Name: The Modern Subscription Experience
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T18:46:08.045Z
Duration: 33 min 28 s
Description: The Modern Subscription Experience

Transcript for "The Modern Subscription Experience": Hey, everyone. Welcome to the quarterly Recharge releases where we announced all the amazing products that we've released over the last quarter. My name is Oshino Connor. I'm cofounder and CEO here at Recharge. The theme of this year this quarter's, additions is the modern subscriber experience. So I'm gonna go high level, and talk about trends. That's the first part of this agenda. Second, we're gonna go into product demos and all the exciting things that we're launching here at Recharge. A little housekeeping first. Our Recharge speakers will be myself, of course, Narayan, who's our VP of product, and Willow who leads product marketing here at Recharge. So trends in subscriptions. So one thing that's really interesting that we've seen year over year is the increase of the number of the percentage increase in the number of checkouts to subscriptions versus one times. Right? So as businesses have started to tool around subscription first, as the end shoppers have become more used to buying subscriptions, we've seen a huge increase in subscriptions. Right? So in the last year or last twelve months, we've seen an 18% increase in subscription checkouts versus one times. We've also seen a five and a half percent increase in average order value. So not only have people been pushing more customers into subscriptions, but they've also been increasing the size of those baskets through things like bundles and prepaids. And what's really driving this is that we see in our data that the difference between a the lifetime value of a subscriber versus a onetime buyers is five x. Right? So the the value is just so much higher that it makes sense to push subscription first and think about your your business as a subscription first business. So this idea that subscription and acquisition and retention is more important than ever. It is the fuel for your business. And when we think about that, you know, that experience, right, and the subscription, as the fuel of your growth, we think about what are the key touch points from the product page to the cart to the checkout to the post purchase experience to upcoming order, to cancellation flows. And the key is that you have to think about each of these, how to optimize each one of these touch points, but also create a holistic experience for your customers. So, you know, there's three kind of building blocks that we think about a lot about for each of these touch points and the overall experience. One is control. How do you give the end customers the full control to make the right purchases that they need for themselves? Two is connection. How do you engage them at the right touch point in the right way? And three is continuity. When you do engage them and you do give them the controls, how does it feel like a holistic experience and not just a bunch of siloed experiences? Right? So to kick it off, I'm gonna pass it over to Willa to take on to the next part of this conversation. Thanks, Oshin. Oops. There we go. Okay. First up, we need to talk about how to give your subscribers control. There are moments across the customer journey that quietly break trust, unexpected shipments, hidden options, or basic actions that feel harder than they should. And subscribers might never consciously think about the customer portal, but every one of those moments runs straight through it. And when ease and control start to disappear, they don't blame the experience. They blame the brand. That's why the customer portal matters so much. It's where trust can either be reinforced or eroded. It's the direct connection between your brand and the sense of control that keeps subscribers confident and subscribed. So that's exactly why we've invested so heavily in improving the Affinity Portal experience. We wanted subscription management to feel simple and intentional, not frustrating. And we wanted brands like you to be in complete control over what that experience looks like for your subscribers too. So we redesigned the experience to guide subscribers directly to the actions they actually need without hitting that moment of confusion when they're just trying to swap a product or change a delivery date. We also went back to the fundamentals, a cleaner visual design, clearer copy, and a friendlier experience on mobile, where most of subscribers are are spending most of their time. We also made it completely customizable with a modular layout and drag and drop page builder so you can make the experience look and feel like your brand without having to invest too much time or money. So let's take a look at what's new. Introducing Affinity two point o, the world's most advanced subscription management center that gives you unlimited control over the subscriber experience. Let's see it in action. First, let's take a look at page speed. With Affinity two point o, pages load four times faster than before. Slow portals lose subscribers before they even engage with their upcoming orders. Brand customization saw a tremendous uplift with Affinity two point o. Here, we have a customer signing in to change their address for an upcoming order. With our new and improved drag and drop system, we'll add a custom banner reinforcing why our product works, a punch card highlighting our customer's loyalty streak, and place a cross sell offer in the exact