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The holidays brought exciting subscription news–especially for Discord users. In this Subscriptions Weekly, we dive deeper into Discord’s new server subscription program, Netflix’s Preview Club expansion, new subscription plans from Kyte and Almond, The Washington Post’s recent interactive feature, and the convenience of digital wallets. Discord now lets more users...
Start the holidays with the latest industry news–Subscriptions Weekly arrived early this week! In this edition, we review Paramount+’s sign-ups record, why gift cards are the stars of the holiday season, and Daylight’s, Frontier Airlines’, and Mercedes-Benz’s new subscription plans. Tulsa King gets Paramount+ new sign-ups record Paramount+ has announced...
We’re back with another Subscriptions Weekly issue! This time, we review the decline in sales for electronic gadgets and why Twitter paused its paid verification service. We dive deeper into Apple TV’s new MLS Season Pass, Netflix’s recent feature launch for managing account access, and Denny’s new breakfast subscription. Predicted...
Welcome back to Subscriptions Weekly! We’re preparing for the holidays with price changes, benefits, and promotions. In this edition, Disney+ gets a price hike, Walmart+ builds up pre-Black Friday shopping fever, and Amazon Prime adds more perks for users. Twitter hints at adding payments within its platform, and Spotify starts...
Revenue recognition is a Generally Accepted Accounting Principle (GAAP) that specifies how businesses need to recognize revenue. Compared to non-subscription industries, separating actual income from deferred revenue is more difficult, and Recurly’s revenue recognition for subscription services makes this more manageable. Contrary to traditional business models where delivery happens at...
In case you’re not a fan of pumpkin spice everything, our Recurly engineers have given us a few more things to be thankful for in the November product release. Here’s what’s new and tasty: 1. Decimal quantities for usage-based add-ons Now, merchants who bill for usage can record and log...
Are you a subscription enthusiast? You’re not alone! Welcome to Subscriptions Weekly. In this edition, we review the latest earning reports from global brands, discuss Twitter Blue’s updates, and share how subscription companies can prepare for the end-of-2022-start-of-2023 season. The Q3 aftermath: the winners, the losers, and the surprises Subscription...
Welcome back to Subscriptions Weekly–your one-stop newsletter for industry news! In this edition, we dive deeper into ad spend forecasts and how marketers for global brands are fighting uncertainty. Check out new pricing for Apple’s subscription offerings, Spotify’s Q3 growth report, Lyft’s monthly plan relaunch, and Amazon’s partnership with Venmo....
One thing’s for sure with subscriptions: something is always happening. This week, we talk about the subscription billing management growth projection. Netflix’s bounce back from subscription and revenue loss and new features from Snapchat+, Discord, Verizon, and Walmart. The new Amazon insurance store and Uber Eat offerings in the UK,...
From streaming services to tacos to heated seats in BMWs, people sign up for subscriptions for a variety of reasons. The reason that tops them all, though, is price. Pricing is critical to the success of subscription-based companies, not just during the acquisition phase. Price is also...
Welcome back to Subscriptions Weekly! In this edition, we dive deeper into subscriber preferences and digital payments. Americans put streaming over groceries on spending, will they flock to Netflix’s new ad-supported tier? Morgan Stanley has valued Walmart+ membership at $45 billion–savings on fuel contribute to this. FTX, Visa, Coinbase, and...
In keeping with the season, our engineers have filled October’s product launch with nothing but treats. In all, there are two new features and one new service. Here’s what’s new and why it matters. New custom report builder: We’re hearing from merchants that they want more and better subscription and...
This Subscription Weekly edition covers the new Amazon Access discount hub, Telegram pricing discount in India, and YouTube’s attempt to push its premium tier to watch 4K videos. A new WEX launches a digital wallet for small and medium-sized businesses. Mastercard partners with Inswitch to offer payment solutions in Latin...
Fall has arrived, and so have the retail holiday sales! This Subscriptions Weekly edition is all about Amazon, Target, Sephora, and P.F. Chang’s new offers in the U.S., plus Taiwan’s first iPhone subscription plan. And we dive deeper into the complexities of digital payments and how they’re shaping the future...
