Decide what repeats
Owners use "meal plan" and "subscription" for different things, so tell your customers exactly what they are signing up for. There are three common kinds, and any of them might be called a meal plan.
- The same order on repeat. It's simple to run, and it works when your menu stays about the same.
- A plan that fills from your menu. The customer says what they like, and you fill their order from the current menu. This fits a menu that changes every week.
- Prepaid credits or a package. The customer pays up front, then spends credits on whatever is on the menu, or gets a fixed bundle.
Write down five rules before your first customer
- When does the charge happen? Charge before you close orders for the week and total them, so plan orders are in your numbers when you buy food.
- How does a customer skip a week? People go on vacation. If skipping is hard, a customer's only way out is to cancel, and you have lost them over one week.
- How do they pause? A pause should be one step, with a clear way back.
- How do they cancel? Make it easy, and do it the way you said you would.
- What happens when a card fails? Do you cook the order anyway? Decide before it happens. Our suggestion: tell the customer at once, and don't cook until they have paid.
Be plain about the terms
Before a customer pays, say what they are buying, how much it costs, how often you will charge and how to stop. Then get a clear yes, and remind them before a charge.
This is more than good manners. A federal law, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, asks for those same three things on online sales that renew: clear terms, the customer's consent and a simple way to stop. If you do those three, you are most of the way to doing this properly.
The details are still moving. The FTC's 2024 "click to cancel" rule was struck down in court in 2025, and the FTC has asked for comments on a new one. States have rules too, and California's Attorney General spells out theirs. This isn't legal advice, so have someone qualified read your terms if you can.
How to run it by hand
You can start with a list of subscribers and a payment link each week. It takes one small routine:
- Keep one row per subscriber. Name, what they get, delivery day, status (active, paused or skipping) and the last date they paid.
- Pick one day a week to send. Send each active subscriber a note with what's coming and their payment link. Do it early enough that they can pay before your cutoff.
- Mark who paid, then add their orders. Put plan orders in your order rows before you total, so they are in your numbers when you buy food.
- Update the status the day someone asks. A skip or a pause that waits in your inbox turns into a payment request they didn't want, or food you cooked for nobody.
Stay on the right side of the payment rules while you do this. Venmo's terms don't allow regular recurring goods payments through Pay and Request, and nobody should be keeping card numbers in a sheet.
General stores can charge on a schedule, and they differ a lot. Shopify's subscriptions app lets customers skip or end a subscription. Squarespace allows one subscription product per order, with no customer skip. Whichever you use, ask two questions. How does a plan work with a menu that changes each week? And do plan orders land in your kitchen totals before you buy food?
That second question matters most. If plan orders only appear once they are charged, your totals are short when you shop.
Keep customers on the plan
- Send a note before each order. A short "here is what's coming, change it by Wednesday" heads off the surprise charge that starts a complaint.
- Reward staying. A small plan discount gives people a reason to stay.
- Ask why people leave. One question in the cancel email tells you more than any report.
- Check on the quiet ones. A customer who skips three weeks is close to leaving. Our guide to bringing customers back covers what to do next.
The Eat Fresh Tech way
Here's how we handle recurring subscriptions.
You can run all three kinds of plan, and we turn on the plan types that fit your menu with you. Plan orders are ordinary orders to your kitchen, so they use the same reports as everything else.
- Customers run their own plan. From their account page they can pause, skip a week, cancel, or change their meals before the order locks in.
- Any past order can become a subscription. With a click on "Subscribe to this order" and a delivery day, the site builds that order each week.
- Customers get notice. An email goes out about a day before a plan order locks in.
- Your totals can include plan orders early. A switch adds upcoming plan orders to your reports before they lock in, and the report says so, because those numbers can still change.
- A declined card stops the order. The order waits, the customer and your staff are told, and a billing hold stops further charges until the card is fixed.
The site makes it easy to stay on top of who paid for what, and alerts you to failed payments. An order with a failed card stays out of your prep reports until you finalize it, which takes one click once the card is fixed. If you use the switch for early plan orders, check Billing Holds on your dashboard before you cook, because a declined order can show in those reports as pending.