Purpose
For stores selling subscription products via Shopify's native subscriptions, this skill aggregates active subscription contracts into the standard SaaS-style metrics finance teams care about: monthly recurring revenue (MRR), annualized recurring revenue (ARR), active subscriber count, average revenue per subscriber (ARPU), and a rolling churn rate. Read-only — no mutations.
Prerequisites
- Authenticated Shopify CLI session:
shopify store auth --store <domain> --scopes read_own_subscription_contracts - API scopes:
read_own_subscription_contracts
Parameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| store | string | yes | — | Store domain (e.g., mystore.myshopify.com) |
| churn_window_days | integer | no | 30 | Rolling window for churn calculation (cancellations / starting subscribers) |
| as_of | string | no | today (UTC) | ISO date for "as of" snapshot label |
| include_paused | bool | no | false | Treat PAUSED contracts as active recurring revenue |
| format | string | no | human | Output format: human or json |
Safety
ℹ️ Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. This skill is only meaningful if the store sells subscription products. If
subscriptionContractsreturns 0 contracts, the report exits with $0 MRR — that is the correct answer, not an error.
Recurring Revenue Model
For each subscription contract, the contribution to MRR depends on its billing interval:
billing_amount = sum(line.currentPrice × line.quantity) for each line in contract mrr_contribution = billing_amount if interval = MONTH and intervalCount = 1 billing_amount / intervalCount if interval = MONTH (e.g., every 3 months → /3) billing_amount × 4.345 if interval = WEEK (avg weeks per month) billing_amount × 4.345 / intervalCount if interval = WEEK with intervalCount > 1 billing_amount / 12 if interval = YEAR billing_amount × 30 / intervalCount if interval = DAY
Aggregations:
- MRR = Σ mrr_contribution for all
ACTIVE(andPAUSEDifinclude_paused) contracts - ARR = MRR × 12
- Active subscribers = unique
customer.idcount - ARPU = MRR / active subscribers
- Churn rate (period) = contracts cancelled inside
churn_window_days÷ contracts that were active at the start of the window - Net new subscribers = new contracts inside the window − cancelled contracts inside the window
Workflow Steps
-
OPERATION:
subscriptionContracts— query Inputs:first: 250, selectid,status,createdAt,updatedAt,nextBillingDate,customer { id, displayName },currencyCode,billingPolicy { interval, intervalCount },lines { edges { node { currentPrice { amount, currencyCode }, quantity, productId, variantId, title } } }, pagination cursor Expected output: All subscription contracts; paginate untilhasNextPage: false -
Classify each contract by status:
ACTIVE,PAUSED,CANCELLED,EXPIRED,FAILED -
Compute
mrr_contributionfor each active (and paused if requested) contract using the model above -
Aggregate MRR / ARR / subscribers / ARPU
-
For churn: count cancellations where
updatedAtis withinchurn_window_daysand status moved toCANCELLED; count contracts that existed and wereACTIVEatas_of - churn_window_days -
Build a per-product breakdown so finance can see which subscription SKUs drive MRR
GraphQL Operations
graphql# subscriptionContracts:query — validated against api_version 2025-01 query SubscriptionMRR($after: String) { subscriptionContracts(first: 250, after: $after) { edges { node { id status createdAt updatedAt nextBillingDate currencyCode customer { id displayName defaultEmailAddress { emailAddress } } billingPolicy { interval intervalCount minCycles maxCycles } deliveryPolicy { interval intervalCount } lines(first: 50) { edges { node { id productId variantId title quantity currentPrice { amount currencyCode } } } } } } pageInfo { hasNextPage endCursor } } }
Session Tracking
Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.
On start, emit:
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ SKILL: Subscription MRR Tracker ║ ║ Store: <store domain> ║ ║ As of: <YYYY-MM-DD> ║ ║ Started: <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC> ║ ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
After each step, emit:
[N/TOTAL] <QUERY|MUTATION> <OperationName> → Params: <brief summary of key inputs> → Result: <count or outcome>
On completion, emit:
For format: human (default):
══════════════════════════════════════════════ SUBSCRIPTION MRR REPORT (as of <date>) Active contracts: <n> Paused contracts: <n> Cancelled (last <n>d): <n> ───────────────────────────── MRR: $<amount> ARR: $<amount> Active subscribers: <n> ARPU: $<amount> Churn rate (<n>d): <pct>% Net new (<n>d): <n> Top subscription products by MRR: "<title>" Subs: <n> MRR: $<n> "<title>" Subs: <n> MRR: $<n> Output: subscription_mrr_<date>.csv ══════════════════════════════════════════════
For format: json, emit:
json{ "skill": "subscription-mrr-tracker", "store": "<domain>", "as_of": "<YYYY-MM-DD>", "active_contracts": 0, "paused_contracts": 0, "cancelled_in_window": 0, "mrr": 0, "arr": 0, "active_subscribers": 0, "arpu": 0, "churn_rate_pct": 0, "net_new": 0, "currency": "USD", "by_product": [], "output_file": "subscription_mrr_<date>.csv" }
Output Format
CSV file subscription_mrr_<YYYY-MM-DD>.csv with columns:
contract_id, status, customer_id, customer_email, created_at, next_billing_date, interval, interval_count, billing_amount, mrr_contribution, currency, product_titles
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Recovery |
|---|---|---|
THROTTLED | API rate limit exceeded | Wait 2 seconds, retry up to 3 times |
subscriptionContracts empty | Store has no subscription products | Exit cleanly — report $0 MRR; this is the correct value, not an error |
| Multi-currency contracts | Different currencyCode per contract | Group MRR per currency; do not sum across currencies — surface separately in output |
Pre-paid contracts (maxCycles set) | Customer paid upfront for N cycles | Still contributes to MRR while ACTIVE, but the contract will end after maxCycles; flag in output |
Best Practices
- This skill is only meaningful if the store actually sells subscription products. If you don't run subscriptions, MRR will be $0 — that's correct.
- Run on the first day of every month so MRR snapshots align with finance's monthly close cadence.
- Track MRR week-over-week to catch payment-failure spikes early —
FAILEDcontracts that don't recover become churn within 30 days. - Pre-paid annual subscriptions inflate ARR without inflating cash flow in any given month — keep them separate when reporting to investors who want a cash-flow view.
- Pair with
churn-risk-scorer(transactional churn) to triangulate subscription churn vs. one-time-purchase churn — they deserve separate retention strategies. - Multi-currency stores: report MRR per currency; converting via spot FX rates produces a misleading number that fluctuates with exchange rates rather than business performance.


