Original research
Subscribe and save, measured.
7 in 10 brands make it the default.
We captured the product pages of 203 US subscription brands on the same day and coded every buy box: which option is selected, how deep the discount runs, what it promises and how it frames the price.
Key takeaways
- 69% of subscription brands pre-select the subscription, so a shopper who changes nothing subscribes.
- The median subscribe-and-save discount is 15%, and the middle half of brands sit between 10% and 23%.
- 61% offer free shipping and 60% say you can cancel or pause anytime, the two most common promises in the buy box.
- 1 in 8 brands give the first order an offer of its own (13%), so the first renewal costs more than the first box.
How we measured
This is a study of public product pages. No brand’s private data was used.
- The brands. We started from 292 direct-to-consumer brands that sell a subscription: the brands in YOCTO’s Subscription Teardowns library and 124 added for this study. 203 sold a subscription on a US product page we could read. Of the rest, 20 run a custom storefront the agent could not read, 16 had no US storefront we could reach, 14 showed no subscription option on the product page, for 14 the buy box could not be captured, 12 blocked automated visits, 11 had no product data we could read and 2 ask agents to stay off the page in robots.txt.
- One product per brand. The subscription product the homepage links to most often; where a store cannot be read that way, its flagship subscription product, chosen by hand.
- One day. Every page was captured on October 26, 2026 by YOCTO’s capture agent, with a screenshot of every buy box. The agent follows each site’s robots.txt and never logs in or adds to cart.
- Definitions. Pre-selected: the subscription option is selected when the page loads. Discount: the one-time price minus the subscription price, divided by the one-time price, for the same pack size, as displayed. Plan discount: the deepest discount among the store’s own subscription plans, the prices later orders are charged at. A promise counts when it appears in the buy box or right beside it; free shipping counts with any threshold. Where the agent could not tell which option is selected, we read the default off the screenshot (35 brands). Products sold only by subscription (3) count in every measure except the default.
- Checked by hand. We compared the agent’s codes with the screenshots of 20 random buy boxes. The default and the discount matched in every case the agent read them; the rules for the smaller codes were widened where they missed.
- How precise. Every share comes from about 203 brands, so it can be off by up to 7 points either way, more for the categories, which appear only when they hold at least 10 brands.
- Limits. One product per brand. Displayed prices, not checkout prices. A one-day snapshot. The list leans toward larger, well-known brands. US storefronts only.
The findings
1. The default: 7 in 10 brands pre-select the subscription
136 of the 197 brands whose default we could read pre-select the subscription option: 69%. Supplements lead, beauty and personal care brands are split.
A pre-selected subscription turns the default into the decision. A shopper who wants to buy once has to change it; one who changes nothing subscribes.
2. The discount: a median of 15%
Across the 143 brands that show both prices, the median subscribe-and-save discount is 15% off the one-time price, and half of them sit between 10% and 23%. Deeper than 35% is rare.
3. The first order: 1 in 8 brands give it an offer of its own
25 of the 188 brands we could read in full run an offer for the first order only (13%): a deeper discount, a gift or a lower price on the first box, then the plan’s own terms from the second order on.
The store’s own plan data shows the same thing from the other side. For 5 of the 99 brands whose plans we could read, the page shows a discount at least 5 points deeper than any plan carries, typically by 15 points; for the rest, the page and the plans agree. A store that builds the first-order price into its plan data reads as no gap, so that count is a lower bound.
An offer for the first order sells the first order. It also makes the first renewal a price rise, at the moment subscribers decide whether to stay.
4. What brands promise beside the subscription
61% offer free shipping, the most common promise in the study. The typical guarantee runs 30 days.
5. How brands frame the price
82% of brands put a savings badge on the subscription, and 53% strike through the one-time price beside it. Badges for the most popular or best value option, social proof and urgency are rare in the buy box.
6. Delivery intervals
The typical brand offers 3 delivery intervals; 24% offer only one, and 87% offer a monthly option.
7. The page an ad sends you to
52 of the brands in the study run Meta ads, and we also captured the page those ads send people to. These brands sell the subscription harder everywhere: on their own product pages 86% pre-select it, against 69% across the whole study, and on the pages their ads send people to, 91% do.
The discount was the same on both pages for 33 of 40 of these brands, deeper on the ad’s page for 7 and deeper on the product page for 0. Where the two pages differ, the ad’s page is the cheaper one.
What to do with this
Read your own buy box against these numbers: the default, the discount and the gap between the first order and the renewal. How we build an offer from this is on our subscription offer page.
Cite this research
Free to cite and reference with attribution to YOCTO, under a CC BY 4.0 license. Next refresh: January 2027.
Kapernaros, G. (2026). Subscribe and Save Benchmarks 2026: How Subscription Brands Sell the Subscription. YOCTO. https://yocto.agency/subscribe-and-save-benchmarks/
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