Subscriptions never stop, especially in the Digital Media and Entertainment industry. This week, Twitch has unveiled its new standard revenue share agreement, and Prime Video breaks a new prime-time audience record with Thursday Night Football. The New York Times continues to scale in subscription revenue, and Apple struggles to create...
This week, a lot is going on in the Digital Media and Entertainment subscription space. Warner Brothers, Spotify, and MoviePass have news to share about their subscriber growth and new offerings. Twitter is also rolling out some new features, and Amazon Prime raises prices in the UK for the first...
Welcome back to your favorite newsletter, Subscriptions Weekly. This week has been interesting for Disney+, which delighted its subscribers with promotions, discounts, and a presumed upcoming loyalty program. In the world of payments, Android app developers in more countries can now opt to offer third-party payments on Google Play. Lastly,...
Our Recurly engineering team has been hard at work on two new product features that will keep you in compliance and in the know. Here’s what’s new this month. Enhanced Mastercard payment notifications Going into effect on September 22, 2022, Mastercard has issued a new mandate that requires merchants to...
Welcome back to Subscriptions Weekly! It’s been busy days for subscription businesses, especially in streaming: Paramount+ and Showtime are bundling in-app, Netflix hints at its ad-supported plan price, and Apple Podcast reveals a 300% growth in subscribers. At the same time, Twitter is set to enable an edit button on...
Welcome back to Subscriptions Weekly–your one-stop newsletter for industry news. This edition covers Walmart’s new perks for subscribers, MoviePass beta relaunch, Subway’s footlong subscription, and PayPal’s new service for charity organizations. Walmart+ adds new benefits to boost non-grocery shopping We’ve seen Walmart revamp its subscription service with extra perks for...
Is your company one of the estimated 31,000 companies that rely on Oracle NetSuite? If so, we've got some news for you that will make subscription, billing, and payments a whole lot easier. We’ve launched a new integration between Oracle NetSuite and the Recurly subscription management platform. Quick to...
Welcome back to Subscriptions Weekly! This edition is all about streaming services – the leaders, their offerings, and retention strategies. Disney+ increases prices, continues to grow subscribers Disney+ sets on the lead with subscribers, adding 14.4 million users during Q2. To capitalize on growth, the streaming service will raise its...
We hope you’ve been staying cool and enjoying your summer. We've been hard at work with new ways to improve your subscription experience with Recurly. Read on about the Recurly August Product Launch or check out our video for your viewing pleasure. 1. Introducing JSON Webhooks Have you met...
This week, the U.S. Congress introduced a bill for credit card legislation, and streaming brands face the reality of inflation. The soon-to-be-launched Paramount+ channel on Roku has sports fans excited, and Xbox’s testing tier has the same effect on gamers. Lastly, Japanese drivers could enjoy a new Nissan electric car...
This Subscription Weekly covers trends in subscription models and digital payments, the new NFL and Tesla subscription services, and Amazon price changes in Europe. Subscriber growth by Spotify and T-Mobile, Visa’s Q3 revenue increase, and an overview of the UK’s adspend recovery. Coming up: Micro-subscriptions Recurring revenue companies are shaking...
Consumer re-prioritization is making both brands and customers reimagine the value of subscriptions. This Subscriptions Weekly edition covers everything from new offerings and alliances to how inflation and content drive subscription spending in the U.S. Netflix: lost subscribers, ad-backed tiers & shared accounts It’s been a hectic week for the...
While winning new subscribers is essential to your subscription business, long-term success and growth are only possible if you can retain those subscribers. Minimizing churn and maximizing renewals are crucial, and doing it well requires fast access to the metrics that measure your progress and deliver insights into trends and...
This is an exciting week for the retail subscription industry with Walmart+ introducing a new InHome add-on and Prime users get to enjoy a free Grubhub membership. Amazon makes it easy for EU members to cancel their subscriptions, Nintendo launches a brand new Switch repair subscription plan, and Apple enables...
Before you head out for all your summer activities, check out what Recurly’s product team has been up to lately. The July Product Release is live and includes new features and functionalities that will improve your ability to attract and retain subscribers. Here’s a summary of what’s new and why...
