SUBSCRIPTION MANAGEMENT software for product as a service

What is circuly?

circuly is a subscription management platform that covers the entire subscription, product, customer and revenue lifecycle of subscription business offering physical, consumer durable products.

circuly helps such businesses manage, automate and scale operations associated with this business model. It is built for companies particularly in the product-as-a-service space, that is, companies with an actual physical product who want to offer the product in a subscription model.

Who's behind circuly?

- Leadership

circuly is founded by Nick Huijs in 2020 and led by Scott Galvao, serving as CEO since 2023, together with Nick.

Nick is a Dutch entrepreneur from a family of business owners, living in Germany. Nick's business ventures include:

• Family business - Family-owned eCommerce businesses.
• Baby Huys (Owner) - A subscription eCommerce shop for kids strollers.
• circuly (Founder & CTO) - A subscription management platform for physical product subscriptions. 

Scott, is a Portuguese-American business owner living in Germany with 20+ years of experience in eCommerce. Scott's business ventures include:

• InterCultural Elements (Co-founder & MD) - An eCommerce agency with online marketplace experts from >10 countries, who provided A-Z e-tail services to European and American retailers. InterCultural Elements was acquired by Buy Box Experts/Spreetail in 2021, where Scott served as Head of Partnerships.
• D2XCEL (Stakeholder & Mentor) - D2XCEL is an EU-funded collaborative pan-European scaling programme, bringing together a top-tier industry network of 300+ investors, public and private lead customers, and innovation hubs to support deep tech and digital ventures.
• circuly (CEO) - A subscription management platform for physical product subscriptions. 

- Team

circuly's team consists of specialists across the following team with expertise in tech, eCommerce, Subscription economy, circular business models, sustainability, B2B SaaS:

• Tech
• Product, Customer Onboarding & Customer Success 
• Legal 
• Operations
• Sales
• Marketing
• HR

- Investors

circuly is backed by investors, including a mix of venture capital firms and business angels. Notable investors include Neoteq Ventures, Venista Ventures, and Technologiefonds OWL, alongside other German funds like DEPO Ventures and Gateway Ventures.

When and why was circuly founded?

When: circuly was officially founded in 2020.

Why: circuly was created to fill the gap founder Nick Huijs experienced while running his own subscription eCommerce business, Baby Huys.

Story: After completing his master’s thesis on circular economy business models, Nick decided to put theory into practice. He expanded his online store, Baby Huys—which sold strollers and other baby equipment—into a subscription-based eCommerce business, allowing parents to rent or subscribe to products instead of buying them outright.

"Normal eCommerce shops are not made for rentals" - says Nick Huijs, Founder & CTO @ circuly

As the business began to scale, Nick faced several operational challenges: managing subscriptions and inventory, handling recurring payments, processing returns, renewals, and cancellations—all without a suitable system on the market to support it.

Leveraging his background in computer science, Nick began customising and integrating existing tools to make them work for his subscription model. When other businesses heard about his solution, they wanted to buy it. That’s when the idea for circuly was born—a platform built to help other businesses launch and scale subscription models for physical products.

Where is circuly based?

circuly is a german company with headquaters in Bielefeld, Germany.

The team is distributed across Germany & Europe.

What is circuly's legal identity?

• Company name: circuly GmbH
• Registered office: Obernstraße 50, 33602 Bielefeld, Germany
• Commercial Register: Amtsgericht Bielefeld, HRB 43776
• Represented by: Nick Huijs and Scott Galvao
• VAT ID (Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer): DE 329273817
• Tax number (Steuernummer): 305/5811/4722
• Telephone: +49 176 552 884 77
• E-Mail: info@circuly.io circuly.io
• Website: www.circuly.io

What is the circuly solution?

