Taking on ten wineries · applications open

We move your winery to Shopify. Then the club runs itself.

Clubs, allocations, release day and the members in between. We move you across — or set up on the store you already have — then run the first release beside you. Agencies quote US$11,500–17,750 for the same scope. No percentage of what you sell, ever.

The Founding Ten

The first ten wineries move for half, and stay on half.

  • Half the move if you need one — US$2,450, not US$4,900
  • Half your tier, for life, even as you grow
  • Both of us live on your first release
  • Priority on every reply, direct to the founders
  • Your pain points set the roadmap
Apply for a founding spot Keep me posted
10 of 10 still open
Steward Spring Release · 14 March
Members1,284+38 this release
Retained91%12-month
Recovered$4,120from failed cards
Hillside Cabernet300 cases
Allocated by tenure612 members
Declined → waitlist88
Dry run ✓612 cards
Expected ✓$183,600
Needs a new card9
Run release Nothing charged yet

Steward, release morning · illustration

Every feature on every tier. No cut of your sales, at any size, ever — and US$249 a month is the ceiling. See the five tiers →

Industry averages, not ours. Clubs grow about 26% a year against 22% attrition, and the average member lasts 413 days.

01 How it works

What does release day actually take?

What replaces the spreadsheet, the calendar reminders and the release-morning nerves.

01 · The clubAny shape you sell

One club or six. Curated, choose-your-own, or both. Members skip, swap and pause themselves.

02 · The allocationNever oversell a barrel

Ranked by tenure and spend, then stopped at checkout — a hard stop, not an apology afterwards. Declines cascade to your waitlist.

03 · Release dayPreview every charge

One run across every saved card. You see which would fail before a single one is charged.

04 · The months betweenKnow who’s leaving

Drifting members surfaced while you can still pick up the phone, not after a shipment bounces.

Four screens from your own Shopify admin, drawn against a real club — nothing here is a stock screenshot.

Allocation2021 Reserve Cabernet · 300 casesWho gets it, and whenRanked by tenure and spend. Declines cascade to the waitlist.Reserve88 members6 btlThu 9:00amEstate201 members3 btlThu 9:00am + 48hCellar323 memberswaitlistif unclaimed1,224 bottles allocated of 3,600Unclaimed returns to the pool when the window closes.Checkoutshopify · cart_checkout_validation2021 Reserve Cabernet$95.00 · quantity 12You're allocated 6 bottles of this wine.Reduce the quantity to 6 to continue.Continue to paymentblocked server-sideWhy this is a hard stopThe function runs inside Shopify's checkout, so it holds onShop Pay and every accelerated path. Not a theme warning.
Spring ReleasePREVIEW ONLYNothing has been charged.Snapshot taken 6 May, 09:14612members will be charged$183,600expected23skipping this release9will fail — see belowWHAT WOULD GO WRONG9cards expired or expiring before 12 MayEmail a fix link →3no delivery address on fileReview →1membership paused with no end dateReview →BY TIERReserve886 btl$340$29,920Estate20112 btl$220$44,220Cellar3236 btl$180$58,140EVERY MEMBER612 rows · searchable · exportable as CSVMargaret WhitlamEstate$220Tom HargreavesCellar$180Anne PetrakisReserve$340card expires 04/27Approve and scheduleDownload CSVCharges 12 May, 6:00am, in your winery's time zone.
Spring Release · 12 May 2027Marleigh Estate$181,200collected from 604 members612attempted604charged8outstanding99.7%of expectedRECOVERED SINCE9 cards failed · 7 fixed within 48 hours · $2,180 recovered2 still open, last contacted 14 MayBy hand this release would have taken about 15 hours.It took 6 minutes and 11 seconds.Every order is in your Shopify admin, taggedspring-release-2027Download the full ledger (CSV) →
Recoveryhow a failed card is chasedThe ladderDifferent failures get different treatment. Retrying an expired card is theatre.Declinedretry +4h · +2d · +5d · +10demail on step 2Expired cardno retry — send the fix link nowNeeds bank approvalauthentication link · hold 48hNo card on fileno retry — signup linkThrottled or 5xxbackoff, same key, up to 6member never sees itWhy cards faillast four releases$14,880 recovered of $17,300 failed86%. The industry recovers about 40% by hand.Expired card38%Insufficient funds27%Bank declined19%Needs approval11%Other5%Expiry is the biggest single cause — and the only preventable one.The card health check runs 30 days out and removes most of this bar.

