- Short answer
- Yes, via apps; Shopify Subscriptions' help doesn't say digital products qualify, and on pages we checked an app or your integration grants access.
- Product setup
- Mark it as a digital product or service so no shipping charges apply
- Shopify Subscriptions gateway
- One of five supported gateways, depending on your region; Stripe only for select merchants
- Uninstalling a subscription app
- The app's contracts not yet terminated are cancelled after 48 hours; Shopify Subscriptions' help says its contracts are deleted
Can Shopify Subscriptions bill for software access?
Subscriptions sell a product on a recurring basis through the free Shopify Subscriptions app or a third-party subscription app. Shopify Subscriptions plans renew weekly, monthly, or yearly.
The Shopify Subscriptions help pages we read on October 25, 2026 don't say outright whether a digital product qualifies. The app's App Store listing tags it for “Digital products”, and from API version 2025-10 Shopify adds no delivery line to the order when no contract line requires shipping. Mark your software as a digital product or service so no shipping charges apply.
Who grants and revokes access to your software?
The route depends on where access lives.
- Content Vault sells digital subscriptions with instant or drip access and “flexible subscription billing”
- An App Store app sends a unique key per order
- Shopify Flow triggers: Subscription contract created or updated (by a user in your organization or a third-party app) and Subscription billing attempt failure; Shopify's template removes customer tags when an updated contract isn't Active
- Flow's Send HTTP request action calls your server, only on Plus, Advanced or Grow
- A subscription app you build with Shopify-approved subscription-contract scopes, not an admin-created custom app, gets each contract by webhook, plus cancel, expire, fail and pause events
What to check before you bill with Shopify Subscriptions
- Gateway: one of five supported gateways, depending on your region; Stripe is “Available only to select merchants.”
- Manual invoices: “Subscriptions can't be used with draft orders,” whichever subscription app you use.
- Business type: before Shopify Payments, check your business type and products aren't prohibited; the list isn't exhaustive and varies by region. Shopify's Sell software page, which covers downloads rather than recurring access, says: “Yes, you can sell software on Shopify.”
- Failed payments: once all retries fail, Shopify Subscriptions can skip, pause or cancel and notifies the customer; match your access rule to that setting.
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