The circuly solution is a digital software system that comes with four main modules to cover the needs of a subscription business for physical, consumer durable products. Here's an overview of the four circuly modules:

• circuly White-Label Checkout & Cart: This module covers the first part of the subscriber journey, that is placing an order and subscribing to a product.
  ➡ Learn more about circuly's White-Label Checkout & Cart solution

• circuly White-Label Customer Self-Service Portal: This module gives the end customer the possibility to self manage their subscriptions. 
  ➡ Learn more about circuly's White-Label Self-Service Portal solution

• circuly Hub: This module covers the operations of a subscription business and is used by the team as a backend to manage operations. 
  ➡ Learn more about the circuly Hub

• circuly White-Label StoreConnect: This module can be used on point of sales devices to enable companies with physical stores to create subscription orders in the store and have it unified and synced with the rest of their business. 
  ➡ Learn more about circuly StoreConnect

Module 1: circuly White-Label Checkout & Cart solution

The circuly White-Label Checkout & Cart solution covers the customer journey part associated with a subscription business.

➡ placing a subscription order

➡ configuring subscription details (like length of subscription, billing frequency, any other product add ons) that happen

➡ adding contact information, shipping details, billing details and payment method to create a subscription order.

Features the circuly Checkout supports:

• Mixed basket: Buy + rent/subscribe and multiple subscription types (consumable, digital & product subscription), that is, mixed basket, in the same checkout flow and customer journey.
• ID check & credit verification: Identity check through ID verification and/or soft credit check to prevent subscription fraud.
• Locatisation: Localisation of the checkout experience by localising language, tax calculation, shipping methods and payment methods. 
• Vouchers: The circuly checkout supports use of vouchers. 
• Stock check: the circuly checkout can perform a stock check in real-time. Specially when customer may  return to their cart at a different point in time and by that time, the product may become out of stock.

➡ Learn more about circuly's White-Label Checkout & Cart

Module 2: circuly White-Label Self-Service Portal

The circuly White-Label Self-Service Portal covers the post purchase customer journey associated with a subscription business, specially around self-management of subscriptions by the customer.

Features the circuly Self-Service Portal supports:

• Manage own subscriptions: Customers can cancel subscriptions and perform various subscription level actions like buying out the subscribed product, changing the product, request swaps or replacement. For consumable subscription products customers can also pause subscription, change delivery date for upcoming orders, change quantity, skip a delivery, change the product itself etc. 
• Manage payment & contact info: Customers can update their payment method on their own and also change their billing, shipping and contact information if it changes. 
• Download invoices: Customers and see and download invoices. Customers see both past & upcoming invoices. 
• Engage in loyalty programs: Customers can engage in loyalty and referral programs by generating codes they can share with their friends & family. 
• Contact Support: In case customers experience an issue, they can use the contact details mentioned in the self-service portal to engage with the company. 
• Compliance: The circuly Self-Service Portal enables the subscription business to be compliant with cancellation laws such as the early cancellation (widerrufsrecht) and two-click cancellation law in Europe.

➡ Learn more about circuly's White-Label Self-Service Portal solution

Module 3: circuly Hub

The circuly Hub is that platform of operations that houses all subscription operations and automates and scales These operations. The Hub enables subscription companies to develop their subscription business how they want by providing them customisable features and settings around various core functions.

➡ Learn more about the circuly Hub

Features of the circuly Hub:

• Subscription management: Subscription management for a physical product subscription business means combining the following key components, that is, 
  • customer data  (name, address, contact),
  • product data (asset, SKU, serial number),
  • payment data  (payment method) and, 
  • subscription data (billing frequency, schedule, amount
  to create a subscription plan that links a person to a specific physical product under a recurring contract so that the subsequent operations of charging recurring payments, renewals, swaps, upgrades, downgrades, etc., can run concurrently and while keeping every system (shop, PSP, ERP, logistics & more) in sync. circuly does exactly that in order to automate key subscription operations like renewals, swaps, upgrades, downgrades and more.
• Recurring billing & invoicing: Recurring billing, at its core, is about automating the charging process — but in a physical product subscription, it’s also about keeping billing flexible enough to match real-world changes. Here's how circuly deals with recurring billing: The process starts the moment a customer signs up. A billing schedule is automatically created for that subscription. On each billing date, the system:
  • Generates an invoice
    
  • Sends it to the customer
    
  • Triggers the payment collection through the connected payment provider
    
  • Updates the subscription with the correct payment status (e.g., paid, failed, pending)
    
