tab:
  1. In the Commerce section of the left navigation, click Subscriptions.
  2. Click the Payment Recovery tab.
  3. Set Retry schedule (hours after failure): a comma-separated list of hour offsets from the initial payment failure, for example 24, 72, 168, 336. Up to 10 entries, strictly increasing, each at most 2160 hours (90 days).
  4. Set Renewal reminder lead days: a comma-separated list of days before renewal to email subscribers, for example 30, 7, 3. Up to 10 entries, each at most 90 days, no duplicates.
  5. Choose After final retry fails: Cancel subscription or Pause subscription, the action Bolt takes once every retry in the schedule has failed.
  6. Turn on SMS notifications to also text subscribers when a renewal payment fails, in addition to email.
  7. Click Save Settings.
If you haven’t configured these settings yet, Bolt applies defaults: retries at 24, 72, 168, and 336 hours after failure, reminders at 30, 7, and 3 days before renewal, and cancellation as the final action.

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Review Shopper Notifications

Bolt sends transactional emails for subscription events (created, renewed, canceled). See examples below.

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Subscription Created Email

Subscription created email

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Subscription Renew Email

Subscription renew email

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Subscription Cancel Email

Subscription cancel email

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Configure a Tax Provider

The instructions below apply only for digital goods and subscriptions:
  1. In your Bolt Merchant account, go to Integrations.
Integrations tab
  1. In Tax Compliance Provider, choose your provider and enter provider credentials:
    • TaxJar: API Key
    • Avalara: Account ID and License Key
Tax provider configuration
  1. Click Update credentials to save and activate tax calculations.
Ensure your account with the selected provider is active and properly configured before connecting.