How to Integrate Stay AI with Loyalty: The Complete Setup Guide
When you integrate Stay AI with loyalty, every points balance your subscribers earn turns into a reason to keep their plan running. That is the part most retention teams underrate. Stay AI keeps subscribers paying through smart renewal logic and cancellation flows; a loyalty program stacks earned value on top, so canceling means walking away from something already banked. Through Mage, the two connect in minutes from your admin, no developer required, and the payoff compounds with every renewal cycle.
We have built this connection for subscription-first Shopify brands inside our Shopify loyalty program, and the setup is genuinely short. Here is the contrarian bit we will return to: the goal is not to push subscribers to redeem faster. It is to make their balance feel too valuable to abandon. Speed of redemption and strength of retention pull in opposite directions more often than people expect.
Key Takeaways
- Connecting Stay AI to Mage takes a single API key, validated in your Mage admin, with no code at any step.
- Subscribers can exchange points for a custom-value discount and apply it straight to one of their active Stay renewals, not just as a one-time checkout code.
- Mage awards bonus points automatically when a subscriber hits a renewal milestone you choose, such as their 3rd or 6th completed order.
- The integration is available on Mage Starter plans and above, and it runs alongside loyalty, VIP tiers, and memberships on one Shopify-native platform.
- Milestone bonuses fire on the exact renewal that crosses your threshold; subscribers already past it when you switch the rule on are not retro-awarded.
- The retention lever that matters most is perceived switching cost, so design earning and redemption around staying, not around cashing out.
Why a Subscription Renewal Is the Best Moment to Reward Someone
Subscriptions give you predictable revenue. Cancellations quietly chip away at it. A loyalty program fights that erosion by attaching value to the relationship itself, value a competitor cannot undercut by simply matching your price. Picture a subscriber sitting on a balance worth a free product or a meaningful discount. The moment they consider canceling, that balance becomes a cost of leaving. That hesitation is the entire mechanism.
The two systems reinforce each other in both directions:
- Loyalty makes subscriptions stickier, because a growing point balance creates a real, felt switching cost.
- Subscriptions accelerate loyalty engagement, because recurring orders pile up points faster than scattered one-time purchases ever could.
- The combined signal sharpens your retention strategy, because renewal cadence plus redemption behavior tells you exactly who to reward and when.
Think of it like a coffee shop punch card that never resets. Each renewal is another punch, and the closer the card gets to the free coffee, the more it stings to throw it out and start over somewhere else. Stay AI handles the renewals; Mage handles the punches. Together they turn a billing event into a loyalty deposit, and that is where most of the customer retention lift comes from over a full year.
How the Stay AI and Mage Connection Works
Two systems do two distinct jobs. Stay AI runs the recurring side: subscription products, billing, renewals, and the retention and cancellation experiences it is known for. Mage runs the loyalty side: points, rewards, VIP tiers, and referrals. The Stay AI integration links subscription events to loyalty actions so neither dashboard needs anyone copying data by hand.
The connection unlocks two specific capabilities, and it is worth being precise about what does and does not happen.
| Capability | What it does |
|---|---|
| Points to subscription renewal | Subscribers exchange points for a custom-value discount and apply it directly to an active Stay subscription renewal, instead of using a one-time code at checkout |
| Subscription milestone bonus | Mage awards bonus points automatically when a subscriber reaches a renewal count you set, fired on the exact renewal that crosses the threshold |
| Plan requirement | Available on Mage Starter plans and above, running alongside Loyalty |
| Setup effort | One Stay AI API key, validated in Mage; no middleware or developer time |
That is the integration in full. It is not a generic "earn points on everything" bolt-on, and it does not auto-apply referral rewards to renewals. It does two things well: it lets subscribers spend points against a renewal, and it drops bonus points at a milestone you define. Keeping the scope tight is what makes it reliable.
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Setting Up the Stay AI Integration in Mage
The flow is straightforward: create an API key in Stay AI, paste it into Mage, then turn on the two reward mechanics. We will walk each phase in order. Before you start, you need Stay AI installed and active on your Shopify store with admin access to its dashboard, plus a Mage Starter plan or above.
