Back end integration

Making Submarine work for you.

1. Introduction

Submarine is a sophisticated e-commerce platform that allows Shopify Plus merchants to build bespoke customer experiences around:

• subscriptions;
• presales; and
• crowdfunding.

Submarine’s flexible API handles the boilerplate and complexity of commerce experiences, leaving you to focus on work that matters.

1.1. Benefits

1. API first Through our GraphQL Admin API, we’re focused on providing you with the flexibility and control to build what you need without getting in your way.
2. Shopify Flow We expose a wide range of Shopify Flow triggers and actions to allow zero-code workflow building and integration with hundreds of applications out of the box.
3. Domain Model We abstract common domain concepts — subscriptions, campaigns, payment methods — and handle universal boilerplate functionality like scheduling, billing and workflow execution.
4. Deep integration Submarine leverages Shopify’s native functionality wherever possible to provide a streamlined experience that’s compatible with the broader ecosystem.
5. Dedicated support From kick-off to launch, you can collaborate with our engineering team to get informed answers from folks who’ve been in your shoes.

1.2. Limitations

1. Although Submarine’s APIs are unthrottled, some of the actions result in requests to Shopify’s own APIs, which are rate limited. We have some smarts in place to cater for this constraint, but occasionally the only thing we can do is fail gracefully and surface Shopify’s own 429s.
2. For subscriptions, Submarine integrates tightly with Shopify’s Selling Plans, so we often inherit the limitations of the underlying implementation.
3. For presale and crowdfunding campaigns, Submarine integrates tightly with Shopify’s Deferred Purchase Options, so we inherit some of the limitations of the underlying implementation as described here, as well as some additional ones not documented by Shopify:
1. Only a single capture subsequent to the initial checkout is supported, even if multiple deferred purchases are in the cart.
2. Refunds for mixed carts are not reflected in the balance owing of the payment mandate.

To understand some of the terminology and architecture of Submarine, we advise you to read our 🗂️Presale key concepts.