How to migrate from Recharge to Seal Subscriptions

You might often find yourself nowadays using a certain app for some time but then you find an alternative or even a better app. You then realize that you have many customer data or other data in the app you first used and you start to wonder if there is even a way to migrate everything from this app to another. Then, you give up because you either didn't find a good solution or didn't even think that the solution exists.

Well, I'm glad to tell you that migrating subscriptions from one app to another is a relatively easy process, especially with Seal Subscriptions. In this article we will take a look at a process on how to migrate all of your subscriptions from Recharge subscriptions and import them to Seal Subscriptions.

Migrating subscriptions manually

The first thing we need to look at is how many subscriptions we are dealing with. Is that only a few 10, 20 subscriptions or do we already have a big traffic with dozens of subscriptions? In the case of a small amount of subscriptions, the most straightforward process is to simply migrate them manually. Doing that is done by manually re-creating subscriptions in the app. You can create auto-charging subscriptions for the customers in your shop that have a payment method linked to their account.

The process in Seal Subscription is done by navigating to Seal Subscriptions app → Subscriptions → Add subscription manually → select auto-charging subscription → click on the Migrate customers from other platforms button in Select customers card.

After that simply follow the instructions on the screen. The overall process for migrating your subscriptions should be something like this:

1. Migrate the payment method for the selected customer in Seal Subscriptions app.
2. Cancel/pause the subscription in Recharge.
3. Create a subscription for the customer in Seal Subscription app, with the same first billing date as the one scheduled date in the Recharge
4. That's it!

Bulk importing subscriptions from Recharge

Version of Recharge

The steps are a bit different depending on which Recharge version you are using. If you are using Recharge V1, you will need to bulk export the data and then modify the export file so it will match Seal Subscription's format and then upload it to our import wizard.

If you are migrating from Recharge V2 our migration wizard supports retrieving all subscriptions from Recharge through the API.

Below are steps described for both, first if you want to migrate from Recharge V2 through API and then if you would want to migrate from Recharge V1 via exporting file.

Migrating from Recharge V2: Retrieving subscriptions automatically through API

If you are using Recharge V2, the process is very simple.

First, you need to get Recharge's API token:

1. Login to Recharge merchant portal
2. Navigate to Apps and click API tokens
3. On the following page, click Create an API token to generate a new token for your store
4. Use the Details fields to set a name and contact email for the token
5. Select No access, Read access, or Read and Write access to set the scope permissions you'd like to grant the token
6. Click Save to create your token.

Now, you will need to go to Seal Subscriptions → Subscriptions → Bulk import subscriptions

In the instructions, pick the following options:

In the ‘Which platform you are migrating from’ pick Recharge

In the ‘Where did your customers complete the intial subscription order?’ pick Shopify Checkout

Now just input the API token into the field and your subscriptions should be imported correctly!

Migrating from Recharge V1: Retrieving subscriptions automatically through API if you are using Stripe or Braintree

It is also possible to migrate via API keys if you are migrating your subscriptions where customers completed their initial subscription order via Recharge Checkout (V1) if you are specifically using Stripe or Braintree.

The first step is to go to Seal Subscriptions → Subscriptions → Bulk import subscriptions

In the instructions, pick the following options:

In the ‘Which platform you are migrating from’ pick Recharge

In the ‘Where did your customers complete the intial subscription order?’ pick ‘Recharge Checkout and Shopify Checkout’

In the ‘Which payment gateway are you using?’ pick either Stripe or Braintree depending on which one you are using

For Stripe, you will need Stripe API secret key and for Braintree you will need Braintree API public and private keys.

Once you have them, input the API tokens into the field and your subscriptions should be imported correctly!

Migrating from Recharge V1: Get the export file from Recharge

Generally, the first step is to get the export file from Recharge. 

You can do that for subscriptions with the following process:

1. In the merchant portal click Data and then select Exports
2. Click Access the old export page here.
3. On the Exports page, click Email report under the CSV report you would like to access
4. Enter in your email address and specify a date range (if applicable)
5. Click Send

For subscription exports in Recharge, you can download the following:

• Subscriptions per interval - Total of customers per-product order frequency. For example monthly or annually.
• Purchase items - Customer, subscription, and variant information for all purchase items.

Now that you have export file, you will need to go to Seal Subscriptions → Subscriptions → Bulk import subscriptions

Now in the instructions, pick the following options:

In the ‘Which platform you are migrating from’ pick Recharge

In the ‘Which version of Recharge are you using’ pick V1

In the ‘Which payment gateway are you using’ pick the payment gateway that you are using and connect it.

Next, you can download our CSV format which we use to correctly import all subscription data into Seal Subscriptions. When you download subscriptions from Recharge, their CSV file might be different from our format. So you will need to change it for Seal Subscription to detect it correctly. It's a pretty simple process and you also have clear instructions on exactly how our format is structured.

After the recharge's CSV format is in the format as Seal Subscriptions upload the CSV file and your subscriptions should be imported!