Up-/Down-selling is a feature that allows customers to switch to a different offer during an ongoing subscription – either to a higher-value offer (upsell) or to a cheaper offer (downsell).
The offer can be changed in four ways:
Automatically through sales rules at checkout (e.g., switching from monthly to annual payments)
Manually by customer service in the Merchant Backend
Manually as a bulk action in the Merchant Backend
An e-mail can be sent to your customers. The mail template Purchase through up-/down-selling must be activated in Settings → Applications → Mail Settings. The email contains the order PDF containing information on the offer change, such subscription start date and invoicing.
Up-/down-selling only works for the following offer types:
✅ time-based offers
✅ credit-based offers
The checks to determine whether the offer has already been purchased (misuse rule) and whether the access right used for the offer is already in use (Allow Multiple Purchases flag) are disabled.
Up-selling and down-selling cannot be used in shopping carts or with voucher offers.
Change offer for single customer
You can migrate one customer from one offer to another in case of, for example:
Goodwill: Change to a more favorable offer
Correcting purchase errors: Switch to the correct offer when a customer accidentally purchased the wrong one
Phone Campaigns: Merchant wants to move customers to more attractive offers through targeted outreach
Have customers change their offer themselves via your checkout
By configuring an upselling/downselling rule, you can give customers the option to change their order themselves during checkout:
Upsell to annual subscription instead of monthly subscription to safe money (annual subscription offers 12 months use/11 months pay)
Churn prevention in a preset cancelation process
Change offer for several customers at the same time
You can migrate all customers or a subset of customers (e.g., for testing or targeting only new customers) from one offer to another in cases of, for example:
Migrations: Product configuration changes or updates
Price Adjustments: Price increases or modifications
Misconfigurations: Correcting setup errors affecting multiple customers
Transition Options
For up-/down-selling, you have several options for when the offer change should happen and how invoicing should be handled. Please find all options and behaviors below.
Overview:
Option | When to use? | Invoice immediately? | Partial refund |
|---|---|---|---|
Immediately (with immediate start of invoicing) | Customer should use the new offer right away | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
Immediately (invoice with next booking date) | Immediate switch, but new invoice only later | ❌ No | ❌ No |
Last Booking (with retroactive invoicing) | Correction of an error in the last period | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
Next booking (invoice with next booking date) | Planned change at the next billing date | ❌ No | ❌ No |
End of the current subscription interval (with invoice for the next subscription interval) | Change only after the current term expires | ❌ No | ❌ No |
Immediately (with immediate start of invoicing)
The currently active subscription expires immediately and is labeled “expired.” The invoice is automatically canceled and a partial refund is initiated. A new subscription is created, which is immediately active. A new invoice is created.
Immediately (invoice with next booking date)
The currently active subscription expires immediately and is labeled “expired.” The invoice is not canceled. A new subscription is created, which is active immediately. The invoice for the new subscription is not issued until the next billing date of the current subscription.
Next booking (invoice with next booking date)
The currently active subscription remains active until the next billing date. The invoice is not canceled. A new subscription is created, which is labeled “future.” The invoice for the new subscription is issued on the next billing date of the current subscription.
Last Booking (with retroactive invoicing)
The currently active subscription expires immediately and is labeled “expired.” The invoice is canceled. A new subscription is created, which is active immediately. The invoice for the new subscription is created retroactively. The last booking date of the previous subscription is the start date of the billing period for the new subscription.
Example:
Change on February 27, 2026
Subscription A: last booking date: February 23, 2026
Subscription B with a billing period of 3 months: Billing period: February 23, 2026 - May 23, 2026
End of the current subscription interval (with invoice for the next subscription interval)
The currently active subscription remains active until the end of the subscription interval. The new subscription is automatically created and activated at the end of the subscription interval.
Change Offer
In Merchant Backend for one customer
To change the offer within an active subscription for a customer, follow these steps:
Open a customer.
Click on the Subscriptions tab.
Open the subscription in the subscription detail view.
In the action bar, click on Change Offer.
Select the target offer to which the customer should switch to.