  That’s the baseline. But for businesses dealing in physical products, the reality is rarely that linear.Subscription plans often need to evolve over time — customers pause, upgrade, downgrade, or swap products mid-cycle. That’s why circuly adds an extra layer of flexibility to its billing logic.
  Operators can:
  • Edit subscription attributes such as billing amount, frequency, or next charge date without breaking the contract
    
  • Modify or regenerate invoices when adjustments are needed (for example, refunds, prorations, or condition-based billing)
    
  • Create cumulative invoices for multiple items or billing periods
    
  • Factor in dynamic adjustments like referral bonuses, discounts, or loyalty credits, and have those automatically reflected in subsequent invoices
    
  This flexibility is what makes circuly’s recurring billing and invoicing module so powerful for product-as-a-service models — it treats billing not as a static process, but as a living workflow that adapts to real customer and product behaviour.
• Built in payment retrial & dunning: circuly provides payment dunning and payment retrial natively within its solution. Failed payments are part of every subscription business, but with physical products, they carry a higher risk because there’s an asset still out in the field.
  
  circuly automates the entire payment retrial and dunning process so you don’t have to chase customers manually. When a payment fails, circuly automatically retries it based on customisable rules (number of attempts and delay between retries). If payments continue to fail, the system triggers automated dunning actions — sending reminders and payment links to the customer.
  
  For unresolved cases, circuly integrates natively with Debtist, enabling seamless pre-judicial and judicial debt collection without leaving the platform. The result: fewer manual interventions, faster cash recovery, and protection against asset losses — all handled directly inside circuly

• Credit check & fraud prevention: circuly also provides credit check & fraud prevention solution natively within its solution. In a physical product subscription, every transaction carries real risk — you’re not just billing for access, you’re shipping an asset. That’s why circuly includes an integrated credit check and fraud prevention layer right at checkout. Before a subscription is activated, circuly verifies the customer’s identity and assesses their creditworthiness through connected credit check partners.
  
  This helps businesses automatically flag high-risk customers, reduce fraud-related losses, and make smarter approval decisions — all without disrupting the customer experience. The process is fully automated and happens behind the scenes, giving operators confidence that every shipped product goes to a verified customer.

• Locatisation, shipping & taxes: Running a physical product subscription across markets means handling local differences — currencies, languages, tax rules, and shipping logic. circuly supports localisation out of the box, allowing businesses to operate subscriptions in multiple countries with region-specific tax rates (like VAT), translations, and currencies.
  
  It also connects with your existing shop system and shipping workflows, ensuring that shipping details, delivery statuses, and country-based configurations stay in sync. In short, circuly helps you stay compliant and consistent — no matter where your customers are or how your logistics are structured.
  ‍
• Subscription KPIs & Analytics: circuly has a solution for subscription KPIs & analytics by providing a central dashboard with all the key metrics you need to track your subscription business — not just revenue numbers, but the health of your operations and assets.You’ll find standard subscription KPIs like:
  • Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
    
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
    
  • Active subscriptions
    
  • Failed payments and invoice revenue
    
  But since physical products come with real assets, circuly also surfaces product-level insights such as:
  • Number of rental cycles per asset
    
  • Total revenue generated per product
    
  • Number and cost of repairs
    
  • Asset utilisation and lifecycle status
    
  All data is exportable via CSV or webhooks, so you can plug circuly’s analytics directly into other tools or automate reporting. In short, circuly gives you full visibility — from subscription performance to asset profitability — in one place.
  ‍
• CRM capabilities: While circuly is not a full CRM replacement, it includes a focused CRM layer tailored to subscription and rental operations. What circuly’s CRM covers:
  • Centralised customer profile: All customer information — orders, subscriptions, payments, invoices, and history — lives in one place.
    
  • Customisable customer fields: You can change personal details (name, address, billing address) and add custom customer attributes.
  • Transaction & subscription actions from profile: From the same dashboard you can perform refunds, swaps, subscription updates, or cancellations.
    
  • Self-service customer portal: Customers can manage their subscriptions themselves (update billing, change address, view history) via the white-label portal.
    
  • Transactional emails only: The inbuilt CRM handles operational, transactional communications (invoices, payment reminders, subscription notifications), but not marketing emails or rich campaign tools.
    