By hand about 15 hours

  1. Export the list, check allocations tier by tier
  2. Find you’ve promised more Reserve than you bottled
  3. Charge in batches and hope nothing times out
  4. 5–8% fail. Chase three weeks, recover about 40%.

On Steward under an hour

  1. Preview the whole release before a card is charged
  2. Nothing oversold, enforced back at checkout
  3. One run, retries and reminders going out on their own
  4. Expiring cards were fixed thirty days ago

$12,000 of allocated wine handed back a year on a $150,000 club, at an 8% decline rate. Recovering half covers Steward several times over. Your rate is yours, not ours — ask and we’ll work out the real number before you commit.

02 What your members see

The half of it you never log into.

Your members never see Shopify admin, and they never see Steward. Three screens, in the order they meet them — from the invitation to the shelf their wine ends up on.

MARLEIGH ESTATEYour club,now online.Hello Margaret — you've been anEstate member since March 2019.We're moving the club online so youdon't have to send a bank transfertwice a year.YOUR MEMBERSHIPEstate · 12 bottlesMay and November$220 a shipmentNothing is charged today.Your first charge is 12 May.Confirm and add cardPrefer not to? Reply to this email andwe'll keep you exactly as you are.WHY THIS PAGE IS BUILT THIS WAYHer name and her join date, above the foldThe single strongest signal that a person did this and not asystem. It is also the only proof available that we are who wesay we are.“Nothing is charged today”Sits in the gold panel, not the small print. Every member loston this page is a member the winery blames us for — and thefear is being charged by surprise.A named opt-out“Reply and we'll keep you exactly as you are.” A member whocannot see a way out does not proceed, they just close it.One action, and it says what happensNot “Continue”. Confirm and add card — the two things that areabout to occur.Target ≥85% completion in 14 daysShown on the winery's own dashboard. It is a shared goal, nota silent risk.
MARLEIGH ESTATENEXT SHIPMENT14 May 2027$2202023 Estate Chardonnay×62022 Estate Pinot Noir×6Arrives around 21 MaySkip this oneChange winesWHERE YOU STAND8th vintageYou allocate ahead of 340 members•••• 4242 · expires 04/27Update14 Barton St, Hawthorn 3122ChangePause my membershipMARLEIGH ESTATEWould you like topause instead?You've been with us eight years.Anything below keeps your place inthe allocation.Skip just this shipmentBack in November, nothing lostPause for six monthsNothing charged until NovemberMove to Cellar$180 instead of $220Cancel my membershipWe'll ask why — one questionTHE TWO RULESCancel is never a buttonIt lives behind Pause, andthe save flow offers threecheaper exits before it.The reason captured at theend is the only honestdata on why clubs leak.Standing is shown, not stored“You allocate ahead of 340members” turns tenure froman invisible number intosomething worthprotecting. Retentiondoing its own work.
MARLEIGH ESTATEBuild your May boxChoose 12. Minimum 3 of any wine.2023 Estate Chardonnay$42 a bottle−6+2022 Estate Pinot Noir$48 a bottle−3+2021 Reserve Cabernet$95 a bottle−3+2023 Yarra Rosé$32 a bottle−0+12 of 12 · $558Case discount applied — you saved $62.Confirm my boxMARLEIGH ESTATEYour cellar34 bottles, everything since 2019.2019 Estate Shiraz2 btlat peak now2021 Reserve Cabernet6 btl2027–20352022 Estate Pinot Noir4 btlnow – 2029TONIGHT“What goes with slow lamb?”The 2019 Shiraz.You have two, and it's at peak — thetannin has softened enough for slowmeat. Open it an hour ahead.Answered from the wines she actually owns.WHAT THESE TWO ARE FORBuild-a-box shows therule while they chooseThe minimum and the casediscount are visibleduring the decision, notrevealed at checkout, whenthe basket is already set.The cellar is a salesasset firstNobody in wine DTC shows amember their own cellar,and nobody answers what toopen tonight from thewines they already own.

