Lifetime subscriptions

Lifetime subscriptions charge the customer once and grant them ongoing access with no renewals. They are useful when you want the subscription benefits (memberships, downloads, protected content, analytics) but with a single up-front payment instead of a recurring charge.

When to use lifetime subscriptions

Pick a lifetime subscription when:

• You sell a one-time license or lifetime deal (LTD).
• You offer founder or early-bird pricing with no renewals.
• You want to grant permanent access without managing recurring billing.
• You migrate legacy customers who paid once under your previous model.

If you need any form of recurring payment, use a simple or variable subscription instead.

Creating a lifetime subscription

1. Go to Products → Add New.
2. Enter a name and description.
3. In the Product data panel, select Simple subscription.
4. On the Subscription tab, set the Billing period to Lifetime (one-time).
5. Set the Subscription price to the one-time lifetime amount.
6. Click Publish.

Selecting Lifetime (one-time) tells Milo Subscriptions to charge the customer once at checkout and skip scheduling any renewals. The subscription is created with status Active and remains active indefinitely. The Billing interval, Expire after, and Fixed expiry date fields do not apply to a lifetime plan: there is no schedule to run.

Sign-up fees

A lifetime plan can carry a sign-up fee. It is added on top of the price at checkout, and the product page says so: a $199 plan with a $10 fee displays as “$199.00 (one-time) and a $10.00 sign-up fee”, and the customer pays $209.

Free trials do not apply

A lifetime plan ignores the free trial fields, including a trial inherited from a variable product’s parent (see below). A trial postpones the first recurring charge, and a lifetime plan has none: honouring it would mean never collecting the price at all. The customer always pays the lifetime price at checkout.

Lifetime as one option among several

A variable subscription can offer recurring and lifetime plans side by side on one product, because each variation carries its own billing period:

1. Create a Variable subscription with an attribute used for variations (for example Plan: Monthly / Yearly / Lifetime).
2. On each variation, set its own Billing period and price. Leave a field empty to inherit the parent’s value.
3. Set the Lifetime variation’s period to Lifetime (one-time).

A trial or sign-up fee set on the parent applies to the recurring variations as usual; the lifetime variation inherits the sign-up fee but ignores the trial.

What happens after checkout

• The customer pays the lifetime price (plus any sign-up fee) at checkout.
• A subscription is created with status Active and no next payment date.
• The subscription grants access to downloads, roles, and any other entitlement tied to it.
• No renewal emails or reminders are sent.
• The customer sees the subscription in My Account with its billing shown as “(one-time)”.

Cancelling a lifetime subscription

Lifetime subscriptions do not renew, so cancellation is rarely useful. That said:

• Admins can cancel a lifetime subscription from the subscription detail page. The status changes to Cancelled, and any entitlements granted by that subscription are revoked.
• Customers can cancel from their My Account page if self-cancellation is enabled. Most stores disable cancellation for lifetime products, since a cancelled lifetime subscription cannot be restored through a renewal.

To disable self-cancellation for a specific product, use the Cancellation filters under Hooks and filters.

Refunds

If a customer requests a refund on a lifetime purchase, refund the original order from WooCommerce → Orders as you would any order. After the refund, cancel the associated subscription to revoke access.

Gifting and transferring lifetime subscriptions

With the Gift Subscriptions add-on, you can sell a lifetime subscription as a gift to be redeemed by another user. The recipient receives a code and redeems it to activate the subscription on their own account.

To manually transfer a lifetime subscription to a different customer, edit the subscription from Milo Subscriptions → Subscriptions and change the customer field.

Selling lifetime software licenses

With the License Server add-on, a lifetime purchase issues a license key that never expires (requires License Server 1.5.10 or later). Recurring plans issue keys that extend with each renewal; the lifetime plan’s key simply has no expiry. Cancelling the subscription still revokes the license, so a refunded lifetime purchase loses updates like any other.

Reporting

Lifetime subscriptions show up in analytics differently from recurring subscriptions:

• They count once in revenue on the month of the purchase.
• They do not contribute to MRR.
• They do appear in active subscriber counts for as long as they remain active.

If you want to track lifetime sales separately, filter by product in Analytics.

Example configurations

Lifetime membership

• Billing period: Lifetime (one-time)
• Subscription price: $299
• Customer pays $299 once and gets ongoing member access.

Lifetime plugin license

• Billing period: Lifetime (one-time)
• Subscription price: $499
• Grants downloads and updates indefinitely through the License Server add-on.

Founder tier with an onboarding fee

• Billing period: Lifetime (one-time)
• Subscription price: $179
• Sign-up fee: $20
• Customer pays $199 at checkout and has no further charges.

Yearly and lifetime side by side

• Variable subscription with a Plan attribute
• Yearly variation: Billing period Year, $49/year
• Lifetime variation: Billing period Lifetime (one-time), $199
• Customers choose between subscribing and owning outright on the same product page.

Next steps

• Fixed expiry: end a subscription on a specific date instead of never.
• Downloads: grant file access to active subscribers.
• Statuses: see how lifetime subscriptions fit into the status lifecycle.