The goal is MRR, and MRR is subscribers. You're getting add-to-carts, but people bail at the cart. This is not a checkout problem, it's an offer-architecture problem, and the category leader already proved the fix. This doc combines the diagnosis, the pricing decision, the offer mock, and the platform move into one plan.
Stop selling an $88-128 multi-bottle cart to people who clicked a "$32 first bottle" ad. Put them into a subscription whose first charge is ~$36 (still close to the ad), kill the commitment fear inline, reserve the deep discount for subscribers, and build the retention flows so they don't quit at order 2. That is how Hiya built a subscription-only kids-vitamin business, and it needs zero checkout-page access.
Your own data, last 2-3 days.
Add-to-cart works. The leak is one specific step: people reach the cart, see a number 3-4x what the ad promised, and leave before typing a character.
Clarity checkout-step drop, last 3 days: Cart 20 · Contact 4 · Shipping 3 · Payment 4. The mechanics barely leak.
You're on Shopify Basic, not Plus, so the checkout page can't be A/B tested or customized. Every fix here lives upstream (PDP / cart / offer) — which is convenient, because that's where the problem is.
| Signal | Benchmark | For us |
|---|---|---|
| #1 abandon reason | Extra/unexpected costs — 48% (Baymard) | Total-cost shock is the universal killer. Ours = the default quantity inflates the total. |
| Sub opt-in when defaulted to sub | 40-70% | Defaulting to subscription is the biggest MRR lever. We default to sub, but to the wrong size. |
| Subscriber LTV | 3-5x one-time; 8-18 orders vs 1-1.5 | Every subscriber = 3-5 one-time buyers. Worth a lower first-order AOV. |
| Sub discount depth | 15-20% motivates; 30%+ attracts churners | Our 40% first-order is deep. Wins the click, may fill the base with cancellers. Watch retained MRR. |
| Supplement churn | 70-80% quit before order 3; top brands keep 50-60%; spikes day 45-60 | A subscriber who quits at order 2 = zero MRR. Retention flows are half the job. |
| Brand | Architecture | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Hiya north star | Subscription-ONLY. 40% off first order + free shipping baked into one clean monthly price. One product, one decision. | Zero sticker shock: one price, one choice. The subscription IS the product. |
| First Day | $36 one-time vs $30.60 subscribe (~15% off) | Sustainable discount depth, in the "motivate without churners" zone. |
| Llama Naturals | $24.99/btl, Buy-2-Get-1 opt-in builder | Bundles exist, but as an opt-in upgrade, not a forced default on a cold buyer. |
The pattern: winners make the first decision tiny (one clear all-in price, cancel anytime) and grow quantity/frequency inside the account over time. We're doing the opposite: forcing the biggest basket on the coldest visitor.
$39.99/mo as the recurring sub was considered and rejected: it's above the whole category (Hiya $30) and re-widens the sticker gap. It's the one-time anchor instead.
| $29.99/btl LOCKED | $39.99/btl rejected as sub | |
|---|---|---|
| First box (2 btl, 40% off) | $35.99 | $47.99 |
| Recurring (2 btl / 60d) | $59.98 | $79.98 |
| Contribution / bottle | $21.99 | $31.99 |
| Vs Hiya ($30) | at parity | +$10, priciest in category |
Canonical promo: 40% off first order, code FIRST40. One-time $39.99 as the anchor that makes subscribing feel smart. If you want more margin, get it from the bundle + a shallower discount later, not a category-high sub price. Full scenarios + projection in the pricing doc.
The mock puts a 2-bottle / 60-day subscription as the default: first box $35.99 (40% off), then $59.98/60 days, free shipping, per-month framing, cancel-anytime inline. It captures your shipping saving (2 bottles ship at ~$4/btl vs $6) while keeping the first charge at the ad-matched ~$36.
The MRR analysis argues for a single-bottle subscription default (tiniest first decision, Hiya-style). The bundle argues for 2 bottles (shipping margin). Both keep the first charge at ~$36, so they're not enemies — they're the two arms of Test 1. The bundle-with-40%-off-first-box is the leading candidate because it gets the shipping savings without breaking the low first charge. Let the test pick.
Kaching (the current bundles/subscriptions app) runs its own recurring system — Shopify's native sellingPlanGroups came back empty, meaning subscriptions today live inside Kaching, not in Shopify's native subscription layer.
Your existing subscribers are the P&L, and they live inside Kaching. Retiring Kaching without migrating them first stops their recurring charges — that's the revenue base gone. This is a managed migration (export Kaching contracts → recreate as native subscription contracts, which may require re-authorizing payment methods), not a delete. Sequence: build native subscriptions, migrate existing subs, verify a full billing cycle, THEN turn Kaching off. Never the reverse.
Judge every test on net MRR added per 1,000 visitors (new subscribers × retained value), never AOV or first-order CVR alone.
Runs the moment pricing is locked and Serina approves. Owners + gates below; full old→new reconciliation in the offer + email plan.
The 40% reconciliation is a global consistency fix → live immediately on approval. The offer-architecture test (single vs bundle, sub-exclusive discount) waits for the live pdp-vs-hp SiteSplit test to read out (~Jul 21) so two split tests don't confound. Retention flows (Test 4) run in parallel now — they touch no test.
Re-architect around a tiny first decision: one all-in subscription price that matches the ad, cancel anytime, on native Shopify subscriptions we fully control. Win the subscriber at the cart, keep them with order 1→2→3 flows. That's the highest-leverage MRR move on the table, it's what the category leader is built on, and it needs zero checkout-page access.