How are anchors supposed to be used?

Shopify Partner
31 5 7

I'm playing around with some anchors for "Subscribe and save" type selling plans and I noticed that when purchasing a selling plan that the payment and order are both processed at the time of purchase. I don't understand how anchors are supposed to be implemented here according to:

Depending on the scenario, the moment a customer completes checkout, when a billing date is processed, and when the first delivery is can all vary. But these scenarios seem contradictory to what I've seen with selling plans so far, which is that billing and order are processed at the same time a customer completes checkout. How can one modify these variables, and is it more or less the same for prepaid selling plans? 

Shopify Staff
Shopify Staff
10 4 4

This is an accepted solution.

Hello kyle_truong,

Thank you for you question!

The order is created and billed right after the checkout is completed. The anchors affect how the "nextBillingDate" is calculated on the SubscriptionContract, which is used to determine when the recurring order will be billed.

However, the anchors also affect when the delivery associated with the initial order (the one created on the checkout) will occur. This will also depend on the "preAnchorBehavior" defined on the SellingPlanRecurringDeliveryPolicyInput which defines the possible fulfillment or delivery behaviors of the first fulfillment when the order is placed before the anchor.

For more information on Pre Anchor Behaviour see: