Compare subscriptions and orders

While subscriptions and orders can appear very similar, there are some key differences that are important to keep in mind when reviewing them in your WooCommerce Dashboard.

The intent of an order is to create a record of a transaction that happened in the past. On the other hand, a subscription is an agreement that a transaction is going to happen in the future. Subscriptions are an extension of orders, and as such, they contain all of the same data as orders, including a customer, status, payment method, billing and shipping address, and product, fee, tax, and shipping line items. Subscriptions also contain extra data, including a recurring billing period and interval, dates of the subscription start, next payment, and trial end, and the related orders.

An active subscription may show multiple transactions that have occurred over time (for example, when users upgrade an existing subscription). So, subscriptions can have multiple orders associated with it. If an order included multiple subscriptions, that single order can also be associated with different subscriptions.