page section with the highest conversion. Now subscribers see a portal that keeps them subscribed longer. Portal two point o is fully modular. Here, we'll highlight an offer on a new seasonal product. And on another month, we'll replace it with a banner that highlights educational content. In under a minute, your custom portal is live and deployed. Before this level of customization required a developer, custom CSS, and thousands of dollars. Now any brand at any size can do it in seconds. So what you just saw is how control shows up in practice and why it matters commercially. When subscribers feel in control, they don't just stay subscribed. They engage more. That starts with things like surfacing key inline actions, like swapping one of the products in an upcoming order. When those actions are easy to find, frustration drops and cancellations drop too. It also means making value obvious. Exclusive subscriber offers shouldn't be buried. They should feel like a benefit of staying subscribed. And now you can input them easily. And then finally, education. With portal components designed for sharing blog posts or product tips, it's easier to help subscribers understand how to use what they bought so they feel confident and invested. This is how the customer portal can tangibly strengthen retention and boost revenue over time. Now I'm gonna pass it to Narayan to talk through some updates we've made to strengthen customer connection. Thank you, Vola. You have to engage your subscribers at the time it makes sense for them. So that's what I'm I'm gonna talk about in this next step of the ladder. Once subscribers feel in control, the next question becomes, how do you engage them without annoying them? The problem we see today is that high intent moments are often wasted. That means either offers show up too early, too late, or without enough context. To build a connection, you don't have to push more messages. It's about showing up when the subscribers are already deciding. One such area where we made a big shift in how these moments are triggered are for upsells and cross sells. Traditionally, upsell has been campaign driven with one size fits all offers. What we are doing instead is being led by subscriber intent. For example, when they're adding a product to the cart, reviewing an order, or making their final purchase decision. And we do this without forcing an interruption. That's why these offers feel less like marketing and more like helpful nudges. The goal isn't to push more product. It's to show the right option at the moment a customer's already deciding. Let's take a look. Now let's look at Recharge's new upsells and cross sells, the most powerful system ever built to increase your bottom line. Let me show you how it works. Say you're a supplement brand focused on driving subscriptions. Watch a customer as they shop live on your site. First, the customer lands on the product page. Right now, they're looking at your subscription widget with a 25% off discount for opting in. The widget is 100% customizable. If you wanna change the discount, we can do so in one click. The shopper decides to buy once, but Recharge knows to show them another offer. In the cart, Recharge presents your customer a one click upsell into a subscription. This time, your customer converts. Brands using Recharge's upsell and cross sell see up to 23% increase in subscription sales with our upsell tools. But the product page and cart are just the start. Recharge continues increasing your bottom line throughout checkout. One click lets customers instantly add products or subscriptions. Inside Recharge, you maintain complete control of the site experience. Switch off sales to our AI recommendation engine in one click, and Recharge automatically surfaces the best offer for each customer. What once required multiple Shopify apps and thousands per month is now built directly into Recharge. Now you're capturing revenue at every moment possible and increasing AOV. So showing up at the right moment is where connection really clicks. The first way you do this is by highlighting the benefits of subscribing, reminding customers why it's worth why it's worth it, and you do that throughout the customer journey. Second, it's about upselling to larger pack sizes when it generally makes sense. Don't do it as a blanket discount, but as a better option for how they already subscribe. And third, it's about recommending add ons based on what's already in the cart or what they've already purchased, not random suggestions. When you drive with this type of intent, they don't feel like noise. And that's the difference between upsell that gets ignored and one that compounds revenue without hurting trust. And to talk through the final step in the ladder, I'm gonna pass it back to Willow. Okay. So finally, you must give your customers continuity. You have to build upon what you already know about them. This is where a lot of subscription experiences start to break down. Even when individual moments work, like a good upsell, solid offer, helpful message, they can often feel disconnected. Each new conversation doesn't really build on the last one. Programs rely on points or one off gifts that feel nice in the moment but don't create a lasting relationship. And these tactics end up scattered across channels instead of telling a clear story over time. When these different experiences feel like one offs, subscribers don't really feel understood and their trust becomes harder to earn. So the question becomes, how do you turn