Getting started

Core Features

Store Management

Payments

Developer

Quick start

This guide walks you through creating your first subscription product and making your first test purchase. You should be able to complete it in under ten minutes.

Before you begin, make sure Milo Subscriptions is installed and activated. See Installation if you need help.

Step 1: Choose your mode

Milo Subscriptions supports two modes. Pick the one that matches your store.

  • WooCommerce mode: your products, cart, checkout, and orders are handled by WooCommerce. This is the right choice if you already use WooCommerce or plan to sell physical and subscription products side by side.
  • Standalone mode: Milo Subscriptions creates its own product catalog and checkout, powered directly by Stripe. Pick this if you only sell subscriptions and want a lighter install with no WooCommerce dependency.

You can switch modes later from Milo Subscriptions → Settings → General.

Step 2: Connect a payment gateway

Subscriptions require a gateway that supports recurring payments. The easiest way to get started is with Milo Payments, our native gateway add-on, which supports Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Mollie.

  1. Go to Milo Subscriptions → Payments.
  2. Click Connect next to your chosen gateway.
  3. You will be redirected to the gateway to authorize the connection.
  4. Once redirected back, your gateway shows as Connected.

For a full setup walkthrough, see the Payments section.

Step 3: Create your first subscription product

In WooCommerce mode

  1. Go to Products → Add New.
  2. Enter a product name and description.
  3. In the Product data panel, select Simple subscription from the product type dropdown.
  4. Set:
  • Subscription price: the amount charged at each renewal.
  • Billing period: day, week, month, or year.
  • Billing interval: how often the billing period repeats (for example, every 2 months).
  • Sign-up fee (optional): a one-time charge at purchase.
  • Free trial (optional): a trial period before the first charge.
  1. Click Publish.

In Standalone mode

  1. Go to Milo Subscriptions → Plans → Add New.
  2. Fill in the plan name, price, billing period, and billing interval.
  3. Click Save plan.

Step 4: Make a test purchase

Before going live, always run a test purchase to confirm everything works.

  1. Open your gateway settings and enable test mode (or use a test/sandbox account).
  2. Visit your product or plan page in an incognito window.
  3. Add it to cart and check out using a Stripe test card such as 4242 4242 4242 4242.
  4. Complete the purchase.

You should now see:

  • A new subscription in Milo Subscriptions → Subscriptions.
  • A welcome email delivered to the test customer.
  • A successful payment in your gateway dashboard.

Step 5: Go live

Once you have confirmed your setup works end to end:

  1. Switch your gateway from test to live mode.
  2. Review your default emails under Milo Subscriptions → Settings → Emails.
  3. Review renewal, retry, and cancellation defaults under Milo Subscriptions → Settings.
  4. Publish your products and start taking real subscriptions.

Next steps