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The Prepaid orders page lists all unfulfilled orders for prepaid subscription contracts. This page helps you track pending fulfillments when your billing frequency is longer than your delivery frequency.

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What are prepaid orders?

Prepaid subscriptions charge customers less frequently than they deliver products. For example, you might charge every 2 months but deliver monthly. This creates “prepaid” orders—orders that have been paid for but not yet fulfilled. The Prepaid orders list shows these unfulfilled orders so you can track what needs to be shipped.

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When to use this page

This page is most useful when you offer prepaid subscription plans that fulfill more often than they bill. Common scenarios:
  • Charge every 2 months, deliver monthly (customer gets 2 deliveries per payment)
  • Charge every 3 months, deliver monthly (customer gets 3 deliveries per payment)
  • Charge annually, deliver quarterly (customer gets 4 deliveries per year)
If your billing and delivery frequencies match (e.g., charge monthly, deliver monthly), this page will usually be empty because every order is fulfilled immediately after billing.

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View prepaid orders

To access the Prepaid orders page:
  1. Click Subscriptions in the main navigation
  2. Click Prepaid orders
The list shows:
  • Order: The Shopify order name (e.g., #1234)
  • Product: The product being fulfilled in this order
  • Qty: Quantity of the product
  • Amount: The order total and currency
  • Next billing: The date of the next billing cycle for this subscription
  • Status: The order fulfillment status

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How prepaid billing works

When you create a prepaid subscription plan:
  1. The customer is charged upfront for multiple deliveries
  2. Shopify creates one fulfillment order per delivery date
  3. Each fulfillment order appears as an unfulfilled order until you ship it
  4. The Prepaid orders page lists all pending fulfillments across all prepaid contracts
As you fulfill each order, it disappears from this list. The next billing cycle creates a new set of prepaid orders.

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Fulfilling prepaid orders

Prepaid orders are fulfilled like any other Shopify order:
  1. Go to Orders in Shopify admin
  2. Find the order by name (from the Prepaid orders list)
  3. Fulfill the order through your normal fulfillment process
Once fulfilled, the order no longer appears on the Prepaid orders page.
Shopify natively supports prepaid subscriptions where the billing period is a multiple of the fulfillment frequency (bill every 2 months, deliver monthly). Billing more often than you deliver (bill monthly, deliver every 2 months) requires custom workarounds.
If you have many prepaid contracts, check the Prepaid orders page regularly to ensure you’re fulfilling orders on schedule. Unfulfilled orders older than the delivery frequency may indicate a fulfillment backlog.