The Onward x Stay.ai integration keeps subscription orders protected with Checkout+, and automatically catches subscriptions that would otherwise renew with nothing but a protection charge on them.
What This Integration Does
If you sell subscriptions through Stay.ai and offer Onward's Checkout+ protection on them, this integration does two things:
Adds Onward protection to your customers' subscription plans, so subscribers keep the same purchase protection on recurring orders that they'd get on a one-time purchase.
Catches "protection-only" subscriptions before they renew. Sometimes the actual subscribed product gets removed, skipped, swapped for a one-time item, or goes out of stock — but the subscription itself keeps renewing. When that happens, the only thing left on the subscription is the Onward protection charge. Onward detects this the moment it happens, removing Onward and automatically canceling the subscription before it can turn into a real order.
What's New
We recently upgraded how this works:
Before: Onward would let a "protection-only" renewal go through as an order, then automatically refund it. Customers saw a charge followed by a refund, and merchants saw an unnecessary order.
Now: Onward listens directly for subscription updates from Stay.ai. The moment a subscription becomes protection-only, Onward cancels it immediately — before any order or charge is created. Customers never see the charge, and merchants never see the extra order/refund pair.
Setup Instructions
Log in to your Shopify admin and open the Stay.ai app
Go to Subscription Setup > Selling Plans and add the Onward protection product to each selling plan
In your Onward admin, enable the "Native Shopify subscriptions enabled" setting
Confirm your selling plans show up correctly under the integration status in your Onward admin
Once set up, no further action is needed — detection and cancellation of orphaned subscriptions happens automatically in the background.