03 Works with what you use

Everything you already run keeps running.

KlaviyoShopify POSXeroShipStationVintrace MailchimpQuickBooksTockShop PayShopify Flow KlaviyoShopify POSXeroShipStationVintrace MailchimpQuickBooksTockShop PayShopify Flow
AttentiveShippoCin7OpenTableMarkets CheckoutYotpoJudge.meGorgiasZapier AttentiveShippoCin7OpenTableMarkets CheckoutYotpoJudge.meGorgiasZapier
Email & tasting room Your club data drives Klaviyo and your POS. One member record across both.
Accounting & tax Sales and refunds land in Xero or QuickBooks. We never touch your books.
Shipping & fulfillment Rates, labels and tracking stay where your team already looks.
And Shopify Flow, so the routine parts run themselves Three of the recipes we ship
01
WhenA member joins a club
ThenKlaviyo welcome series
ThenTasting invite at 30 days
02
WhenA card fails twice
ThenMember gets a one-click fix
ThenTask raised if still open
03
WhenAn allocation is declined
ThenNext on the waitlist is offered it
ThenYou get a note
04 What a percentage costs

A percentage costs you this much a year.

Most wine club software takes 1.5–2% of everything your club sells, on top of the monthly fee. We take none of it, at any size, ever.

Steward Percentage-based platforms The difference
Steward costs you
—
A percentage platform costs
—
their monthly fee plus 2% of your club
You save, every year
—
and the gap widens as your club grows

Both figures are US dollars. Published pricing of the most-installed percentage-based wine club platform on Shopify, July 2026. Assumes $464 a member a year — the median we measured across 100 winery club pages that publish both a price and a cadence. Ask and we’ll work out your real numbers, whether or not you go with us.

05 Where it lives

You can buy one vendor for everything, or the best of each.

A wine platform is one company for your storefront, club, email, accounting and fulfillment. Tidy — until their plans and yours stop agreeing.

A native wine platform
Shopify + Steward
−One vendor for all of it. Outgrow any one piece and you replace the whole winery
✓Best-in-class for each, and you swap any one of them on its own
−Their roadmap decides what you get, and when
✓Thousands of apps competing for your business every quarter
−They sunset on their calendar. WineDirect Classic closes 31 December 2026
✓Shopify is not a wine company that can exit wine
−A checkout maintained by a wine company
✓Shop Pay, and cards already saved across millions of shoppers
−Leave, and you rebuild from the storefront up
✓Members, orders and cards are already in your own admin
−1–2% of everything your club sells, on top of the monthly fee
✓0%. We charge for software, never for the wine

The one thing we don’t touch: your liquor license, and the wine taxes that come with it. Those stay between you and your accountant, and we are never going to build them.

06 Getting started

Three ways in. Two of them free.

All three published in US dollars, and quoted in writing — in your own currency too — before you commit.

On Shopify, no club software
Free
Your club, switched on. Tiers, allocation rules, your signup page and your first release run with you. No setup fee, on any tier, ever. You are already where you need to be — charging you to install an app would be charging you for our own onboarding.
On Shopify, switching club software
Free
Nobody re-enters a card. From another subscription app on the same store. Members, tiers, billing dates and the saved cards Shopify already holds move with them — however untidy the data is when it reaches us. No fee while we’re taking on our first wineries. If we ever introduce one it will be flat, published on this page, and it will never apply to a quote you already hold.
Not on Shopify yet
US$4,900
The whole move, fixed price. Design, storefront, your wine, your customers, every order, your search rankings — then the club on top and the first release run with you. Nothing on the list below is an extra. Agencies quote US$11,500–17,750 for the same scope, before they charge separately for redirects.