Create an API Key in Stay AI
Log in to your Stay AI dashboard. Go to Account, then API Tokens, and click New API Key. Give it a recognizable name like "Mage Loyalty" so you can find it later. This next part is where setups break, so slow down: you must select the right permissions or the connection will not function. Enable Read Subscriptions, Write Subscriptions, Read Webhooks, Update Webhooks, and Delete Webhooks. Create the key, then copy the full value. Treat it like a password, because anyone holding it can reach your subscription data.
Connect Stay AI to Mage
In your Mage admin, open the Integrations page and find the Stay card. Click Manage, paste your Stay API key into the field, and click Connect Stay. Mage validates the key against Stay and saves it once it verifies. The card should then show as Connected. If you see an error instead, re-copy the full key end to end and confirm every permission listed above is enabled in Stay; a token missing even one permission will fail validation.
That is the entire connection. No app to install, no webhook to wire up by hand, no custom code. If you would rather watch the whole thing run against your own catalog first, you can book a quick walkthrough and we will set it up live with you.
Letting Subscribers Spend Points on Their Renewals
Redemption is where the retention force actually lives. When a subscriber spends points to take money off an upcoming renewal, they have effectively reinvested in staying. The mechanism is Mage's Flexible Redemption block, which gains an "Apply to subscription" button once Stay is connected. Rather than carrying a one-time code to checkout, a subscriber pushes a custom-value discount straight onto one of their active subscriptions.
Turn On the Apply to Subscription Button
Open the Flexible Redemption block in your theme editor or Mage admin and turn on "Show apply to subscription." One setting decides whether the button appears at all: the flexible reward's purchase type must be set to Subscription or Both. A One-time-only reward keeps the Apply button hidden, since a one-time discount cannot attach to a recurring contract. Save once that is configured.
Here is what a signed-in subscriber with an active Stay subscription experiences:
- They drag the slider to choose how many points to exchange.
- They click Redeem for a one-time discount code at checkout, or Apply to subscription to attach the discount to a renewal.
- After clicking Apply to subscription, a dialog lists their active Stay subscriptions; they pick one, confirm, and Mage applies the discount to the next renewal automatically.
If a subscriber has no active subscriptions, the dialog tells them there is nothing to apply the discount to, so the experience never dead-ends.
The discount honors everything you configured on the reward. That includes minimum spend, how many renewals it runs for (the next payment only, the next three, or all of them), product or collection restrictions, and discount combinations. So if you limited a reward to the first payment, the applied discount shows up on the very next renewal and then stops. This is the control that protects your margin while still giving subscribers a real, tangible reason to keep their plan.
Awarding Bonus Points at Renewal Milestones
The second capability runs in the background and rewards tenure directly. The Subscription Milestone earning rule grants bonus points when a subscriber reaches a chosen number of completed subscription orders. With Stay connected, the rule fires automatically the moment one of your Stay subscribers crosses the threshold you set, using Stay's tally of completed renewals as the source of truth.
To set it up, go to Earning Rules in your Mage admin and add or edit the Subscription Milestone rule. Set the renewal threshold (for example, 3 completed orders) and the points to award, confirm the rule is Active, and save. The milestone fires on the exact renewal that brings a subscriber to your threshold. Subscribers who were already past it when you turned the rule on are not retro-awarded, so it pays to launch the rule before a renewal wave rather than after one.
A practical way to think about milestone design:
| Milestone moment | Why it works |
|---|---|
| 3rd renewal | Rewards subscribers right as the early-churn risk window closes, reinforcing the habit |
| 6th renewal | Marks roughly half a year of commitment, a natural point to deepen the relationship |
| 12th renewal | Celebrates a full annual cycle and signals real long-term value to your best subscribers |
You do not need all three. Pick the renewal counts that match where your subscribers tend to wobble, and use the bonus to carry them past it. Pairing milestones with VIP tiers makes the climb feel even more rewarding, since tenure is exactly the behavior tiers are built to recognize.
