Businesses that offer recurring contracts rely significantly on the subscription billing platforms they utilize since the features they give can be the difference between a company's success and failure. Any subscription platform that is worthwhile for your company to use must have a minimal set of fundamental features, such as efficient subscription tracking, automatic invoicing, straightforward refund options, and the ability to serve consumers worldwide. 

A good platform for subscription services will even help you with end-to-end retention procedures or churn prevention tools. This will distinguish lucrative businesses from ineffective ones by creating a gap between a 5% to 15% renewal rate and a 10% to 25% attrition rate. We'll walk you through various steps in this article to help you understand different subscription systems, serving as a primer. 

There are many factors pertaining to your company and your market strategy that you should consider when selecting a recurring billing platform. Even if there are numerous possibilities, your decision should be based on what your business needs. For assistance in making this choice, consult the list below. 

Assess Your Company's Size 

The best eCommerce platform for subscriptions will depend on your company's needs and size, as one could anticipate. You ought to be able to locate a recurring billing platform that works for you, whether you service a few dozen or tens of thousands of consumers. Your firm's stage determines which subscription service platform you choose, depending on where your company is in the process of maturing: 

Stage 1: Small businesses make up Companies who are just getting started requiring assistance with acquisitions the most because they are now working to draw in the first important group of subscribers. 

Stage 2: Medium-sized firms are in Companies begin putting greater emphasis on retention after they reach this size. They require assistance from a subscription platform to retain or grow their relationship with acquired consumers and to keep people interested. 

Stage 3: Major businesses. Businesses that are expanding require a recurring billing platform to support their entry into new markets, reach new demographics, or automate internal operations as they grow. 

Being in one stage or another does not imply that businesses do not priorities earlier tasks; it simply indicates that their strategic emphasis is either on acquisition, retention, or expansion, which will have an impact on the kind of solution required. 

So, start by thinking about the scale of your business. You can decide what to seek in your subscription provider based on the size and needs of your organization. 

Keep Your Business Model in Mind 

A platform for recurring billing must be adaptable. You have the option of choosing a subscription platform that focuses on your business model or one that supports a wider range of types. 

When selecting a subscription management platform, consider the important capability areas that relate to your product: 

• Necessity for a product catalogue. The likelihood that you'll want a robust subscription billing platform increases as your plan configurations get more sophisticated and your pricing options become more flexible across currencies. 

• We need a rating engine. Think about the extra work that would be required to manage upgrades, downgrades, and other plan changes if you currently use numerous billing models and price plans. If these factors are difficult at the moment, your rating engine might not be big enough to meet your demands. 

• Price range requirements. Almost any provider of recurring billing can assist with ongoing subscriptions. However, only top-tier suppliers of subscription platforms will offer the flexibility required if your pricing has numerous degrees of complexity (usage-billing, regional pricing, one-time payments, etc.). 

• Orderly execution. Take into account how complicated your order management is and what kind of reporting you'll require. Most recurring billing platforms will easily enable free trials. However, if you're selling in bundles and much more so if you require customized reporting, pick one of the well-known subscription platforms available. 

• Coding schemes. Finally, it's important to see if the supplier you're thinking about can support pre- and post-paid invoicing as well as helping you bill consumers at any frequency your organization requires. 

Learn to use the Three R's

A digital subscription platform must support refunds, renewals, and retries. You must make it very easy for clients to get their money back if they opt to cancel, but even more straightforward for them to renew easily (or even automatically). You'll discover that a professional subscription eCommerce platform gives you access to a wide range of marketing techniques for membership renewals. These choices allow you to create auto-renewal campaigns for your customers right from your dashboard, inviting and even rewarding users to enable auto-renewal for their recurring contract. 

Speaking of renewals, be sure to inquire about the possibility of setting reminder campaigns for upcoming payments directly from your platform for recurring billing. 

When payment methods fail for common soft reasons like card expiration or insufficient money, a subscription payment platform must also have sophisticated retry logic. Think of all the money you could be leaving on the table and ask prospective suppliers about their revenue recovery options. Surprisingly, 20% of failed transactions from soft declines can be recovered with retry logic. 

Assure Excellent Support 

Regardless of how fantastic your platform for subscription commerce is, you and your customers will inevitably require assistance at some time. Given this, you should make sure your monthly subscription platform offers a simple way for your clients to submit billing inquiries in addition to making it simple to obtain incredibly rapid help when you need it most. 

You'll discover that your subscribers need the ideal balance of assisted and self-service when it comes to providing support. While some people would prefer to have their questions answered by phone or email, others would rather find the answers on their own. Making ensuring your subscription management supplier will support you through all of these interactions is crucial. 

 Recognize Your Use and Metrics 

The finest subscription platforms provide thorough usage data. You can maximize the benefits of your recurring payment platform by knowing how frequently and why your customers use your products. You may also explore creative marketing strategies to increase customer usage. 

As a result, it's important to learn what kinds of usage and subscription analytics a potential provider can supply. You'll require access to information on renewals and expirations, trends, and projections for renewals, as well as the ability to perform cohort analysis and predict MRR for the upcoming months. 

Based on the information they supply; you will be able to make better business decisions after you have the greatest eCommerce subscription platform you can find. Whether you're selling B2C, B2B, or both, the correct vendor will enable you to quickly grasp the worth of your customers. 

Make certain a payment gateway is there. 

Having a trustworthy payment gateway for recurring billing is crucial for any subscription business, even though it might not be as much fun as coming up with imaginative subscription product combinations and descriptions. 

Even the best platforms for subscription websites may not necessarily have a payment gateway, so you'll want to be sure it's a part of your recurring paying system. 

The best of the best to find 

There are numerous review websites that compile and rank the top subscription services. Consequently, reading reviews from other companies may help you select the ideal subscription website platform for you. Investigate the most popular platforms' real user reviews to learn what others loved and disliked about them and how this can apply to your own experience. Look for reviews in particular from people who run businesses of a comparable nature or scale to your own.

Work 365 offers subscription management tool for Microsoft partners to streamline recurring billing and improve customer engagement.