This week Snapchat, Fairphone, and TelevisaUnivision announce new subscription plans, Apple refreshes its subscription management interface for a better experience, and The World Bank reveals its latest insights about digital payment use globally. Snap officially introduces Snapchat+ The wait is over–Snapchat+ is here. Snapchatters can now enjoy a collection of...
We understand your top priority is to grow your subscription business. At Recurly, we make it our business to help make that a reality — continually innovating and evolving our subscription management and recurring billing platform to stay out in front. As Recurly's Vice President of Product Management, I'm excited...
This week, Netflix confirms its new ad-backed tier while Zoom launches a new packaging offering, and Alo Yoga enables cryptocurrency payments. Netflix confirms new ad-supported service Netflix’s co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, has confirmed that the company is working to include a new, cheaper, ad-supported subscription tier to their catalog by the...
Consumer demands change constantly, and you need to be one step ahead. Built with your revenue goals in mind and the most innovative subscription management and billing technology, Recurly makes scalability possible with a lightweight API that emphasizes ease of integration and a faster time-to-value. What exactly can you do...
A big week for the subscription industry: PipeCandy and Rodeo forecast that 75% of DTC brands may offer subscriptions by 2023. Telegram and Snapchat are working on paid subscription plans, while Instacart and PlayStation delight their customers with innovative services. 75% of DTC brands may offer subscriptions by next year...
This week, Amazon simplifies its Kids+ subscription pricing structure while maintaining easy access for both Prime and non-Prime members. Also, Autonomy, an electric vehicle subscription company, arrives in California. Amazon’s pricing for Kids+ subscription gets easier A price change is happening on July 14 for Amazon’s Kids+ subscription service. Amazon...
This week, the Jonas Brothers are launching their very own video subscription service with exclusive content. Also, TikTok has released a subscription comedy series, Finding Jericho. Jonas Brothers launch video subscription service The Jonas Brothers are launching a smartphone-only video subscription service for their fans. For $5 a month, fans...
It’s a big week for subscriptions! TikTok competes with streaming services with its own LIVE subscriptions, the NFL is launching its own mobile-first streaming option, GameStop launches digital wallets, and so much more. Get basic Hulu for $1 per month Today is the last day new and select existing subscribers...
This week, Google announced prepaid app subscriptions in emerging markets to help them reach users in areas where pay-as-you-go is normal. Netflix explores lives streaming that opens up more possibilities for live content. Hulu and Xbox partner on a gaming pass for use on the PC, expanding the subscription gaming...
This week, Instagram tests NFTs for creators and collectors, Netflix plans for a cheaper, ad-supported plan this year, Discovery+ joins Roku Channel, and Sweetgreen combines subscription offers with a loyalty program. Instagram experimenting with NFTs As of this week, Meta-owned Instagram is testing NFTs - non-fungible tokens - with some...
Is Disney+ next to crack down on password sharing? Several weeks after Netflix announced its testing fees for password sharing, Disney+ may be inching towards the same fate for its users. According to Protocol, “Disney recently sent out a questionnaire to subscribers in Spain, asking them why they are...
The latest industry news reveals that Amazon Prime is unveiling a new payment option, Peacock talks about its stellar first quarter in 2022, and Pokemon Unite is joining the subscription world for more gaming perks. More payment options with Amazon Prime Amazon has unveiled Buy with Prime, its latest online...
This week, the debut of a few new subscription services may be overshadowed by CNN+ and its abrupt end one month after it launched. Panera, Polaris, and Smoothie King, however, are giving the customers what they want. After one month, CNN+ to shut down After a less-than-stellar start, CNN+ is...
Subscription businesses are finding new ways to offer value to their customers, such as print magazines and digital bundles from National Geographic and Disney+, Disney park perks, and more. Also, Peloton increases prices while DoorDash creates a special plan for college students. College students get discounted DashPass If you’re a...
This week, Google Play adds a new billing option to its apps and Apple expands on its subscription offers–this time for business. Also, Amazon tries to stay competitive by bringing in third-party DTC subscriptions, The Container Store launches a loyalty program, and another Tesla subscription enters the U.S.. Google Play...
