Innovation Spotlight: More control for your team, less friction for subscribers

Billing software shouldn't make you compromise. One-size-fits-all settings for subscriptions and checkouts force subscribers to work harder than they should. And when conversion dips, you're left guessing whether the cause is checkout UX, your gateway, or a bank decline.

The latest Innovation Spotlight updates from Recurly directly address these three challenges. By offering precise control down to the exact decimal, our latest tools allow you to deliver a seamless subscriber experience and gain clear insights without needing developer support.

Highlights:

• Control access page by page: Granular user permissions set access at the page and resource level, which reduces the risk of accidental changes and supports security and compliance reviews.

• Run more promotions from one coupon: Per-batch expiration gives each batch of unique codes its own redemption window, so one bulk coupon can power multiple time-boxed campaigns.

• Sell digital without the shipping questions: Digital subscriptions in Recurly Commerce drop delivery fields, use billing-appropriate checkout language, and support trials of any length.

• Style Engage prompts in plain language: AI Style Studio applies requests like "make the button blue" to a live preview, with no CSS or developer ticket required.

• Put live subscription data in your AI tools: Recurly MCP connects your subscription data to the AI tools your team already uses, so you can ask questions and act without waiting on an analyst.

It’s all in the details

Blunt settings force workarounds that cost time, energy, and manhours. These releases let you price down to a fraction of a cent, accept the payment methods and meet the tax requirements of each market you sell in, and set access at the page level. 

• Granular user permissions (coming soon): Set access at the page and resource level in the Roles flow. Cascading logic means edit access automatically includes view, and role cloning speeds up setup.

• Per-batch coupon expiration: Set a redeem-by window of 7 days, one month, or any custom period for each batch of unique codes, counted from the batch's generation date. One bulk coupon can now power several time-boxed promotions without separate coupons or hand-built batches. Check out the docs page here.

• Decimal pricing for non-usage add-ons: Price add-ons to a fraction of a cent, with up to nine decimal places, so tiered and per-unit rates stay accurate and rounding doesn't eat into your margin. Invoice totals round only at the line-item level. Check out the docs page here.

• Local payment methods: Offer PayPay for recurring subscriptions in Japan through Adyen, GCash in the Philippines through dLocal, and local card schemes across 13 Latin American markets through EBANX. Each is available to merchants on the matching gateway.Check out the docs page here.

• Tax and e-invoicing coverage: The Vertex integration now supports versions 9.1 through 9.3, with Brazil-ready fields such as CPF/CNPJ validation and invoice-level tax ID labels. You can also map Recurly custom fields to Vertex flex fields for more precise tax decisions. E-invoicing through Avalara (coming soon) lets you submit compliant invoices and credit notes to government clearance networks without leaving Recurly.Check out the docs page here.

Deliver experiences subscribers expect

Subscribers should see one clear price, get reminders timed to how often they renew, and skip steps that don't apply to them. These releases cut surprises and unnecessary steps from checkout through renewal and recovery.

• Digital subscriptions: Flag a product as digital and Recurly Commerce drops shipping fields, switches to billing-appropriate language at checkout, and lets you set a trial of any length. Check out the docs page here.

• Subscription splitting and order confirmation: Each plan gets its own contract, so you can pause, discount, or set terms per plan without conflict. When contracts renew on the same day, Commerce combines them into one order and one charge, and it never shifts renewal dates to force alignment. This was coming soon in our Q3 Spotlight and is now available. Check out the docs page here.

• Tax-inclusive invoice display: If you use tax-inclusive pricing, a self-serve template setting shows subscribers one all-in price on invoices, hosted invoice pages, and refund invoices. Tax calculation, reporting, and remittance stay unchanged behind the scenes. Check out the docs page here.

• Renewal email reminders: Set reminder lead times by billing frequency, so annual subscribers get enough notice and weekly subscribers don't get buried in email. Sensible defaults apply to each frequency band. Check out the docs page here.

• Advanced dunning (coming soon): Match the recovery email to the reason for the decline, so a soft decline doesn't read like a cancellation notice and an expired card tells the subscriber what to do next. You also see the revenue your dunning recovers.

• Magic links for the customer portal (coming soon): Subscribers click a link in any notification email and land on their subscription page, with no email re-entry and no waiting on a code. Links are time-limited and single-use, and expired links fall back to the standard email and code flow.

Pinpoint the problem and let AI do the legwork

Low conversion can come from checkout UX, the gateway, or a bank decline, and each needs a different fix. New analytics separate one from the other, and AI assistants help you ask questions and act on the answer without a ticket or a developer.

• Checkout payment method analytics: See selection and authorization rates for each payment method, from shown to attempted to authorized, so you can tell whether conversion drops at checkout, at the gateway, or both. It needs no configuration for Recurly Checkout merchants. Check out the docs page here.

• 3DS processing analytics: Track 3DS outcomes by gateway and country across eight outcome categories, so you can separate an authentication problem from a downstream bank decline. It lives in Payments Hub, which we introduced in Q3. Check out the docs page here.

• Payments Sync: Payment events now trigger accounts receivable journal entries in real time, so revenue records stay aligned with cash instead of waiting for a reconciliation at close. This was coming soon in Q3 and is now available. Check out the docs page here.

• AI Style Studio (early access): Describe a styling change in plain language, such as "increase the headline font size," and Recurly Engage applies it to a live preview. Conflict detection and single-step undo and redo keep campaigns on brand and on schedule.

• Recurly MCP (beta): Connect live subscription data, capabilities, and documentation to MCP-compatible AI tools, with OAuth 2.1 and role-based access controls scoping data to each account. Beta access is limited to pilot participants.

• Compass assistants: Compass Assistant in Commerce and AI Compass in Engage answer product questions inside the dashboard, drawing on Recurly's documentation, so you don't have to search help pages or wait on support.Check out the docs page here.

See everything that shipped

These are the headline releases. The full Q4 Innovation Spotlight includes more than 20 new capabilities across Recurly Subscriptions, Engage, Commerce, RevRec, and Compass.

See the complete release list today and join us live for our event Innovation Spotlight: Connecting every revenue moment to go deeper on the latest releases and how to improve your workflows.