
We’re excited to introduce minimum commitments for order-based project types. This update allows you to capture longer-term commitments from customers, similar to rental subscriptions, while still providing full flexibility in delivery timing of committed orders for your customers.
Minimum ordering commitments help you immediately reduce churn after the first order, avoid subscription order discount abuse, and strengthen customer retention.
This feature is linked to a certain plan in your Firmhouse project. You can find your plans under the Plans tab on your portal. Basically, a plan sets the agreement terms with your customer, including how often they get their products and any discounts for that plan.
If you want to give your customers choices like how often they get shipments, you have to make a separate plan for each choice.
How minimum commitments work
Minimum commitments are the third term you can now establish for your plans.
This is how they work:
Once you set a minimum commitment for a specific plan, all new subscriptions will follow those terms automatically.
Your customers can still add products on their subscription management portal after the original signup. These products do not get automatically locked in the commitments - meaning your customers can add or remove products freely, as long as they're not part of the commitment.
Commitments become active on subscription activation and get updated when a relevant change is made (a shipment date is changed, orders are paused or skipped).
Our recommendation is that you set your minimum commitments using multiples of that plan frequency. For example: if you have a monthly plan and you want to lock in your customers for two orders, you set your minimum commitment period as one month. That will cover the first order, which is immediate, and the second order one month later. If you want to lock in your customers for three orders, then you set your minimum commitment period as two months: the immediate first order, a second order after a month and the third order at the end of the second month.
As a merchant, you can change agreements with a customer if necessary. You can take out products, cancel orders before the agreed time, change the dates of commitments, and set a new date for the next shipment.