Appstle Subscriptions
Let customers pause, skip, change how often they get deliveries, fix an expired card and cancel — on their own, without waiting for your team.
Do I need this?
Only if you run subscriptions through Appstle. If you use Seal Subscriptions instead, connect that one — the chatbot behaves identically either way, which is the whole point of supporting both.
Setup
Create an API key
In your Appstle admin, go to Settings → API Key Management and click Create New Key. The key is shown in full only once, so copy it before closing the page.
Choose what the chatbot may do
The setup wizard splits the actions by how easily they can be undone, because that is the question that actually matters when you are deciding.
Reversible — on by default
Listing subscriptions and showing their details. Pausing and resuming. Skipping the next order, and putting it back if they change their mind. Showing past orders and charges. Changing how often deliveries arrive. Emailing them a link to the Appstle portal, or a secure link to update a card.
Every one of these can be undone in a sentence, or changes nothing at all, so they are enabled from the start.
Harder to undo — opt in
Changing how many of a product arrive each time, and changing the next charge date — both change what the customer is billed. Changing the delivery address. Applying your retention discount. And cancelling, which cannot be undone at all: Shopify will not restart a cancelled subscription contract, so a new one has to be created.
Decide what happens before a cancellation
If you enable cancelling, you also choose what the chatbot does first. It can ask the customer to confirm, offer a pause as an alternative, and offer a retention discount that you word yourself. These are your policies, not the chatbot improvising — it reads out exactly what you configure.
Give the discount a code as well as a description. With both, and Apply Retention Discount switched on, the chatbot applies it the moment a customer accepts. With only a description it can mention the offer and nothing more, which is a conversation that ends in "someone will be in touch". The code itself is never read out in chat.
How customers are kept apart
A customer verifies their email with a six-digit code before anything happens, and every action then checks that the subscription actually belongs to that verified address.
This matters more than it might sound. Appstle authenticates your store, not the shopper — hand it a subscription ID and it will happily pause it, whoever asked. The ownership check is ours, and it is the reason this cannot be a thin pass-through to Appstle.
The two worth turning on even if you are cautious
Change delivery frequency. "This comes too often" is the commonest reason a subscriber leaves, and moving someone from monthly to every second month costs you nothing — you keep the customer instead of losing them. Without it the only alternative the chatbot can offer is a pause, which is a worse outcome for both of you.
Payment update link. An expired card is the single most common subscription message, and it used to be the one thing the chatbot could do nothing about. It never handles card details itself: it asks Appstle to email a secure link to the address on the contract. That is also why a phishing attempt cannot imitate it — the link arrives from your subscription provider, not from a chat window.
What the chatbot will not do
It will not take card details, change a plan's price, or edit which products are in a subscription beyond quantities. For anything outside its tools it emails the customer a link to the Appstle portal so they can do it themselves, rather than guessing or promising a callback.