Sell subscriptions with Bolt Subscriptions

Use Bolt Subscriptions to let shoppers purchase or subscribe to digital products through hosted checkout links.

Who this is for

Merchants selling digital goods, memberships, or recurring plans who want Bolt-hosted subscription checkout without building billing infrastructure.

How it works

1. Create subscription products and plans via the Subscriptions API.
2. Bolt returns checkout links for each product variant.
3. Shoppers complete purchase or subscribe through the hosted link.
4. Manage subscriptions and view transactions in the Merchant Dashboard.

How prices are set

Bolt Subscriptions is catalog-shaped. You create a product with a fixed unit_price, give it one or more plans, and each plan sets a billing frequency. The price belongs to the product rather than the plan, so a monthly plan and a yearly plan on the same product bill the same amount. Bolt returns a checkout link per plan, and every shopper who buys through it pays that price, less any discount you attach to the plan. Changing a product's unit_price later sets the price for new subscribers only: each renewal is billed from a copy of that subscriber's last successful order, so existing subscribers keep the amount they signed up at.

That fits a published price list: tiers, memberships sold at a set rate, digital plans. The documented API has no field that sets a different recurring amount for one shopper, so a rate that varies with seat count, a first period prorated to the signup date, or usage billed in arrears does not fit the catalog. initial_period sets how long the first period lasts, not what it costs.

If your price is computed

You can still take recurring payments through Bolt. Charge the first period through Custom Cart, which accepts any cart total. Then charge each renewal against the shopper's saved card using the merchant_credit_card_authorization_recharge flow in Delayed capture, passing the consumer_id and credit_card_id from the first transaction together with a cart carrying that period's amount.

Set processing_initiator to stored_merchant_initiated on each renewal charge. That is what marks the payment as merchant-initiated against a stored credential, and it is not inferred from the request: leave it out and the charge goes to the networks unflagged, which costs you authorization rates and the chargeback protection a correctly flagged recurring payment carries. Bolt finds the original transaction to chain it to, so you do not have to pass one.

Bolt takes every payment. You own the schedule and the retry policy, and you do not get the rest of Bolt Subscriptions: plan management, the renewal engine, and subscription records in your dashboard.

Get started

1. Create a merchant account
2. Copy API and publishable keys from Administration > API in the dashboard
3. Follow the Subscriptions integration guide
4. Create products with POST /v1/subscriptions/products

API and configuration

Verify in dashboard

After a test subscription, open Transactions in the Merchant Dashboard and confirm the payment appears with the expected status.

Related

• Checkout Everywhere: one-time checkout links
• Bolt Checkout: storefront checkout replacement
• Webhooks: subscription events
• API keys