Measuring Whether the Integration Is Working
Once both mechanics are live, watch a focused set of signals rather than a vanity dashboard. The clearest read comes from comparing two groups: subscribers who engage with loyalty and subscribers who never do.
| Bucket | What to watch |
|---|---|
| Loyalty health | Redemption rate as a signal (not a target), points liability, milestone payout volume |
| Subscription health | Churn rate, average subscription tenure, renewals before first cancellation |
| Combined picture | Churn for redeemers versus non-redeemers, retention lift after a milestone fires |
The combined bucket is what justifies the project to a finance lead. When churn among subscribers who redeem runs lower than churn among those who ignore the program, you have turned "we added loyalty" into a defensible retention strategy. Read your Mage loyalty reports alongside Stay's subscription analytics for both halves of the picture, and revisit your milestone thresholds and reward values quarterly as the data shows you what is actually moving retention.
Now the contrarian take we promised. Standard advice says drive redemption rate up and treat it as a win. For subscription brands, that is often backwards. A subscriber saving toward a reward they have not yet claimed is frequently stickier than one who cashes out the instant they can, because the unclaimed balance is the thing keeping them in. Treat redemption as a health signal, loosen thresholds only when engagement genuinely stalls, and remember that perceived balance, not redemption velocity, is what makes canceling feel like a loss. If you want this kind of value-stacking to extend beyond renewals, a Shopify membership program sits on the same platform, so there is nothing extra to stitch together.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I integrate Stay AI with loyalty in Mage?
To integrate Stay AI with loyalty, create an API key in your Stay AI dashboard under Account then API Tokens, enabling the subscription and webhook permissions. Paste that key into the Stay card on Mage's Integrations page and click Connect Stay. Mage validates it and shows the card as Connected.
Can subscribers use loyalty points to discount a subscription renewal?
Yes, subscribers can apply loyalty points toward a subscription renewal. Using Mage's Flexible Redemption block, a signed-in subscriber exchanges points for a custom-value discount and clicks Apply to subscription to attach it to one of their active Stay renewals. The discount honors your reward settings, so you control value and which renewals it covers.
How do subscription milestone bonus points work with Stay AI?
Subscription milestone bonus points are awarded automatically when a Stay subscriber reaches a renewal count you set, such as their 3rd or 6th completed order. The bonus fires on the exact renewal that crosses your threshold. Subscribers already past the threshold when you activate the rule are not awarded retroactively.
What plan do I need to connect Stay AI to Mage?
You need a Mage Starter plan or above to connect Stay AI. The integration runs alongside your loyalty program on the same Shopify-native platform, so there is no separate add-on or higher tier required to reward subscribers with renewal discounts and milestone bonus points.
Why is the Apply to Subscription button not showing for my customers?
The Apply to subscription button stays hidden when one of a few conditions is unmet. Confirm the Stay card shows as Connected, that "Show apply to subscription" is turned on in the Flexible Redemption block, that the reward's purchase type is Subscription or Both, and that the customer is signed in with an active Stay subscription.
What happens to applied discounts if I disconnect Stay AI?
Discounts already applied to subscriptions stay in place, and Stay keeps honoring them at renewal. Disconnecting only stops new point-to-subscription discounts and new milestone awards from that point forward. Reconnecting Stay restores both mechanics, so existing subscribers are never left with a broken or vanished discount.
TLDR
To integrate Stay AI with loyalty, create an API key in Stay AI with the subscription and webhook permissions enabled, paste it into the Stay card on Mage's Integrations page, and click Connect Stay so Mage validates it and shows Connected. From there, enable the Flexible Redemption block's "Apply to subscription" button (with the reward's purchase type set to Subscription or Both) so subscribers exchange points for a custom-value discount on an active renewal, and add a Subscription Milestone earning rule to drop bonus points automatically when subscribers hit a renewal count you choose, like their 3rd or 6th order. The integration runs on Mage Starter plans and above with no code, and the real payoff comes from higher perceived switching cost rather than faster redemption, because a banked balance is what makes canceling feel like a loss.