In this blog post, our Chief Technology Officer Tony Allen discusses the importance of scalable technology and how Recurly ensures every customer is set up for success with our cutting-edge technology. Technology is evolving, and it evolves rapidly. In today’s day and age, companies need to continually invest in scalable...
A lot is happening with consumer subscriptions! Borrow a Tesla for a flat monthly fee, GTA and PlayStation join the subscription world, get monthly Pokémon tees delivered to you via Amazon, and more. NBC’s Peacock and MLB closing in on streaming deal Pending a deal between the MLB and NBCUniversal,...
In the week of March 20, Netflix, Apple, and Google Play venture out of their comfort zones, Hulu offers Disney+ at a low price, and more. Netflix acquires Boss Fight, a gaming platform Keep an eye out for a gaming industry boom because Netflix has acquired Boss Fight to bring...
During the week of March 13, we learn about the need for 8-digit Bank Identification Numbers, Netflix testing fees for password sharing, and more. Get ready for 8-digit Bank Identification Numbers (BINs) The day has finally come: Soon-to-be credit cardholders are facing an expected shortage of available BINs. To remedy...
This week, Disney+ is bringing ads into the mix, the UK is loving subscriptions, Walmart and Spotify join forces, and more. Cheaper, ad-supported option coming to Disney+ in late 2022 While the cost hasn’t been revealed yet, the current plan is $7.99 monthly or $79.99 annually. This option will be...
This week, we discuss global events that are impacting consumer behavior in parts of the world and a new streaming service subscription from CNN. Brace for a significant increase in transaction decline & churn rates As Russia advances into Ukraine, the economic impact is unfathomable. Merchants with customers in Russia...
Thousands of brands around the world have chosen Recurly as their subscription management and billing platform. Our high-growth model has helped companies eliminate the friction of legacy solutions, optimize the customer experience, minimize operating costs, and scale sustainably. As we continue to improve and expand our offerings, we’re excited to...
Most recurring revenue companies—well, most companies in general—scale their businesses by acquiring new customers directly. After all, selling directly to the businesses and customers that use your products or services seems like a natural and obvious choice. This strategy comes with some major downsides, though: high customer acquisition costs and...
Recurly sees no end in sight for pay-as-you-go subscription models. See our press release below. Recurly to Exceed $10 Billion in Transaction Payment Volume as Pay-As-You-Go Subscription Models Accelerate Consumer and Business Behavioral Shifts Unlock New Revenue Streams for Subscription Companies; Recurly Now Cash-Flow Positive SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 17, 2021 --
It’s no secret that the SaaS recurring revenue model has soared in popularity among tech companies—according to research by Ernst & Young, 90% of technology organizations are planning or are in the process of shifting to a subscription-based model. Unfortunately, only 55% consider themselves ready for this shift. ...
2020 has been quite the year, to say the least, and we can’t wait for it to finally come to a close. Before we collectively break out the bubbly, though, there’s one thing European merchants need to make sure they’ve taken care of: compliance with Strong Customer Authentication, or SCA,...
In a space as dynamic as ecommerce, it's easy for buzzwords like "conversational AI" and "omnichannel" to steal the limelight, even if few ecommerce experts can precisely define them. The term headless commerce has recently emerged as the "next new thing," and like most new things, it's not yet fully...
In developing Recurly, we strive to solve real problems with a comprehensive solution, but without sacrificing ease of use. That said, we’re aware that implementing a new billing system can be challenging, whether you’re new to subscription billing software or are switching to Recurly from another solution. In today’s fast-paced...
It’s no secret that companies of all sizes and in every industry consider data a must-have. If you’re able to take full advantage of the data you have on hand, you can gain deeper insights into the state of the business, make better decisions at a faster clip, and increase...
There are many ways Recurly helps subscription businesses recover revenue after a transaction fails. There’s the sophisticated Revenue Optimization Engine, which powers our custom retry strategy, as well as Recurly’s customizable dunning, which makes it easy to automatically reach out to subscribers with on-brand messaging on an optimal cadence. All...
