Custom Shopify admin app · Operations
A back office that runs the whole subscription.
Every paid Shopify order becomes a membership with its monthly letters, recipients, labels, renewals and refunds, managed inside Shopify Admin.
Built for POSTED · Monthly letter-subscription brand, UAE
One-time build from $150. No app subscription. You own the code.
Why they came to us
In the client's own words.
We sell monthly letters, but Shopify only sees one order. Everything after the checkout lived in spreadsheets.
Every month we rebuilt the list of who gets a letter, checked addresses by hand and wrote labels one by one.
Subscription apps charge a monthly fee plus a cut of every order, and they still don't know what a letter or a recipient is.
I wanted one place where my team sees what's due, what's sent and who needs a refund, inside Shopify.
See it in action
How the subscription operations backend works, day to day.
- 1
Step 1
A customer buys a plan
They choose 1, 6 or 12 months on the storefront and enter the recipient, address and map pin at checkout.
- 2
Step 2
The membership builds itself
The paid-order webhook creates the membership and every letter by month, and flags a missing map pin or incomplete address.
- 3
Step 3
The team sees the month
The dashboard shows active memberships, letters due, dispatched, delivery issues and memberships ending soon.
- 4
Step 4
Prepare, label, dispatch
Staff mark letters prepared, print a label batch with QR codes, then mark them dispatched and delivered.
- 5
Step 5
Renew or refund
Ending-soon members get a reminder; cancellations get a rule-based refund estimate and an approval trail.
What the market charges
Renting it every month, or owning it once.
The same job with apps, per month
Cheapest stack
~$49/mo + postage
- Appstle SubscriptionsStarter (prepaid, up to $5k/mo)$10
- ShippoProfessionalfrom $19
- Shopify Order PrinterFree$0
- MatrixifyBasic (exports)$20
Typical stack
~$149/mo + 1.49% + 19¢ per order
- RechargeStarter$99 + 1.49% + 19¢
- ShipStationStandard$29.99
- MatrixifyBasic (exports)$20
No app advertises a monthly “who gets a letter” list, refund rules for prepaid terms, a recipient address book or QR codes on labels. Those stay manual.
Prices from each app's Shopify App Store listing or the vendor's pricing page, checked 26 October 2026, monthly billing unless noted. Tap an app to check it yourself.
Our model
One-time buildfrom $150
No monthly app subscription. Scope and final price agreed before work starts.
Running cost: Hosting and database, about $45/mo on professional plans (Vercel Pro $20 + Supabase Pro $25).
- Built around your exact workflow
- You own the code and the data
- Additions and revisions quoted separately, only when you need them
- admin screens, built to a locked design
- 10admin screens, built to a locked design
- fee on any order
- 0%fee on any order
- webhook turns a paid order into a full membership
- 1webhook turns a paid order into a full membership
- per screen after moving the server next to the database
- <2sper screen after moving the server next to the database
What we built
Every pain point, answered.
- 01
Order to membership
A paid order creates the customer, recipient, membership and every monthly letter on its own, with no double entries.
- 02
Letters & fulfilment
Filter what's due by month, plan or emirate, then mark letters prepared, dispatched or delivered in bulk.
- 03
Printable labels with QR
A4 label sheets with sender, recipient and a QR code for the delivery location, checked before anything is marked labelled.
- 04
Renewals & reminders
Ending-soon memberships surface on their own, with renewal reminders sent through Shopify's own email.
- 05
Cancellations & refunds
Refund estimates follow the brand's cutoff-day rule, with approval, payout confirmation and customer emails.
- 06
Reports & exports
Live KPIs, charts, plan mix and CSV exports for subscriptions, letters, customers and refunds.
Under the hood
Built properly, and kept secure.
Architecture
- Embedded Shopify app (React Router) inside Shopify Admin, verified with App Bridge session tokens.
- Own Postgres database for memberships, letters, recipients, refunds and an audit log; Shopify stays the source of truth for orders.
- Idempotent order webhook, so a repeated delivery never creates a second membership.
- Server region pinned next to the database, which cut screen loads from 7–16s to under 2s.
Security
- Signed webhooks only, deduplicated by Shopify's delivery ID.
- Staff roles enforced on the server: only Admin changes settings, only Admin or Finance approves refunds.
- Every change written to an audit log with who, what, before and after.
Tech stack
- Shopify App
- React Router
- TypeScript
- Prisma
- Supabase Postgres
- Shopify Webhooks
- Vercel
Build time: About 2 weeks
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