When a shopper already has a subscription and writes in asking about it, "when does my box renew," "can you pause it for two months," "how do I cancel," Arbyn recognizes what they're asking and handles it exactly the way you've told it to. It never invents an answer about someone's specific account, and it never claims to have changed a subscription it can't actually touch. You decide, once, how these conversations should go, and Arbyn follows that every time.
This works no matter which subscription app your store runs on, whether that's Shopify's own Subscriptions app, or a third-party app like Recharge, Bold, Appstle, Seal, Loop, or Skio.
What it does
Arbyn tells the difference between a shopper asking a general, pre-purchase question ("do you offer subscriptions?") and a shopper asking about their own existing subscription ("pause mine," "what's my renewal date"). General questions are always answered normally, the same as any other product question, using what your store actually offers. Anything about an existing subscription account follows the specific handling you've chosen in Settings.
Where to find it
Go to Settings, Guardrails, and open the Subscriptions action. You'll find three ways to handle it:
Off (the default). Arbyn still answers general questions like "do you offer subscriptions?" normally. Anything about an existing account, pausing, canceling, or a specific renewal date, gets escalated to your team.
Send customers to your subscription portal. Arbyn answers the question, then gives the shopper a one-tap button that opens your subscription management page, where they make the actual change themselves.
Escalate to your team. Arbyn answers general how-do-subscriptions-work questions, then hands anything account-specific, a pause, skip, swap, cancellation, or payment change, to your team instead of a portal link.
If you choose the portal option, you'll also fill in:
Which app runs your subscriptions? A plain name like Recharge, Appstle, or Shopify Subscriptions. This is used only so Arbyn can answer accurately about how your specific portal behaves; your shoppers never see the app's name, only "your subscription management page."
Subscription management page URL. The link Arbyn's button opens for the shopper, your Recharge customer portal, your Shopify customer account subscriptions page, or wherever your app's portal lives. If you leave this blank, Arbyn falls back to escalating subscription actions to your team instead of ever sending a shopper to a broken or missing link.
You can also choose which channels this applies to (chat, email, and so on) from the same screen, the same way you control channels for every other guardrail.
How it works
General questions are never escalated. A shopper asking whether you offer subscriptions at all, or what plans are available for a product, is a sales question, and it's answered like one, straight from your real catalog. This holds true no matter which of the three modes above you've chosen. Turning subscription handling "off" only affects questions about an existing account, it never makes Arbyn stop talking about subscriptions as a product feature.
What Arbyn will never do. Regardless of mode, Arbyn never states a specific renewal date, price, or status for a shopper's individual subscription, since it doesn't have a way to look up an individual contract in this version. It also never says it has paused, skipped, canceled, swapped, or otherwise changed a subscription, because it hasn't, and saying so would be a false confirmation to your shopper. Where a specific date or status genuinely matters, Arbyn tells the shopper that detail lives in their subscription management page rather than guessing.
In portal mode. For a general how-it-works question, Arbyn just answers. For anything account-specific or action-based (pause, skip, change quantity or frequency, cancel, update payment), Arbyn gives a brief, accurate answer and then hands the shopper a Manage my subscription button in chat (or the same link in plain text on email, Instagram, or Messenger) that opens your real portal. The shopper makes the actual change there themselves; Arbyn's part ends at pointing them to the right place.
In escalate mode. General questions are answered the same way. Anything account-specific is acknowledged warmly, and the conversation is handed to your team rather than sent anywhere, since you haven't given Arbyn a portal to send shoppers to.
When "off" and a shopper asks about their own account anyway. Arbyn acknowledges the request, doesn't invent a portal link or guess at account details, and escalates to your team, the same outcome as escalate mode, just without the general-questions distinction being called out separately in Settings.
Follow-up stays normal. A shopper who goes quiet after being pointed to your portal, or after being told your team will follow up, still gets Arbyn's usual check-in ("is there anything else I can help with?"), and the conversation wraps up and asks for a rating the same way any other resolved conversation does.
Good to know
You set this up once. Arbyn doesn't detect your subscription app automatically in this version; you tell it the app name and portal link, which is the reliable source of truth for what your shoppers should see.
No account access. Arbyn doesn't read or change an individual shopper's actual subscription in this version. It explains, and it deflects to the right place, whether that's your portal or your team. A tool that lets Arbyn directly pause, skip, or cancel a specific subscription on your behalf is on the roadmap, not live today, so treat any mention of Arbyn "managing" a subscription account directly as a future capability rather than something it does now.
A missing portal URL degrades safely. If you pick the portal mode but haven't filled in a URL yet, Arbyn never sends a shopper to a blank or broken link. It escalates to your team instead, until you add one.
Your subscription app's name stays internal. Even though you tell Arbyn which app you use, your shoppers only ever hear "your subscription management page," never the app's brand name.
FAQ
Will Arbyn tell a customer their exact renewal date or price if they ask? No, not in this version. Arbyn doesn't have a way to look up an individual subscription's specific details, so it points the shopper to their subscription management page for anything account-specific, rather than guessing or giving an outdated answer.
What happens if a shopper asks to cancel their subscription and I've chosen "escalate to your team"? Arbyn acknowledges the request warmly, explains that your team will help, and hands the conversation to your team. It never tells the shopper the cancellation has already happened.
Can I change which channels this covers? Yes. Like your other guardrails, you can restrict subscription handling to specific channels, chat only, for example, from the same Settings screen.
What if I switch subscription apps later? Just update the app name and portal URL in Settings whenever your setup changes. Arbyn always uses whatever you've currently entered; there's nothing cached from an old app to clear out.