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Products｜Understanding Products

In Subotiz, product management is used to structure subscription products. A product defines what you sell, while pricing plans define how customers are billed. Separating products from pricing plans allows merchants to reuse products across multiple pricing configurations.
 

The Role of Products

A product represents the core unit of what a merchant sells, such as a SaaS service, feature access, or digital content. Products do not contain pricing information. Instead, they describe the offering and serve as the entity to which pricing plans are attached.
In Subotiz, each product record typically includes:
  • Product name
  • Product type
  • Product image
  • Product ID (automatically generated by the system)
  • Description
  • Status
  • Created time
Products define the business offering, while pricing plans control the billing rules associated with that offering.
 

Product and Pricing Relationship

In Subotiz:
  • Every pricing plan must be linked to a product
  • A single product can support multiple pricing plans
For example:
  • “Team Plan” is a product
  • “Team Plan – Monthly $30” and “Team Plan – Annual $300” are two pricing plans under the same product
This structure allows a single product to support multiple billing options without requiring duplicate product records.
 

Product Update Behavior

Products can be updated after creation. The system handles updates differently depending on whether the product has already been used in transactions.
  • Products without transactions: Products that have not been used in orders or subscriptions can be edited directly.
  • Products used in transactions or subscriptions: If a product has already been referenced in orders, invoices, or subscriptions, editing the product will generate a new product version (product_version_id).
Orders, subscriptions, and invoices store a snapshot of product information, such as the product name and configuration. This ensures that historical transaction records remain unchanged even if the product is updated later.
When a new product version is created, corresponding pricing plan versions are also generated to ensure consistency between product and pricing configurations.
This mechanism ensures that:
  • Historical orders, invoices, and subscriptions retain the original product version
  • Existing subscriptions continue billing based on the original product version
  • New orders, checkouts, or subscriptions use the updated product version
 

Product Status

Products support the following statuses:
  • Active: The product can be referenced by pricing plans and used to generate new orders.
  • Inactive: The product remains available in the admin panel but cannot be used for new checkout transactions.
  • Archived: A soft-deleted state. Archived products are removed from the product list but remain available for historical records.
When a product is archived, its associated pricing plans are archived as well.
 

Viewing and Creating Products in the Admin

To access product management: Go to Subotiz Admin > Products > Products
The product list displays:
  • Product name and ID
  • Product type
  • Status (Active or Inactive)
  • Created time
From this page, you can:
  • Create products
  • Edit product information
  • Activate or deactivate products
  • Archive products
  • Manage associated pricing plans

 
Once a product is created, you can proceed to configure the corresponding pricing plans.