all of these moments into something cohesive? This is where continuity really comes to life. Over the last year, we've seen AI evolve from simple chatbots into true agents, systems that can understand intent, take action, and really carry context forward. So in this next demo, you'll see how AI agents are stepping in at high intent moments, preventing churn, reinforcing value, and driving additional revenue all through a single text conversation. Let's take a look. In twelve months, AI evolved from chatbot to agent. What used to take a team of 10 now runs through a single team member using AI. Introducing Recharge AI, the most advanced AI ever built for retaining subscriptions. Let's follow a subscriber to see how powerful it is. First, let's take a look at the support agent. Here, your subscriber Tom gets a text notification about their upcoming order. Tom responds, can I cancel this order? Recharge AI recognizes this customer wants to cancel just their upcoming order, not the full subscription, and immediately steps in. It reads the message and responds based on millions of similar customer situations. Here, the AI avoids a full cancellation by only canceling this specific shipment. 86% of subscriptions get saved with this single clarification, but retaining subscribers is just the start. The sales agent is trained to sell customers just like the best salesperson would. Three days before his next shipment, Tom gets a text. We're offering subscribers 15% off protein blend this month. Want to add it to your next order? Tom replies, yes. AI pulls the product SKU and confirms the updated order. Up to 15% of these offers convert directly in the conversation. Inside Recharge, you have full control over exactly what gets offered, when, and to which customer segments. Now let's take a look at retention. Here, we'll take a look at a new subscriber. The retention marketing agent detects a new subscription and automatically sends a personalized tip while they're waiting for their first order to arrive. Mix with room temperature water for the smoothest texture. This agent sends product education, surveys subscribers, and segments them based on their responses to personalize future interactions. You can edit and approve the AI's messaging, upvote what converts, and downvote what misses the mark. Brands like Lumi, Favi, and Ancient Nutrition, beta tested concierge. Customers who manage their subscriptions via SMS have an LTV that's 32% higher than those that don't. 91% of customers who tested our AI in beta recommended it. So that's what continuity actually looks like in practice. Instead of treating every interaction as a new campaign or message, each moment is designed to intentionally build on the one before it. After the first purchase, you can reinforce benefits and share education, not to sell again, but to confirm the subscriber made the right decision. By the second order, you can shift the focus to helping them establish a routine. You're helping them feel like this is part of their life now, not something they're still evaluating. And then once you've established fit with customers, you can weave additional product suggestions into the conversation too in a way that's actionable. Instead of feeling generic, it feels helpful and drives order values up. Continuity turns these individual moments into momentum, deepening your relationship and building value at each interaction. But for that value to really be felt by subscribers, you have to make it visible. One of the biggest reasons subscribers cancel is because they don't realize what they're giving up. The value they've earned isn't visible at the moment it matters. Recharge's loyalty is built around tangible value, cash credits that compound over time and make churn feel expensive, and free gifts that customers actually want. So in this last demo, you'll see how that value shows up in the portal and how surfacing it in cancellation moments can increase save rates by up to 65%. Let's take a look. We vastly improved Recharge's reward system. Let's follow our subscriber, Valentina, to see how it works. Inside the customer portal, the first thing Valentina sees is a loyalty punch card that updates in real time. Here, she notices that she's been subscribed for three months and just needs one more order before she unlocks a free gift. Right below, she finds her rewards balance, real cash she's earned with every purchase, and can apply towards a discount on her next order. Valentina decides to apply $5 off to her next order and expedite it to ship out tomorrow, unlocking her free gift. She'll choose her flavor of choice, and it's automatically added to the upcoming order. But rewarding loyalty is just the beginning. Let's say, Valentina clicks to cancel her subscription. As soon as she enters the cancellation flow, Recharge shows exactly what she's about to lose, her cash balance in real dollars, and the free gifts she's worked toward. Suddenly, canceling feels expensive. This feature alone increases save rates by up to 65%. Now let's take a look at the brand side. Inside the rewards builder, comprehensive analytics show you save outcomes, why customers cancel, and how your offers are performing. We'll configure reward tiers by customer segment. We'll set 3% cash back for early subscribers, 5% for repeat customers, and 7% for long term subscribers. You can segment by order count or total spend. Choose between percentage cash back, fixed dollar amounts, or free gifts, and turn on notifications so subscribers are reminded when