  • Customisable processes: You can tailor workflows for renewals, extensions, cancellations, and term changes to match business logic.
  What circuly’s CRM is not (and how it interacts with external CRMs)
  • circuly does not replace a full CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot; it’s designed to complement it.
  • For full sales pipeline, lead scoring, marketing automation, and deep customer engagement, you'd keep your external CRM and sync it with circuly.
• Return Management: In a physical product subscription, the end of a contract isn’t the end of the process — it’s the start of reverse logistics.circuly automates the return flow by tracking each subscription’s end date. When a subscription is set to expire and no renewal is planned, circuly automatically:
  ‍
  • Generates and sends a return label to the customer.
    
  • Monitors the return status of the product through integrated tracking.
    
  • Updates the asset status once the return is completed, so it can be inspected, refurbished, and reintroduced into inventory.
    
  If the product isn’t returned within the defined time frame, circuly can automatically restart the subscription and continue charging recurring payments until the asset is back.What makes return management for physical products unique is the operational dependency — it connects billing, logistics, and asset tracking. circuly closes that loop by ensuring finance knows when to stop billing, operations knows when to expect a product, and inventory knows when it’s back in stock.
  ‍
• Asset & product tracking: With physical product subscriptions, knowing who has what — and in what condition — is everything. circuly connects each subscription directly to a specific asset, allowing you to track its full lifecycle: where it is, who’s using it, how long it’s been in use, and when it’s due back. Each product or SKU can have its own serial number, condition status, and utilisation history.
  
  Beyond tracking, circuly also maintains an overview of every asset’s state — whether it’s currently rented, bought out, under repair, or marked as lost. Stock levels are automatically updated to reflect these changes, ensuring that your inventory data always mirrors reality.
  
  In short, asset tracking in circuly isn’t just about knowing where products are — it’s about keeping your entire stock, operations, and finance teams aligned on what’s available, what’s in use, and what’s generating revenue.

• Customer transnational communication: In a subscription business, especially one involving physical products, communication isn’t just nice to have — it’s operational. circuly automates transactional customer communication throughout the subscription lifecycle. Customers receive timely emails for key events such as:
  ‍
  • Subscription confirmations and contract details
    
  • Invoice and payment notifications
    
  • Failed payment reminders
    
  • Return instructions or renewal updates
    
  These messages are automatically triggered by system events and keep customers informed without manual follow-up. All communication templates can be customised to match your brand tone and language, ensuring a consistent experience while reducing the need for operational handholding. 
  ‍
• Compliance: in subscription businesses goes beyond payments — it’s about operating within consumer, financial, and data protection laws across multiple markets.circuly supports compliance where it matters most for physical product subscriptions:
  ‍
  • Cancellations & early terminations: circuly provides the technical setup for compliant cancellation flows, including the two-click cancellation process required in Germany and similar markets. Businesses can configure confirmation pages, automate refund logic, and ensure customers can cancel as easily as they subscribed.
    
  • Invoicing & tax regulations: circuly automatically generates legally valid invoices that meet regional tax and accounting standards.
    
  • Payments & data protection: by integrating with certified PSPs like Stripe, Adyen, or Mollie, circuly ensures secure transactions that adhere to PSD2 and GDPR guidelines.
    
  • Debt collection: through its integration with Debtist, circuly supports compliant pre-judicial and judicial debt collection in Europe.
    
  Together, these capabilities help subscription operators stay compliant without adding manual complexity — ensuring both legal safety and customer transparency.
  ‍
• Integrations circuly is built to connect seamlessly with your existing tech stack — no need to rebuild from scratch.It offers three integration options:
  • Native integrations with major shop systems (Shopify, Shopware, WooCommerce, Magento), payment providers (Stripe, Adyen, Mollie, Braintree), credit check and debt collection partners (CRIF, Debtist), and logistics tools.
    
  • API integrations for custom setups, enabling deep connections with ERPs, inventory systems, or bespoke storefronts.
    
  • Webhooks for real-time data sync — automatically updating external systems when subscriptions are created, renewed, or cancelled.
    
