Over the past decade, the popularity of recurring payments has surged, transforming the way businesses and consumers approach transactions. This payment model, which involves customers authorizing regular, automatic withdrawals from their bank accounts or credit cards, has become a cornerstone for many industries. From subscription services like streaming platforms and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers to utilities and membership-based organisations, recurring payments offer a convenient and reliable method for ensuring steady cash flow and customer retention.
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The rise of digitalisation and the shift towards a subscription-based economy have significantly contributed to this trend. Consumers now prefer the convenience of automatic payments for services they use regularly, reducing the hassle of manual payments and missed due dates. For businesses, recurring payments streamline operations, improve financial predictability, and foster long-term customer relationships.
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Furthermore, advancements in payment technology and increased security measures have bolstered consumer confidence in recurring transactions. The integration of secure payment gateways and sophisticated fraud detection systems ensures that these transactions are safe and reliable. As a result, more businesses are adopting recurring payment models, recognising the numerous benefits they offer in terms of operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

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Recurring payments are the heart and soul of a subscription business. If not everything, a lot revolves around them; such as important subscription business KPIs like subscription churn rate, MRR, CLV. If there’s churn then that means the average monthly recurring revenue will decrease. (and we don’t want that)

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What is a subscription?

A subscription is an agreement between you and your customer for future transactions, which is common in subscription-based business model like product-as-a-service. From a technical perspective, you offer a product and instead of a one-time payment, payment is collected monthly by your choice of payment service provider (like Stripe, Braintree, etc).

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Now this is where things get interesting (and complicated); if collecting payment every month on a fixed date every month was the only task a PSP had to do, running a subscription business would be pretty straightforward: connect your shop to a PSP and Voila - you have a recurring business model. But as is, collecting payments on a fixed date is NOT THE ONLY transaction related activity in a subscription business. This is where circuly fills the missing gap.

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Circuly makes PSP smart for running subscriptions and enables them to do a lot more besides collecting payment every month on a fixed date.

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1. Circuly Feature: Charge One-Time Transactions

Your customers may get a speeding ticket for their car subscription or require repair support for which you need to charge a one time transaction. Since most payment service providers do not support one-time transactions, it is nearly impossible to set up an automated payment collection process for one-time payments. The alternative route taken by most subscription businesses is to send an invoice to their customers and wait for them to pay up.

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However, with circuly’s internal payment logic we enable you to collect one-time transactions through your payment service providers fast, hassle-free and without annoying your customers with payment reminder emails.

Easily collect due payments by charging the "saved payment token" of your customer. The customer is notified via email and receives an invoice for the same. Make sure that you inform your customer about the upcoming charge so that your customer isn't taken by surprise with when they see a charge on their card.

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2. Circuly Feature: Refund

Issuing refunds is a common operation in subscription management. But normally it is not possible to process a refund fast and in an efficient manner.  With circuly’s internal payment logic, you can issue a refund to your customer with just a few clicks. With this circuly feature, we enable you to:

• Issue a partial or full refund
• Select the order (in case there are multiple connected to a Customer) that needs to be refunded.
• Trigger automatic invoice generation.
• Automatically send the invoice to the email address connected with the order.
• Add a custom note in the invoice to inform the customer about the refund.

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A happy customer is a returning customer.

3. Circuly Feature: Change Recurring Payment Amount

Typically recurring payment amounts once set and created cannot be changed within the payment service provider limiting your business case options such as providing a special discount to your customers during off season days to reduce seasonal churn. Another common case in physical product subscription is when a customer upgrades their level of subscription (for example changing the length of the subscription) and as a result the price needs to be adjusted.

With circuly, recurring payments can be easily changed and altered.

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Having the possibility to change recurring payments gives you the opportunity to do more for your customers and keep them with your subscription business as long as possible.

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Scaling a subscription business boils down to having the right tools that enable you to do a lot more. With flexible recurring payment operations you can develop pricing strategies that give you an edge in the market.

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In conclusion, recurring payments have revolutionised business operations by providing consistent cash flow and enhancing customer satisfaction through automated transactions. Payment service providers (PSPs) such as Stripe or Braintree facilitate the monthly collection of payments. However, subscription businesses require more than just fixed-date payments; they need functionalities like one-time transaction processing, refunds, and changing recurring payment amounts etc.

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circuly fills this gap by making PSPs smarter, enabling businesses to efficiently handle these additional tasks. With features like charging one-time transactions, issuing refunds, and adjusting recurring payment amounts, circuly enhances the flexibility and scalability of subscription businesses.

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While recurring payments offer numerous benefits, they also come with the risk of subscription fraud. Implementing robust fraud prevention measures is essential to safeguard transactions and maintain trust. Read more about fraud prevention in online product rental businesses.

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