Changing Strings – Buy Once or Subscribe for WooCommerce Subscriptions

The “buy once or subscribe” option lets shoppers choose between a one-off purchase and a subscription on the same product. The default wording is functional, but it rarely sells the benefit. Changing two strings — the option label and the price text — can make the subscription offer much clearer.

Why change the default text?

Shoppers decide in seconds. A label that just says “Subscribe” does not tell them what they gain. A label such as “Subscribe & Save 10%” states the benefit right where the decision happens. The same applies to the price area: showing the best available saving next to the price nudges more people towards the subscription.

Before you start

• Use a child theme or a code snippets plugin — never edit the plugin itself.
• Work on a staging site first and take a backup.
• Know which text you want to change and where it appears (product page, cart, mini-cart).

Step 1: Change the subscription option label

The first filter changes the text shown on the subscription choice — for example from “Subscribe” to “Subscribe & Save” followed by the discount.

The plugin’s documentation shows the filter to use, but there is a catch we ran into: after adding our custom string, the discount value disappeared. The default label contains a placeholder for the discount, and a replacement string that drops that placeholder drops the number too. The fix is to include the placeholder in your new text.

[original snippet — frequency option label filter, with the discount placeholder kept]

Step 2: Show the best discount next to the price

The second filter looks at all subscription plans on a product, finds the highest discount, and shows it in the price area — for example “or Subscribe & Save 15%”. If no plan has a discount, it simply shows “Subscribe”.

[original snippet — price display filter: highest discount, fallback to “Subscribe”]

A general fallback: translate any plugin string

If a plugin has no dedicated filter for the text you want, WordPress’s gettext filter can replace any translatable string. Limit it to the plugin’s text domain so you don’t change text elsewhere on the site.

add_filter( 'gettext', function ( $translated, $text, $domain ) {
    if ( 'plugin-text-domain' !== $domain ) { // replace with the plugin's text domain
        return $translated;
    }
    if ( 'Subscribe' === $text ) {
        return 'Subscribe & Save';
    }
    return $translated;
}, 20, 3 );

Keep in mind that gettext runs on every string, so keep the check simple, and use the dedicated plugin filters where they exist.

Test the changes

• Check simple and variable products, with and without discounts.
• Check the product page, cart, checkout and emails.
• Clear page and object caches, then test logged out.
• Re-test after plugin updates — string changes can break if the plugin renames its text.