Since we introduced the Recurly Item Catalog feature earlier this year, merchants have enjoyed the ability to manage, track, and analyze all the items they have for sale in a single place. We quickly realized that we could provide an even easier and more efficient way to sell the products or...
The undeniable success of streaming media, direct-to-consumer goods, and other subscription businesses is far from just an American phenomenon. Today, consumers all around the world enjoy the benefits of subscription services, such as convenience, consistent billing, and low upfront costs. While the benefits of subscriptions are largely similar no matter...
Today, I am delighted to announce an important milestone for Recurly: we have been acquired by Accel-KKR, an industry-leading growth equity company. This transaction creates a new partnership which brings together a tremendous set of global investment resources with knowledge from a subscription commerce platform which powers the most recognized...
Think about the last time you paid your electric bill. How were you charged? Chances are the amount you paid depends on the number of kilowatt-hours you consumed the previous month. This kind of billing model is called usage-based billing. It’s popular in a number of industries, and for good...
Come join Recurly as we go down under! With millions of transactions per day, BECS is a strong alternative payment method offered in Australia. Via our partnership with GoCardless, Recurly is now able to offer BECS to our merchants, enabling direct debit payments on a new continent. What is BECS?...
Recurly is excited to announce support for Bacs via GoCardless. Bacs is a direct debit banking method popular in the United Kingdom. Bacs allows you to pull funds from a shopper’s bank account, skipping the credit card networks altogether. With about 90% of the UK population paying at least one bill...
Recurly is continually reviewing and updating our payment gateways to ensure excellent transaction processing across each of our gateways. This means staying up-to-date on new gateway features to ensure Recurly supports the functionality most useful for our merchants’ businesses. Recurly has added support for level II card data when processing Adyen transactions....
Recurly recently partnered with Tridistrict CAPS and their Business & Entrepreneurship program to support students interested in careers in the fields of business and entrepreneurship. This program is a collaboration of three southeast metro-area school districts in Minnesota including South St. Paul Public Schools, Inver Grove Heights Schools, and West St....
In modern business, companies are constantly experimenting with their pricing strategy to support their growth and changing market conditions. In the world of subscriptions, pricing continues to be a focus to optimize revenue and ensure subscribers are getting the value they are paying for. Recurly has enabled our merchants to...
Following our Q1 release of the Recurly Item Catalog for easier management of your product and service offerings, we’re thrilled to announce the latest enhancement to our catalog functionality. You can now sell items as recurring charges on Recurly plans and subscriptions in addition to selling items as one-time charges. We...
At Recurly, we're always working behind the scenes to provide a better user experience for our merchants. Sometimes that comes in the form of a new product or feature release and other times, it comes in the form of a bug fix or an improvement to an existing product or feature....
As designers, we are in charge of our brand's first impression and it’s our responsibility to build trust with our users through consistent brand experiences. This is especially important when designing for the Fintech space, given the sensitivity of the data with which we're entrusted. Many of our challenges as...
We’re excited to announce that as of today our API v3 PHP Client is now LIVE! Our API v3 went GA in October of 2019 and was immediately embraced by our user base. Now, significant chunks of our overall API traffic is migrating over to the new API v3, as currently...
UPDATE 3/2/20: Zendesk Relate Miami Cancelled Recurly is headed to sunny Miami Beach, Florida to attend Zendesk Relate. If you haven’t heard of it, Zendesk Relate is Zendesk’s global user conference, but it’s not just a conference—it’s a three-day journey that explores the entire customer experience that runs from March...
We are excited to head to eTail West February 24 -27, 2020. eTail is a well-known eCommerce and omnichannel retail conference. Join us in sunny Palm Springs to learn how Recurly powers recurring billing for leading brands like FabFitFun, BarkBox, Twitch, and Sling. There are multiple ways to interact with us during...
One key to converting prospects and increasing cross-border sales is to provide your potential subscribers with the option to use the payment method they most prefer. For many merchants, the ability to offer additional payment methods is not always an easy or straightforward endeavor. Which countries to expand into first? Which...
