The moment a customer finishes paying is the moment they trust you most. They have chosen the product, handed over their payment details and are waiting to see their order confirmed. Upsell funnels put an offer in that moment: something they can add without entering their payment details again, and without a second checkout.
We built funnels for subscription brands first. So an offer can do more than add an item: it can turn the order a customer just placed into a subscription, add something to a subscriber’s next shipment, or move them to prepaid. The same idea carries on after checkout, into the reminder before each renewal and into the customer portal.
What happens after payment
The order is placed and paid before any offer appears. Declining an offer, or leaving the page, never changes the purchase the customer already made. Then the customer sees the first step: the offer, the price they will pay including tax and any add-on shipping, and, for a subscription offer, the terms.
- Accept does what the step offers. A product offer is charged to the payment method they just used and added to the same order as its own line item. Accepting can lead to a follow-up offer, if you set one.
- No thanks shows the downsell you set for that offer, if there is one.
- A funnel shows at most three steps to one customer.
Four kinds of step
- Product offer. An extra product that ships with the order: more of the same, a product you choose, or an AI complementary pick, with a percent or fixed discount.
- Turn order into a subscription. The first product in the order, on a plan the customer picks from the plans you allow. Nothing is charged now.
- Add to next shipment. For an order that started a subscription: a discounted item added to the next scheduled shipment and charged with that renewal.
- Upgrade to prepaid. For subscribers: several deliveries paid up front at the prepaid plan’s price, with explicit consent.
Downsells
A declined offer is not always a no to buying anything. It is often a no to that quantity or that price. A downsell gives the customer a second, smaller option: fewer units, a lower-priced product or a bigger discount. It appears only after the customer declines the offer it belongs to.
Targeting
An offer that follows the purchase makes sense to the customer. An offer that ignores it reads as an ad. You choose which orders see a funnel: orders containing the products you pick, an order subtotal range, whether the customer has an active subscription, whether the order started one, first orders or returning customers, and customer tags. You can cap how many offers from a funnel one customer accepts, and schedule a funnel to start and end. When more than one funnel matches, they are tried from the highest priority down, and only one funnel runs per order.
A/B testing
You should not have to guess which offer works. Run up to five versions of a funnel, each with its own steps and page copy, split traffic between them, and compare them in the Upsells report, which marks a difference from the control that is significant at 95% confidence. A returning customer always sees the same version. Promote the winner when you are ready.
One-time purchase to subscription, with explicit consent
For a subscription brand, the most valuable thing a first-time buyer can do is buy again on a schedule. A conversion offer asks for exactly that, right after the first purchase: keep the order you just placed, and receive this product again on a schedule.
A recurring charge is a bigger decision than one more item, so we built this part to ask properly. Before the customer accepts, the offer shows the renewal price, how often it renews, when the first renewal is charged, that it continues until they cancel, and how to cancel. The subscription starts only when the customer ticks a consent checkbox and then accepts. The checkbox is never pre-ticked, and the subscription cannot be started without it. The consent is saved with the subscription and the customer is emailed a confirmation.
Nothing is charged when they accept. The subscription is created on the payment method from the order, its first renewal is charged on its renewal date, and it runs on the same renewal and retry settings as every other subscription in your store.
An offer in the reminder before the renewal
A subscriber’s next best moment to buy is just before their next delivery, when a box is about to ship anyway. The pre-renewal reminder email can now include an add-on offer. The customer opens the link, confirms, and the item is charged with that renewal and ships in the same box. It is a one-time addition: the renewal after that goes back to their usual items.
Frequency and prepaid, in the portal
Many subscribers who cancel were not unhappy with the product; the schedule was wrong for them. In the customer portal, subscribers can change how often they receive their subscription, choosing from the plans you offer for that product. They can also upgrade to prepaid: pay for several deliveries up front at the prepaid price you set, charged at their next renewal, instead of being charged at every delivery.
Payments and the order
Offers are charged to the payment method used at checkout, through PlatformDTC Payments, and a step is shown only when that payment method can pay for it. Orders paid by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Link can be shown every kind of step. When the customer paid with a card, their bank may ask them to verify the charge on the page, the same way it can at checkout. Orders paid with PayPal are not shown product offers, subscription conversions or prepaid upgrades.
- One order. An accepted product offer is a line item on the original order, and the order total is updated. No second order is created.
- Its own charge. The upsell is charged separately on the same payment method, and a dispute on it is matched back to the same order.
- Never charged twice. A double-click or a refresh does not charge the same offer twice on the same order.
The Upsells report
The Upsells report covers offers on the post-purchase page, in the customer portal and in reminder emails: impressions, accepts, take rate, upsell revenue, revenue per impression, AOV lift, projected recurring revenue, and orders converted to subscriptions. Break it down by funnel and version, and open a funnel to see accepts and declines at every step. Declined offers are never counted as revenue.
Where to find it
Build funnels in the Checkout Editor under Post-purchase offers, and read the results in Analytics under Reports, then Upsells. The full guide, including payment method eligibility and what happens to the order, is in the docs.