Shopify subscription event tracking

6 min

Overview

If your Shopify store sells subscriptions, Chord can track subscription lifecycle events such as creation, cancellation, and payment failures. These events are delivered to Chord via Shopify webhooks, similar to Shopify server event trackingServer event tracking.

However, Shopify restricts subscription contract webhook events to the app that originally created the contract (such as Shopify Subscriptions or Recharge). Because of this limitation, the Chord webhook source cannot listen to subscription-specific webhook events directly. Instead, Shopify Flow is used as a workaround to forward these events to Chord.

Prerequisites

Before configuring subscription event tracking, confirm the following:

Chord has access to your Shopify store

You have access to your Chord workspace

Shopify server event trackingServer event tracking is already configured (Admin API key and webhook source are in place)

Shopify Flow is installed on your Shopify store

If you have questions about any of these prerequisites, contact [email protected].

Supported Subscription Events

Shopify Webhook Topic	Chord Event
subscription_contracts/create	Subscription Created
subscription_contracts/cancel	Subscription Canceled
subscription_contracts/pause	Subscription Paused
subscription_contracts/expire	Subscription Expired
subscription_billing_attempts/failure	Subscription Payment Failed

Installation

Step 1: Install Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow is a free automation app from Shopify. It may already be installed on your store — your Chord implementation team may have set it up during provisioning. If you are unsure, contact [email protected].

Step 2: Import Flows

Your Chord implementation team will provide three Flow files:

[CHORD] - Subscription Contract Created.flow

[CHORD] - Subscription Updated (Cancelled / Expired / Paused).flow

[CHORD] - Subscription Payment Failed.flow

To import each flow:

In your Shopify Admin, go to Apps > Shopify Flow.

Click Import Flow.

Upload the .flow file and confirm the import.

Repeat for each of the three flow files.

Step 3: Verify the Flows

In Shopify Flow, review each imported workflow to confirm it is active.

Trigger a test subscription event in your store (e.g., create a test subscription).

In your Chord workspace, navigate to the Shopify webhook source and open the Debugger tab.

Confirm that the expected subscription events appear.

Support

If you encounter issues configuring subscription flows or do not see subscription events in your Chord workspace, contact [email protected] with details about the problem.