Recurly now supports a React interface for Recurly.js. React has enabled teams to build dynamic UIs quickly and effectively, and has proven itself time and time again in demanding systems. We are excited to provide official support for React, enabling you to fit it into your customer experiences seamlessly. With Recurly.js and
For some time now, Recurly has supported Subscription Pricing, a feature of Recurly.js designed to make it quick and easy for our merchants to display detailed subscription pricing information to their subscribers. This feature provides the ability to include any of your subscription plans, as well as a coupon code, add-ons,...
The new year is a time of new beginnings, and subscription businesses should take this opportunity to reexamine their strategies for combating CNP fraud. Whether accepting orders that are fraudulent (which often results in chargebacks) or denying legitimate orders on the mistaken belief that they may be fraudulent, merchants stand...
Recurly is excited to announce our newest integration, with Zendesk, a leading customer service SaaS solution. Many of our customers use Zendesk Chat and Support to handle communications with subscribers at all stages of their lifecycle. With the ability to see subscribers details and refund, pause, or cancel a subscription...
Last week, Recurly was a sponsor at the first annual SUBSCRIPTION SHOW, hosted by Subscription Insider and held in the beautiful if chilly downtown Boston. The show featured presentations and panels from some of the top in the industry including Worldpay, JPMorgan Chase, the NBA, A+E Networks, Sirius, Marvel, and Intuit, along...
Last Wednesday, Oct. 16th, Recurly attended Foundermade’s Consumer Discovery Show West. This show had its origins as a networking event which eventually evolved into an annual conference that hundreds of breakthrough brands attend in order to showcase their products and their expertise in growing a small business. This year saw 138...
Hello fellow subscription billing enthusiasts! It is my pleasure to share with you fantastic news of Recurly's API v3. The API is now available to everyone! Read on for a brief history of the API, its newest features, and links to our new Developer Portal and client libraries! Recurly API...
At Recurly, Christmas is arriving early this year and the winds of change are in the air. Specifically, we are pleased to announce the imminent launch of Recurly API version 3, a next-generation API built upon Open API 3, and featuring JSON as the first class transfer format. Additionally, we...
Updated November 2020 with new enforcement dates Is your business ready for PSD2? December 31, 2020 (September 14, 2021 in the UK only), the answer to this question will determine your ability to accept online payments in the European Economic Area (EEA). The new PSD2 regulation is an effort to...
Updated November 2020 with new enforcement dates In this blog post, we’ll dive more deeply into the mechanics of 3-D Secure (3DS2) and Strong Customer Authorization (SCA), the two main—and related—requirements of the new PSD2 regulation. We’ll discuss the various parties and their interactions in order to provide higher-level context into...
Please note: This blog has been updated to reflect that Recurly’s API v2.6 will sunset rather than reach end of life. The text below has been updated to reflect this change. In March, we discussed how Recurly approaches the maintenance of our API, including changes, updates, performance improvements and other essentials...
This year marks the 10th Anniversary of Boulder Startup Week (BSW) which celebrates the unique startup community in Boulder, Colorado. Over 340 events with over 811 speakers were held across 57 venues around Boulder over the week of May 13th. The week-long event was an opportunity for Recurlians to get...
Updated November 2020 with new enforcement dates and link to 3DS 2.0 Integration Guide As discussed in a previous blog on this topic, the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is a new European Economic Area (EEA) regulation which will go into effect on December 31, 2020 (enforcement by the...
Boulder Startup Week (BSW) is in its 10th year. This free, five-day event celebrates the unique startup community in Boulder, Colorado. It’s also a celebration of entrepreneurship and a way to support a common goal: to imagine and bring to life exciting, valuable, and successful companies. This year’s event will...
On Wednesday evening of last week, Silicon Valley Bank hosted a lively meetup with Recurly at the Bank’s San Francisco office. The event was attended by a highly-engaged group of subscription commerce companies gathered to discuss best practices and the growth of the hybrid model. Recurly’s...
Subscription commerce is booming. Savvy companies are reaping the rewards: high rates of predictable, recurring revenue combined with a competitive and sustainable business model. Join Recurly and our partner Silicon Valley Bank for a discussion on the latest evolution in subscriptions: hybrid commerce. Discover innovative ways to test and deliver new...