they've earned rewards, even if they don't log in to the portal. Everything you just saw was built without writing a single line of code. So that's where continuity really earns its keep, at the moment a subscriber is considering canceling. When someone hits friction, the difference between staying and leaving often comes down to whether they feel the value they've built up. By highlighting free gifts and earned credits, you remind subscribers that they've accumulated real benefit over time, not just placed a few orders. Showing upcoming rewards through punch cards and progress bars too makes value feel close and tangible. It's not abstract. Customers can see what's coming if they stay. And surfacing total savings reframes the decision entirely. Cancellation stops being a clean break and starts to feel like walking away from something they've earned. Accumulated value can really turn a cancellation moment into a pause and often into a save. So all of these updates we've walked through ladder back to those three pillars of control, connection, and continuity. But there was more that we were working on too. I'm gonna pass it back to Narayan to talk through some additional operational improvements we've made recently. Thank you, Rola. So all of the great things that we covered so far only really work if you have the right foundations to scale your subscription program. Everything we've shown you so far, control, connection, and continuity, only works if it's actually easy to operate behind the scenes. Brands don't just need great subscriber experiences. You need systems that are easy to manage and flexible as your program evolves. That's why we invested in several features that help operationalize the strategy. So you spend less time managing complexity and more time focusing on customers. Today, we're going to walk you through five of these features. First up, we have bundles. We've seen in the data that bundles drive both higher order value and, secure retention. But we also saw in the data that most brands were opting for customized bundles, under builders in the storefront. That means more time building, tweaking, and fixing, and less time growing. So we invested in a new, very good looking, and highly configurable bundles widget. It provides a more guided experience for shoppers so they understand what they are choosing and get to check out faster. But we are also simplifying how you, this is the brand, set up much set up the set up and maintain bundles. These improvements reduce ongoing maintenance, keep settings and selling plans in sync, and make it easier to evolve bundles over time. So you don't have to spend as much time making the same manual updates in multiple places. And for those of you that have use cases like rotating boxes, we are in the process of adding support for adding and swapping of bundle contents and automate. Next, we have Shopify markets, which allows you to serve customers anywhere without breaking trust. Our Shopify market support is designed to provide a local experience at a global scale through product availability, consistent pricing, and localized content. We launched market support last year and continue to make improvements in that area. That brings me to automate. We wanna make it easier for brands to design their programs and touch points across the entire subscription life cycle. But all of that, we want that to happen inside Recharge so it's easier for you to manage your programs. Instead of managing subscriptions in one place, rewards in another, and messaging somewhere else, automate brings those experiences into a single coordinated system. To make this concrete, imagine a razor brand. A customer starts with a starter kit, which has a handle, a shower anchor, and plates. After the first order, the brand uses Automate to seamlessly transition the customer into a refill subscription for plates. At the same time, every subscriber owns 3% cashback on all subscription orders. But instead of notifying the customers immediately, the brand waits seven days because they want to wait for the confirmation and shipping emails to have settled down. And then they send a simple message reinforcing the value of subscribing. Soon soon, you'll be able to do all of that in one flow within Recharge. Brands think about subscription experiences holistically and automated design to let you build that way instead of stitching together disparate flows across multiple tools. We are also improving bulk updates because the reality is as your brands grow, subscription programs get complex. Expanded filters and a more guided UX make it easier to manage your subscriptions without needing to work through a bunch of CSV files. And finally, flow versioning. Quicker edits to active flows without the painful process of deactivating, duplicating, and reactivating flows. We all have we all have been there before. The point is to help teams iterate faster. So, hopefully, you all are wondering how do you get access to all of these features. We put together a guide to accompany today's product updates and help you get started with the features that make the most sense for your business. You can find it in the right hand column, and we'll also send it out with the session recording. In addition, our team will be reaching out to each of you to offer hands on guidance and strategic support to ensure these tools are optimized and are set up to drive meaningful impact for your business. Hopefully, it has been helpful to you all. Thank you so much for joining us today.