What the US$4,900 actually buys.

Three steps. You pay for one of them, once.

Step one · before anything
Free
We look at what you have. Your members, your wine, your order history, and the one question nobody can answer offhand — whether your saved cards can move. You get it in writing, with a fixed quote. Yours to keep, and to take to anyone else. An agency charges US$4,000–8,000 for this step alone, and calls it discovery.
Step two · the only paid part
US$4,900
Everything else, end to end. Designed, built, migrated, redirected and launched — the full list is below, and there is nothing under it. Fixed price: it does not move because your catalogue is bigger than you thought or your design took another round.
Step three · always
Free
The club, on top. Tiers, members, billing dates, the cards where they can come across, a dry run against real data, then your first release run beside you. The same club setup a winery already on Shopify gets, at the same price: nothing.
One rule, and it explains the whole page: we never charge for the club. We charge for building a storefront, and only if we are the ones building it. Nothing is due up front — a third when you approve the design, a third when the store is on a link you can click and walk around, a third the day it goes live.
Everything in the move. There is no second invoice.
  • The audit first — written, with a fixed quote, before you commit
  • Your design, built properly — your brand, not a template with your logo dropped in
  • Shopify configured — plan, domain, DNS, tax and shipping
  • Your wines — vintages, images, tasting notes, variants
  • Your customers, and every order they have ever placed
  • Your search rankings — every old address redirected to its new one, sitemap and metadata carried across
  • The club — tiers, members, billing dates, allocation rules
  • Saved cards wherever your gateway allows it, confirmed in writing first
  • A dry run against your real data before a single card is touched
  • Go-live handled — the cutover is ours, not yours
  • Your first release run beside you, both of us live
  • Thirty days after launch to put right anything we got wrong

What it does not include, said plainly: new photography, wine copy written from scratch, the apps and subscriptions you choose to add — and your liquor license and wine taxes, which we will never touch. Everything else on this move is ours.

Afterwards, if you want us to stay.

Optional, never bundled into the move, and it is the only thing on this page that can lower the price of one.

Keep it running
US$400/mo
Care. Theme and app updates, broken-link and redirect health, small changes as you need them, and one of us on standby every release morning.
Keep it growing
US$900/mo
Growth. Everything in Care, plus your search, your release emails and the writing that goes with them. Agencies charge two to three times this and start at a year.
The trade
−US$2,000
Off the move. Take either retainer for twelve months and the move is US$2,900, not $4,900. Cancel the retainer with thirty days’ notice like everything else here — we just ask for the year when it buys the discount.

And you choose who builds it.

The storefront is the only part that has to be built by somebody. Steps one and three are free in all three cases.

Option one You build it. You pay us nothing If you have a web person already, or you have done it before. We hand them the audit, the export files and the club spec, and answer their questions. We still set the club up afterwards, free.
Option two A studio in your own country builds it. You pay us nothing · their quote for the storefront Yours if you have one. If you don’t, we’ll shortlist local studios and write the brief so you are not buying blind. They hold the storefront, we hold the club and the data.
Option three · what most will want We build it. US$4,900, fixed, nothing up front One contract, one team, one date. The cheapest way to actually get it done, and the only one where the storefront and the club are built by the same people — which is why nothing falls between them on release day.
A fraction of the price, and we’ll tell you exactly why. Our team is in India. A studio in your region pays four figures a day for the same developer we pay four figures a month, so a job that costs them five figures in labour costs us a few hundred. We pass that on and publish it, rather than pocketing it and quoting local rates. That is the whole trick, and there isn’t a second one — the work is the same work, done by people who have moved wine clubs before. Every price on this page is US dollars, and the quote carries the figure in your own currency too, so there is nothing to work out at your end. The founding ten pay half of even this, and half their tier for as long as they stay.
07 What Steward does

Built for how wine is actually sold.

Every feature below is on every tier. A hundred-member club gets exactly what a three-thousand-member estate does.