In today’s fast-moving world, software platforms are in a constant state of evolution, and their associated Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) must move along in lock step. Changes and updates often include the launch of new features, in addition to squashed bugs, performance improvements, and security enhancements. As such, it is...
Recently, Recurly’s Product, Engineering, and Design teams got together to take a fresh look at the Recurly app and consider what changes might delight our customers. Because we know that human beings enjoy having options, we now offer our customers the option to change the sidebar color of their Recurly...
Updated November 2020 with new enforcement dates This blog will help Recurly customers understand the new PSD2 regulation, how it impacts them, and what they need to do to prepare. What does PSD2 require and when does it go into effect? PSD2 stands for Payment Services Directive 2 and is...
Recurly is excited to announce Custom Gateway Routing, an important new capability that gives our customers unlimited flexibility in routing payments—either the initial transaction or subsequent renewal transactions—to a specific gateway. This lets them take advantage of the benefits a certain gateway may offer for specific types of transactions, for...
We are excited to announce that Recurly’s Colorado team has moved to a new location in downtown Boulder, just three blocks from well-known Pearl Street. We spent the previous three years in a building right across the way from our new location. Our old office served us well, and we...
On Friday, October 5th, Recurly was notified by a vendor, Apollo.io, of a security exposure created in their server environment. Recurly used Apollo to provide Recurly with sales lead and marketing services. Apollo informed us that they believe the data leak included Recurly data such as customer names and contact information....
The subscription box segment was an early winner in subscription commerce. Whether based on a carefully curated selection of goods or the regular receipt of necessary consumables, subscription boxes have become an enduring success story. But what you put inside your box is only one piece of the puzzle. To...
Subscription commerce continues to expand rapidly across different industries, and card networks naturally want to stay ahead of market trends to provide the best experience. As a result, card networks like Visa and Mastercard periodically update their rules and regulations and release new requirements. One of the announcements came from...
The European Union has released a new compliance standard titled the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which will go into effect on May 25, 2018. It imposes new rules and regulations regarding data privacy that impact all subscription businesses using Recurly which operate in the EU, along with US-based merchants with...
Design and User Experience has always been a critical component at Recurly, and for the Product Design Team, 2017 was all about making the way we work more effective. From new tools and improved processes to collaborating with non-designers and learning more about user needs, we spent the year improving...
Customers have come to expect convenience, simplicity, and speed when completing activities online. This expectation is especially true when shopping and completing purchases on a mobile device. With cart abandonment rates for mobile devices topping 85% last year, and the average across device types at over 77%, merchants have an...
Any business that seeks to grow rapidly needs to have the right tools in place to support that growth. Subscription businesses in particular need an accounting solution that can handle the complexities of reporting on recurring revenue, one that can help speed their month-end close by automating key processes, creating...
A crucial aspect of successful subscription billing involves being able to communicate with customers. Recurly sends several million emails every month on behalf of the many subscription businesses that depend on our platform, and we are constantly seeking ways to improve this function. After listening to great feedback, we’ve made...
The Internet and the digital world have brought immeasurable benefits to the world at large and transformed nearly every aspect of how we live and work. Unfortunately, in tandem with this evolution unscrupulous elements have emerged, intent on hacking into systems and stealing data for any number of nefarious ends....
Technology has revolutionized many aspects of business, perhaps none more so than the accounting industry which has gained incredible efficiencies. New accounting software reduces workloads, increases productivity, and improves accuracy and access to real-time data. QuickBooks Online brings those advantages to the cloud, enabling businesses to benefit from transformative technology...
Every business competing on the market today seeks a competitive edge. One way to gain an advantage is to stay up to date with the latest technology and trends. For subscription businesses, adopting new payment technology—such as Apple Pay—can give them the edge they seek. Recurly is pleased to announce...
Application program interfaces—more commonly known as APIs—are increasingly important for building efficient business processes. This is because they allow developers to tailor systems to optimize business processes. They’re also a quantum leap from yesterday's enterprise software tools, which were built and delivered as-is and required endless customization to actually use...
