Subscription Addresses
Understand where a subscription's delivery and billing addresses actually live, what happens when a customer edits an address in their Shopify account, and how to answer the most common support question about it.
Overview
A subscription carries two addresses, and they come from two different places:
| Address | Where It Lives | How It Changes |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery address | On the subscription itself. Shopify copies it from checkout when the subscription is created. | Edited per subscription — by the customer in the customer portal, or by you in the merchant portal under Change delivery method. Changing it re-checks your delivery profiles and applies the rate for the new address, so the shipping cost matches where the order is actually going. Zubs also syncs some account edits automatically (see below). |
| Billing address | On the saved payment method (the vaulted card or wallet), not on the subscription. | Only by updating the payment method itself. |
Neither of them is the address book in the customer's Shopify account. That address book is a separate list, and Shopify does not link it to existing subscriptions.
Setting a new default address in the Shopify customer account does not move existing subscriptions to that address, and it never changes the billing address. The default address only affects checkout — so it applies to subscriptions the customer creates from that point on, not to the ones they already have.
Account Addresses vs. Subscription Addresses
Here is what actually happens for each thing a customer can do in the Addresses section of their Shopify account:
| What the Customer Does in Their Account | Effect on Existing Subscriptions |
|---|---|
| Edits an existing address — a typo fix or a full move to a new city or country | Zubs syncs the new address to active subscriptions that were using the old one — see Automatic Address Sync |
| Adds a new address and marks it as the default | No effect. The subscription keeps its current delivery address |
| Marks a different existing address as the default | No effect. The subscription keeps its current delivery address |
| Deletes an address | No effect. The subscription keeps the copy it already holds |
| Changes their name or email | Shopify updates the contact details shown on the subscription |
| Any address change at all | The billing address on the payment method stays as it is |
The practical rule to give a customer: changing where a subscription ships has to happen on the subscription, not in the account address book.
Automatic Address Sync
When a customer edits an address they are already using, Zubs applies that edit to their active subscriptions on its own, including the upcoming orders of prepaid subscriptions. Neither you nor the customer has to do anything, and the change shows up on the subscription timeline.
This works for a full move, not just a typo fix — a customer can change the street, city, postal code, country, and recipient name in one go, and their subscriptions follow. That holds as long as it's the only address they change in that save; see below for what happens when several change together.
What the sync doesn't cover:
- New addresses. This is the big one: if the customer adds a second address instead of editing the one they have — even if they make it their default — their subscriptions keep shipping to the old address.
- Several addresses changed at once. When a single save touches more than one address, Zubs matches old to new on the recipient name and country, and only when that singles out one address on each side. Two addresses for the same person in the same country can't be told apart, so neither one syncs. The same happens when a customer edits one address and adds another for themselves in the same save. Those subscriptions keep their address.
- Local delivery moves outside your delivery zone. If a subscription uses local delivery and the customer's new address falls outside the area you deliver to, the sync can't apply it and the subscription keeps its old address. Change the delivery method on the subscription instead.
- Pickup subscriptions, which are tied to a pickup location rather than an address. See Custom Pickup Locations and Shopify Pickup.
- The billing address, which is never part of the sync.
Moving house is handled automatically as long as the customer edits their existing address. Adding a new one and marking it as the default is the case that silently doesn't work — and it's what most customers do. When in doubt, have them set the address on the subscription itself.
Changing a Subscription's Delivery Address
In the Customer Portal
The customer opens the subscription in their account and uses Edit Shipping Address. From there they can pick one of their saved addresses under Select an address, or use Add New Address to enter a different one. After saving, Zubs applies the address to that subscription and refreshes the available delivery options for it.
On a shop that offers Shopify pickup, the same form is reached through Change delivery method → Edit address, so one control covers both where the order goes and how it gets there.
A customer with several subscriptions changes each one separately — there is no "apply to all" step.
In the Merchant Portal
- Go to Subscriptions and open the subscription.
- In the Customer card, open the menu next to the Delivery heading and choose Change delivery method.
- Select Home delivery, pick the address to use, choose a shipping rate, and click Save.
The rates offered are the ones your delivery profiles resolve for that address and that subscription. Picking a different address resolves them again, so the rate always matches where the order is going.
If the address you need isn't in the list, use Manage addresses on customer page to add it to the customer's Shopify profile first, then come back to the subscription and select it. Adding the address on the customer page alone does not attach it to anything.
Changing the Billing Address
The billing address belongs to the stored payment method, so it changes only when the payment method is updated. Neither the account address book nor the subscription's delivery address affects it.
To have a customer update it: in the customer portal, they open Update payment method and click Send link by email. Shopify emails them a secure link where they can re-enter their card details together with the correct billing address. The updated payment method — and its billing address — then applies to their subscriptions.
Payment details are vaulted by Shopify and never exposed to apps. That is also why the billing address can only be corrected through the customer's own payment-update flow, and not from the merchant portal.
Troubleshooting
"I changed my address but my order still went to the old one."
Walk through it in this order:
- Ask whether they edited their existing address or added a new one. Adding a new one — even as default — does not move existing subscriptions.
- Open the subscription in the merchant portal and read the delivery address on the Customer card. That address is what ships.
- Check the subscription timeline for an address-change entry. If there is none, no sync happened.
- Fix it on the subscription with Change delivery method.
- If an order has already been created for the cycle, correct that order in the Shopify admin as well — updating the subscription only affects future orders.
"My invoice shows the wrong address."
That is the billing address on the payment method. Have the customer update their payment method, as described above.
"My customer can't change their delivery — it asks for a phone number."
Some shops require a phone number on shipping addresses (it's a Shopify checkout setting). When yours does, Shopify refuses a delivery change whose address has no phone number — or one it can't read — and the customer portal asks them to add a valid one to their delivery address.
What to tell them:
- Open the subscription and use Edit Shipping Address, or Change delivery method → Edit address on a shop that offers pickup.
- Fill in the Phone field and save.
- If it already has a number, check the format. A number Shopify can't read counts the same as a missing one — an international format like
+49 152 2038456always works.
The same applies when you change the address from the merchant portal.
Related Guides
Need help? Contact support at support@zubs.app.