The club

Run one club or six, however your members like to buy.

  • Unlimited tiers and clubs
  • Curated, choose-your-own, or both
  • Any cadence, from monthly to annual
  • Fixed release dates or rolling anniversaries
  • Skip, swap, pause and reschedule without emailing you
  • Move up or down a tier, charged pro rata
  • Ship, deliver locally, or hold for pickup
  • Gift and trial memberships next

Allocations

Scarcity is the product. It should be enforced, not policed.

  • A hard stop at checkout, enforced by Shopify
  • Release windows with an open and a close
  • Early access for the tiers that earned it
  • By tenure and spend, or by tier, member or wine
  • Stock held for the length of the window
  • Declines cascade to your waitlist automatically
  • Unclaimed allocation returns to the pool
  • Futures, En Primeur and pre-arrival next

Release day

One run, and proof of what it did.

  • Preview every charge before anything is billed
  • Batch billing across all saved cards
  • Retries, reminders and one-click card fixes
  • Expiring cards flagged thirty days ahead
  • Swap a wine across a whole release at once
  • Member pricing applied at checkout, before the charge
  • A report of what failed and what came back
  • A batch that stops halfway resumes without double-charging

Keeping members

Most wineries learn someone left when a shipment bounces.

  • Reasons for leaving captured and grouped
  • Offer a skip, a pause or a smaller tier before they cancel
  • Anniversaries recognized without you remembering
  • Members drifting away, scored before they go next
  • Win-backs for the ones who already left next
  • Members see their own standing: vintages in, and where they sit in the allocation next
  • Your next three releases, visible before they ship next
  • Shipments held when the forecast would cook the wine next
  • Every member’s own cellar, with what to drink when next

The tasting room

Where most club members are actually signed up. Most of this is still ahead of us The till is where we start.

  • Shopify POS, so the till and the club are one list
  • A tasting fee credited against a club signup next
  • Join from a QR code on the table, card on file next
  • Points, spend tiers and store credit next
  • Referrals with an invite a member can share next
  • Segments, and reporting that answers a real question next
  • A member portal in your own colours next

What we’re building with AI

Every line here is unbuilt. This is the roadmap, not the product. None of it exists on Shopify today, and some of it exists nowhere.

  • Which members are about to lapse, scored next
  • Which of your buyers are ready to join a club next
  • Ask a question in plain English, get the report next
  • Tasting notes and release emails, drafted in your voice next
  • What to drink when, per member, from their own cellar next
  • A palate match for choose-your-own releases next
Everything else, in full: another thirty things it does
Wine, as data
  • Varietal, vintage, appellation, ABV, closure, drinking window, scores, tech sheet
  • Native Shopify orders, with inventory in step
  • A card vault that manages its own expiries
  • Bulk edits across a release or a club
More ways to sell
  • Build-a-box with minimums, and case discounts visible while choosing next
  • Add-ons to a shipment that hasn’t gone out next
  • Corporate, single-shipment and household memberships next
  • Club waitlists and per-tier landing pages as acquisition next
  • Release parties, pickup events, member-only pricing next
  • Members vote on the blend, the label, the library release next
The details that annoy members
  • Preferred delivery day, seasonal addresses next
  • Split or consolidate shipments next
  • Pickup windows that expire, and chase themselves next
  • A palate quiz that actually changes what they get next
  • A shipment preview before it’s charged next
For whoever builds your store
  • A public API and webhooks next
  • Release post-mortems, LTV, cohort curves, Klaviyo audiences next
  • Everything exportable, always, without asking us

Marked next means it isn’t built yet. We would rather show you the whole map and mark our position on it honestly.

Ask on a call and you’ll get one of three answers: it’s live, it’s coming in a named month, or it isn’t planned. Never a maybe.

08 Price and the founding ten

One price per tier. The first ten pay half.All prices USD

Set by member count alone. Every feature on every tier, no cut of your sales, and a ceiling we publish.