Select the Transition, i.e., when invoicing and the change of offer should take place. The following options are available (you can find a detailed explanation HERE):
Immediately (with immediate start of invoicing): The offer will be changed immediately. The invoice will be canceled and a new invoice will be created.
Immediately (invoice with next booking date): The offer will be changed immediately. The invoice will not be canceled. The invoice will only be issued on the next billing date of the current subscription.
Last Booking (with retroactive invoicing): Start with last billing period - enables upselling/downselling based on the last billing period, generates a complete cancellation of the last invoice and a new invoice with a longer term based on the last billing period.
Next booking (invoice with next booking date): The change will be noted, but will only be implemented on the next billing date of the current subscription.
End of the current subscription interval (with invoice for the next subscription interval): The change takes place at the end of the subscription interval.
Optionally, choose one of the given technical reasons which can be used for analysis in third-party systems:
CUSTOMER_COMPLAINTCHURN_PREVENTIONUPGRADEDOWNGRADE
Optionally, specify a reason for the offer change to ensure better traceability.
This text is stored in the Activities tab of the subscription.
Click on Save.
In Checkout
You can configure an automation so that customers can change their offer themselves via the Checkout.
How does it work?
Up-/down-selling is started by calling up the checkout.
The logic develops from the targets.
A checkout call is therefore started for a desired target offer.
If the tag settings defined in up-/down-selling apply, up-/down-selling is carried out automatically within the checkout process.
Up-/down-selling performs a change exclusively from source offer to target offer.
To set this up, you need to
create source and target tags.
assign the tags to the source and target offer(s).
create up-/down-selling rule.
Find detailed instructions here: Create and use up-/down-selling
In Merchant Backend for several customers (Bulk Offer Change)
This is a paid feature
In order to be able to change offers for several customers, you need to activate the module in the contracting company for a fee. If you have any questions, reach out to our customer support.
1 Activate module in the contracting company
Note
This requires admin rights.
Once activated in the contracting company, the module is activated for all clients within this contracting company, and the settings can be adjusted for each client individually.
Open the contracting company.
In the navigation bar, click on Contract modules and scroll down to Advanced Offer Change.
Click on Open and Activate.
After activation of the module, you’ll find the bulk offer change in the client in the navigation bar.
2 Bulk offer change in the client
You can bulk change all customers having one source offer to a defined target offer. You can select customers by uploading a prefilled csv file or by filtering for specific customers directly in the form.
To change the offer for several customers, follow these steps:
In the navigation bar, click on Bulk Offer Change.
Select the source offer and the target offer to which the customers should switch to.
Select the Transition, i.e., when invoicing and the change of offer should take place. The following options are available (you can find a detailed explanation HERE):
Immediately (with immediate start of invoicing): Changes immediately after clicking save. Invoice is automatically canceled. The customer receives an order confirmation and a new invoice.
Immediately (invoice with next booking date): Changes immediately after clicking save. The invoice is not canceled. The invoice will not be issued until the next booking date of the current subscription.
Last Booking (with retroactive invoicing): Start with last accounting period - allows up-/down-selling based on the last accounting period, generates a complete cancellation of the last invoice and a new invoice with a longer term based on the last accounting period.
Next booking (invoice with next booking date): The change is noted, but not carried out until the next billing date of the current subscription.
End of the current subscription interval (with invoice for the next subscription interval): The change takes place at the end of the subscription interval.
Use the CSV.file upload OR use the filter option to filter the customers you want to switch to another offer.
Note
If you use the csv.file, fill in only one of the provided columns (either customer number, subscription ID or external system ID).
If you use the filter option, only use one of the provided filters (either customer number, subscription ID, external customer ID or label).
Click on Summarize.
Check the result which shows the number of customers and number of subscriptions affected by this change.
If you need to make any changes, click on the Back button.Optionally, add a technical reason for the bulk offer change. This can be used for analysis in third-party systems - these could be, for example:
CHURN_PREVENTION;MIGRATION;PRICE_INCREASEClick on Save to carry out the bulk offer change.
Via API
Upgrade or downgrade an existing subscription to a different offer. Use this endpoint to trigger offer changes from your backend.