Conversion tracking for Recharge
Recharge turns a Shopify store into a subscription business, and it breaks conversion tracking in a specific way: the first order looks like a normal checkout and every renewal after it happens on a schedule with no browser anywhere near it. Stores running Recharge routinely report only their acquisition orders and undercount total revenue by whatever their retention is worth. This page covers where each event genuinely comes from, and the decision most guides skip — whether renewals should reach an ad platform at all.
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Recharge tracking · what breaks
What goes wrong on Recharge
- 01
Renewals invisible to every ad platform
They happen on a cron, with no customer present. Nothing that fires from a page can see them, and no amount of pixel work changes that.
- 02
The first order double-counted
Recharge creates a Shopify order, so the store's native integration and a Recharge-aware setup can both fire for the same purchase.
- 03
Churn never reversed
A subscription that cancels stops producing revenue, and almost nobody wires the cancellation back to anywhere.
- 04
Acquisition valued at one box
A subscriber worth twelve shipments optimized as though they were a single-purchase customer.
Recharge tracking · the fix
What changes — Recharge tracking
Acquisition and recurring revenue separated
One is what you bid on; the other is what you report. Conflating them is the standard mistake.
First order sent once, at lifetime value
Deduplicated on the Shopify order ID, valued at expected subscriber lifetime rather than one shipment.
Cancellations reversed
So reported subscriber value can go down, which is the only way it stays honest.
Recharge tracking · architecture
What Recharge actually lets you do
What Recharge actually gives you, and what it does not.
- 1
Webhooks on subscription and order events
The reliable event source. Subscription created, order processed, subscription cancelled — all available server-side.
- 2
Customer and subscription metadata
Where the click identifier lives so it survives to every renewal, not just the first order.
- 3
A Shopify order per charge
Useful for reconciliation and dangerous for double counting, because the store's own integration also sees it.
- 4
Hosted customer portal
On a Recharge domain, so anything relying on your first-party cookies does not follow the customer there.
- 5
No native ad-platform conversion API
Recharge reports its own revenue well and does not send conversions anywhere. That gap is the work.
Recharge tracking · diagnose
Where Recharge tracking breaks, in diagnostic order
Each check rules out a class of cause, so by the last one there is usually a single explanation standing.
- 01
Compare Recharge revenue against reported revenue for a closed month
The gap is your renewal blind spot and it is usually the largest discrepancy in the business.
- 02
Check whether a subscription carries a click identifier
If the identifier is on the order and not the subscription, renewals can never be attributed.
- 03
Look for double counting on the first order
Recharge creates a Shopify order, and your store integration probably already fires on it.
- 04
Check whether cancellation does anything at all
Almost never wired, and it means reported subscriber value only ever rises.
- 05
Ask what the renewal number is for
Reporting and bidding need different answers, and conflating them is the real mistake under the technical one.
Recharge tracking · prove
The QA evidence — Recharge tracking
Run on Recharge specifically, on a live conversion rather than in preview mode.
Source of truth
Recharge's own subscription and order records, cross-checked against the Shopify orders they create
- A test subscription created, with exactly one conversion firing and the identifier confirmed on the subscription rather than the order.
- A renewal processed and confirmed to land wherever the written policy says it should — and nowhere else.
- A cancellation confirmed to reverse at each destination that accepts one.
- Recharge revenue reconciled against reported revenue for a fully closed month, with acquisition and recurring separated.
- The lifetime value model shown as a calculation from your own churn data, not asserted.
- Reconciled over a fully closed window, matched per record rather than on totals.
- Re-checked 30 days later, and after any platform update.
Recharge tracking · free audit
What we check in the free audit
- Compare Recharge revenue against reported revenue for a closed month
- Check whether a subscription carries a click identifier
- Look for double counting on the first order
- Check whether cancellation does anything at all
- Ask what the renewal number is for
Checked against
Recharge's own subscription and order records, cross-checked against the Shopify orders they create
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Recharge tracking · when not to buy
When you don't need this on Recharge
Worth reading before you buy anything, from us or anyone.
- If you sell one-off products with a small subscription tail, the store's native integration may already be adequate. Measure the recurring share first.
- If your churn data is too young to model lifetime value, say so and use a conservative figure rather than an invented one.
- If Recharge revenue and reported revenue already agree within a few percent, this is working and there is nothing to buy.
- If you are not running paid media at meaningful spend, the reporting fix matters and the ad-platform work does not.
Recharge tracking · what we deliver
The event map on Recharge
Subscription created
The acquisition event. Fired once, from the Recharge webhook, valued at expected lifetime.
Order processed (first)
The same commercial event as the subscription creation. Send one of them, never both.
Order processed (recurring)
Renewal revenue. Report it; think hard before sending it to a bidding algorithm.
Subscription cancelled
Reverse the lifetime value where the destination accepts it.
Subscription skipped or paused
Not a cancellation. Worth reporting, not worth sending.
Written guarantee
95%+ tracking accuracy
Measured against Recharge's own subscription and order records, cross-checked against the Shopify orders they create. Miss it and we keep working at no cost.
Pricing
Pick the package that fits your ad spend
Browser-side starter
$400One-time fee · lifetime ownership
Repairs and verifies the browser-side setup you already have, on a live conversion. Honest about its ceiling on this platform.
- Root cause fixed, not worked around
- Verified on a live conversion
- Reconciled against your own records
- Written handover
1st-party server-side
Recommended$800One-time fee · most popular
Money events sent from your own records through a first-party container on your subdomain, so the browser can no longer lose them.
- First-party server container on your own subdomain
- Money events from your records, not the browser
- Deduplicated on a shared event ID at every destination
- First-party cookies beyond Safari's 7-day cap
- 95%+ accuracy and 8+ Meta EMQ, guaranteed in writing
Full 1st-party stack
$1,800One-time fee · lifetime ownership
Every paid channel server-side plus the offline loop, with monitoring so the next break surfaces in days.
- Everything in 1st-party server-side
- Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit and LinkedIn CAPI
- CRM and offline conversion loop
- Refunds and cancellations corrected wherever each platform allows it
- Monitoring on every destination
FAQ
Recharge tracking questions, answered
Usually not as acquisition conversions. A renewal credited against the original click tells the algorithm that a click from a year ago just produced revenue, which pulls optimization toward whatever was running then. The clean structure is acquisition to the ad platforms at expected lifetime value, full recurring revenue to your own reporting. If you do want renewals in the platform, use a separate conversion action excluded from bidding.
Average revenue per subscriber over their average tenure, from your own Recharge churn data. Using the first shipment's price makes subscription acquisition look far more expensive than it is and will get budget cut from campaigns that are working.
Because the subscription is the object that persists. Every future renewal creates a new order, and if the identifier only lives on the first one, none of the renewals can ever be tied back to the click that created the customer.
It will unless you deduplicate. Recharge creates a real Shopify order for every charge, so the store's native channel integrations see it too. Use the Shopify order ID as the deduplication key everywhere and decide which side owns the event.
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Get Recharge tracking done properly
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