Up to 100 members

Row

US$49 / mo
$24.50/mo
One month, refundable $24.50taken only when you commit
Most wineries start here
Up to 250 members

Block

US$99 / mo
$49.50/mo
One month, refundable $49.50taken only when you commit
Up to 500 members

Vineyard

US$149 / mo
$74.50/mo
One month, refundable $74.50taken only when you commit
Up to 1,000 members

Estate

US$199 / mo
$99.50/mo
One month, refundable $99.50taken only when you commit
Unlimited members

Appellation

US$249 / mo
$124.50/mo
One month, refundable $124.50taken only when you commit

US$249 is the ceiling — nobody else will tell you the most they can ever charge you. One rise a year at most, sixty days’ notice, and your half never moves. It is in the agreement you sign. Nothing is charged while you decide — the deposit is one month at your founding rate, taken when you commit, and refundable until your first release runs.

10 spots open. Five by day thirty, five by day sixty.

  • Founding ten only
  • Half your tier, for life
  • Both founders live on your first release
  • Set up free, whatever shape you’re in
  • Every future feature included
  • Your pain points set the roadmap
  • Ninety days’ notice, full export

Your data never leaves your admin. No contract. Cancel without asking us. Never a feature we haven’t built: live, dated, or not planned. We will never charge a percentage of what you sell, and never touch your payments, wholesale or accounting. Unique members, not subscriptions; an extra brand or storefront is $129. All prices in USD.

No payment now. We reply within a day, talk it through, work out whether your members’ saved cards can move, and only then take a refundable deposit.

Not ready to apply? Nothing to decide now. Leave your address and we’ll write once, when the founding ten are taken and we open to everyone — and we won’t use it for anything else.
09 Questions

Questions worth asking.

H
P
Ask us anything, before you commit. Whether your members’ saved cards can move. What your real decline rate is worth. A straight answer the same day, from one of us. Talk to us first
Can I install it myself, or do you do it?

Both work. Steward installs from the Shopify App Store like any other app, and the importer will bring your members and clubs across on your own. For the founding ten we build it by hand instead: your clubs, your allocation rules and your first release, set up with you on a call.

What Shopify plan do I need?

Any paid plan, including Basic. Steward uses native Shopify orders, customers and inventory, so there is no plan tier you have to climb to before the club works. If you also want Shopify POS in your tasting room, that is a Shopify decision to make.

Can you handle a few thousand members?

Yes. One release run covers the whole club at once, and the billing path is the part Pradeep has spent eight years building. Pricing stops at US$249 a month however large you get, so growing your club never costs you more in software.

Is there a trial, and what if I want to leave?

Thirty days free, no card. After that there is no contract and no notice period. Cancel from your own Shopify admin without asking us first. Your members, orders and payment methods were never held anywhere but your Shopify account, so there is nothing to get back.

Why is it so much less than a wine platform?

Two reasons, and neither is that you get less. A big club costs almost nothing more to run than a small one. The real work is setting you up and being awake on release day, and that is the same either way. Software priced as a percentage of your sales is priced that way because it is easier to sell, not because it costs more to provide.

And a wine platform is charging you to be your storefront, your checkout and your payment processor as well. Shopify already does those, and does them for less. We are only charging for the part that is missing.

Can you move my members’ saved credit cards?

Usually, and it depends entirely on who processes your payments today. If it’s Stripe, Authorize.net, Braintree or PayPal Express, we can bring the saved cards across and your members never notice. If your current platform uses its own processor, those cards generally cannot be moved by anyone, and members would re-enter them.

Ask us before you commit and we’ll find out for you. Most owners don’t know offhand, and it is the single biggest factor in how a move goes.

I’m on Commerce7, WineDirect, or a spreadsheet.

All three are common and each goes differently. From a spreadsheet on Shopify, there is nothing to migrate and nothing to cancel, the easiest move there is. From Commerce7 or WineDirect it depends on your payment processor, above — and it is a full move, so it is the US$4,900. If you’re not on Shopify at all, that is the US$4,900 too: we build the store, move the wine and the members, and set the club up on top. We’d rather quote that now than discover it together in month two.