Canadian subscription and loyalty systems need CASL-compliant loyalty communication, French-language programme access for Quebec, and subscription economics that account for Canadian shipping costs

CASL compliance for loyalty programme emails requires express consent for each type of commercial electronic message being sent — points balance updates that have a promotional element, tier upgrade emails that include a promotional incentive, and win-back campaigns all require express consent. The loyalty programme sign-up form must include a separate, explicitly described opt-in for marketing-category loyalty communications, uncoupled from the loyalty enrolment itself. Consent records — who gave consent, when, and through which mechanism — must be stored and retrievable, because the obligation to prove consent under CASL rests with the sender. Pure transactional loyalty messages (points earned on a specific purchase, account security notifications) do not require express consent under CASL's transactional message exemption.

French-language loyalty programme access for Quebec members requires four components: a French-language version of the loyalty member portal (LoyaltyLion, Yotpo, and Smile.io all support language localisation via their portal customisation settings); French-language Klaviyo loyalty email flows covering points earned, balance updates, tier progression, and expiry notifications; a French-language subscription self-service portal if subscriptions and loyalty are integrated; and a French-language cancellation retention flow. All French copy for Quebec should be reviewed by a native Québécois speaker — platform-provided default French translations are in European French and will need correction for a Quebec audience.

Canadian subscription pricing should be modelled from the unit economics up, not adapted from US pricing by applying a currency conversion. The inputs required are: actual per-order fulfilment cost at Canadian shipping rates (either cross-border from the US or from a Canadian 3PL); the cost of goods at the subscription discount level; and the target contribution margin per subscription order. If the cross-border shipping cost makes a subscription tier unprofitable, the options are: raising the Canadian subscription price to cover the shipping differential; partnering with a Canadian 3PL to reduce the per-order shipping cost; removing free shipping from the Canadian subscription and building a shipping fee into the subscription economics; or restricting the subscription offer to product categories where the margin supports Canadian shipping costs.

Recharge and Skio are both widely used on Canadian Shopify stores. Recharge is the more established platform with a larger Canadian merchant base and more extensive dunning management configuration. Skio is a newer platform with a simpler merchant interface and stronger performance on subscription cancellation flow conversion. For brands migrating from Recharge to Skio, Skio provides a migration tool that preserves existing subscriber billing relationships. The deciding factors for Canadian brands are typically the complexity of the subscription programme (Recharge for more complex tier and bundle structures) and the support requirement (Skio for brands that need faster onboarding).

LoyaltyLion has the most complete Klaviyo integration for bilingual loyalty communications — it passes loyalty events as Klaviyo triggers and customer profile properties that can be used to personalise both English and French email flows from a single loyalty data source. Yotpo Loyalty and Smile.io both integrate with Klaviyo but with less granular event data. The French-language Klaviyo flows need to be built by the merchant or their growth engineer — they are not provided pre-built by the loyalty platform. The flows should be written in Canadian French from the outset, not translated from English-language flow templates.