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How to let customers skip a WooCommerce Subscriptions renewal
“Can I skip next month?” is one of the most common subscriber requests, and one of the most important to answer well. A subscriber who can take a break usually stays. One who can’t often cancels.
WooCommerce Subscriptions doesn’t include a skip button for customers. Here’s what it does include, how to work around it, and which extensions add skip and pause.
What WooCommerce Subscriptions offers
Subscriber suspensions
In WooCommerce > Settings > Subscriptions, you can enable subscriber suspensions. Customers then see a Suspend button next to Cancel, and a suspended subscription shows as on-hold. You can limit how many times a subscriber can suspend per billing period.
The limitation: a suspension isn’t a skip. The subscription stays on-hold until it’s reactivated, so a customer who wanted to skip one box has to remember to come back.
Change the next payment date yourself
As a store manager, you can edit a subscription and move its next payment date. That’s a true skip, but it’s manual, which means a support ticket for every request.
Other built-in options
- Switching lets subscribers change to another product, variation or plan.
- Early renewal lets them renew before the due date.
- Auto-renew toggle lets them turn automatic renewal off and on.
Useful, but none of them is “skip my next order.”
Workarounds you’ll see recommended
- Code snippets. There are snippets that add a skip button by moving the next payment date. They work, but you own the code, the testing and every Subscriptions update.
- AutomateWoo. WooCommerce’s own docs show how AutomateWoo (with its Subscriptions add-on) can pause renewals, for example by giving free months. It’s flexible, but it’s a workflow tool rather than a customer-facing skip button.
Extensions that add skip and pause
- Self-service Dashboard for WooCommerce Subscriptions ($89 a year at the time of writing) lets customers change the next payment date (within the next 30 days), pause until a date, change frequency, and add, remove or swap products.
- Cancellation Survey and Offers ($79 a year) shows a survey when someone tries to cancel and can offer a discount or a skip of the next renewal, matched to the reason they gave.
We compared these and others in the best WooCommerce Subscriptions add-ons for retention.
How to set it up so subscribers stay
- Make skip easy to find. Put it next to cancel, not three screens away.
- Show the new date. After a skip, show exactly when the next order comes so there’s no surprise charge.
- Offer a skip before a cancel. When someone clicks cancel, offer to skip or pause first.
- Remind before renewals. A reminder a few days before each renewal gives subscribers a chance to skip instead of being surprised. WooCommerce Subscriptions includes optional reminder emails.
- Set a cutoff. Decide how close to a renewal customers can still change it, so you can plan fulfillment.
How OrderCtrl handles it
In the OrderCtrl customer portal, WooCommerce Subscriptions customers can skip their next order, pause until a date, change the next delivery date or how often it arrives, swap products, and skip a single item just once (it comes back automatically next time). Before they cancel, you can offer a discount and ask why they’re leaving. Every change syncs to WooCommerce Subscriptions, and you set which actions are allowed and how close to a renewal they can happen.
Frequently asked questions
Does WooCommerce Subscriptions have a skip renewal option?
Not for customers. Store managers can change a subscription’s next payment date, and customers can suspend a subscription if you turn on subscriber suspensions, but there is no built-in skip button.
What happens when a customer suspends a subscription?
It goes on-hold for both you and the customer, and no renewals are charged until it is reactivated. You can limit how many times a subscriber can suspend per billing period.
Can I let customers pause until a specific date?
Not with WooCommerce Subscriptions alone. Extensions such as Self-service Dashboard for WooCommerce Subscriptions add a pause-until-date option.