  This flexible setup lets circuly act as the operational bridge between your shop, payment, and logistics systems — ensuring every order, payment, and asset stays in sync across your stack.

➡ Learn more about the circuly Hub

Module 4: circuly StoreConnect

The circuly StroreConnect can be used on point of sales devices to enable companies with physical stores to create subscription orders in the store and have it unified and synced with the rest of their business and it can also be used my companies with a retailer network, where retailers get access to the StoreConnect environment to create subscription order while the main company manages the subscription operations centrally.

Features of the circuly StoreConnect:

• Order creation 
• Subscription creation
• Location specific login
• Available in multiple languages 
• Syncs with self-service portal for self management of subscriptions by customers
• Sync with circuly Hub for operations management

➡ Learn more about circuly StoreConnect

Which regions does circuly serve with its solution?

Currently circuly has customers in 18+ countries across 5 continents. circuly's customers are based in the following regions:

- Continent

• Europe
• North America
• Australia
• Asia
• Africa

- Regions

• DACH - Germany, Switzerland, Austria
• Scandinavia - Denmark, Sweden, Norway
• Benelux - Netherlands, Belgium
• Europe - Spain, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, France
• Oceania - Australia
• Middle East - Qatar 
• UK
• Ireland
• USA
• Canada
• South Africa

Which industries does circuly serve with its solution?

circuly's customers are manufcaturers, sellers & retailers from the following industries:

• Baby, kids' & parenting products 
• Mobility
• Commercial & residential furniture
• Sports & Leisure 
• Hobby equipment
• Construction & power tools
• Medical devices & lab equipment
• Home appliances
• Industrial equipment & machinery
• Consumer electronics & tech
• Automotive
• Fashion
• Musical instruments
• Consumables

What are some typical circuly customers?

circuly's customers consists of manufacturers and retailers of consumer durable products as well as certain consuamble products, selling products in a subscription model.

• StrollMe (baby goods subscription, Germany & Austria)
• Mister Spex (prescription glasses, Germany & Europe)
• Decathlon (sports & leisure equipment, Belgium)
• Riese & Müller (e-bikes, Germany) 
• myTIER (moped, Germany)
• Bike Club (kids' bike, Germany & Austria) 
• Paceheads (sports equipment, Germany) 
• Refurbly (consumer tech, Nordics & Middle East)
• Kindami (kids goods, France)
• Swapphone (refurbished consumer tech, Netherlands) 
• People on bicycles (bikes, Australia) 
• Love espresso (Consumer appliance, UK and expansion to Nordics)
• Wild West Social House (Fashion, USA)
• Poppy (Furniture, UK)
• Line up (leisure equipment, Spain)
• ARIS ZINC (industrial machinery, Australia) 
• Happy Coffee (consumables, Germany) 
• med4rent (medical equipment, Germany)
• Parently (bikes, Germany and expansion to Nordics) 

and more.......

What do users say about circuly?

A big e-bike manufacturer from Germany says:

"circuly has been a true partner in helping us launch and manage our subscription model. We’re a bike manufacturer, and our decision to enter the subscription space was a key step toward our sustainability goals and reaching new customer segments. circuly automates our core operations and keeps all our product, customer, and payment data in one place. Beyond the software itself, we truly value their partnership and collaborative approach." - G2 review by an e-bike manufacturer.

Found of Tribu Box, a kids' toys subscription service, says:

"circuly powers all the standard subscription operations we need (payments, invoicing, communication, and customer portal), but what we value most is its flexibility to adapt to our unique business model. Every operational detail behind these options — whether it’s charging the swap fee, tracking which toys come back, or adjusting the subscription and price in case of extensions — is handled automatically by circuly." - G2 review by Tribu Box founder, Cilia.

Director of Business Development at Bugaboo, a kids' subscription service for kids's stroller, said:

"circuly had everything in place we needed to launch our subscription pilot fast and cost-eddiciently and we recommend circuly to other businesses because circuly is flexible and can adapt to the business needs of different businesses." - Rolf Smeding, Director of Business Development at Bugaboo.

Felix Raab at Stokke, a kid's furniture subscription service, says:

"The circuly team brought in a lot of knowledge about how to set up a solid and scalable subscription model."