Recurly is pleased to announce two updates to our Hosted Payment Pages, coming on January 26th. Gift Cards Functionality for Hosted Pages To further support our gift card feature, Recurly has created a new hosted payment page that now allows your customers to easily purchase gift cards. Many of our...
In order to give our customers access to best-in-class applications in both subscription billing and accounting, Recurly has integrated with QuickBooks Online. Our integration will give you the ability to accelerate your month-end close process, automate your revenue accounting flow, and eliminate manual processes. The QuickBooks brand is synonymous with...
Recurly is excited to announce a new dunning webhook notification. In subscription businesses, when a customer’s renewal payment fails, the customer enters the dunning process. Businesses using Recurly can use this webhook to receive information on customers in dunning, letting them manage, monitor and optimize their subscribers’ journeys through the...
The New Zealand economy is one of the fastest growing in the world and is notable in a couple of ways. For example, according to the Ease of Doing Business Index for 2016, New Zealand ranks second overall out of 185 countries. The country has sizeable manufacturing and service sectors, and...
Recurly just turned seven years old. It seems like yesterday that we elected to found a company based on the belief that the world was moving towards a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model. We believed that lightweight, flexible, nimble billing systems would become a competitive requirement for companies seeking to align their offers with...
As noted in a previous blog post, there are different ways to get information out of Recurly, and each option has different pros and cons depending on the specific objective. Using the right tool for the task at hand ensures an efficient use of resources and an improved experience for...
Japan: a country steeped in tradition but exceedingly modern, with a storied history and a thriving economy (the world’s third-largest!). Most of us also associate Japan with its unique pop culture, epitomized by the global icon that is Hello Kitty (along with the lesser-known Mumitan); anime and cosplay; novelty cafes;...
By now, most of us are likely familiar with the Internet of Things (IoT), that network of “smart” devices, embedded with sensors and network connectivity that enables these objects to collect and exchange data. Our Fitbit is an IoT device, as is our Nest home thermostat. And Amazon Prime users...
We're excited to announce that Recurly.js will soon support PayPal, giving your customers the flexibility to choose between preferred payment methods – all within your same branded payment form. We are currently beta-testing PayPal with a select group of merchants and will be ready to make this available through an...
In a SaaS-connected world, where best-of-breed software companies have developed on-demand, highly focused solutions to support a variety of business functions, Recurly merchants weave specialized applications together to create a solution that’s tailored to their business. Merchants get the most value out of connected applications when customer data and events...
Integrating critical systems is an effective way to extend the functionality of those systems, eliminate silos of data and improve data accuracy. Integrated systems also create efficiencies and provide a more complete view of processes and results, ultimately maximizing the value of IT investments. In order to ensure the best...
At Recurly, we take pride in the fact that our application is both intuitive and accessible. But while every user in your organization can have access to your site via the Recurly app, we understand that not every user needs full access. With this in mind, we have made some changes to user management to...
For subscription businesses, standard accounting processes related to recurring payments, such as recognizing revenue and compiling monthly financial reports, are less straightforward than those related to non-recurring payments. Recurly’s new integration with NetSuite can help simplify some of the complexity that subscription businesses face in terms of processing recurring or...
Today, Recurly is happy to announce a new partnership with Worldpay—an additional payment gateway that you may use to process payments in the U.S. and internationally. The addition of this gateway gives Recurly merchants greater choice in how they process payments for international transactions. Merchants new to subscription billing can...
Thanks to all the fantastic feedback we’ve received from customers, we’re putting the final touches on the new Recurly UI design! Your comments have been instrumental in guiding our efforts towards making our interface more intuitive and efficient, and based on your feedback, we’ve made all kinds of improvements. If...
If you were the typical kid growing up, you probably loved comic books as much as I did. Of course, tastes and interests changed over time, and comic book sales have had a tough time for the past two decades - until now. Recently, comic book and graphic novel sales...
If you're using one of Recurly's client libraries to interface with our API, you're probably concerned with keeping up to date with the latest and greatest functionality Recurly has to offer. Currently, Recurly supports clients for PHP, Ruby, Python, and .Net, all of which are hosted on GitHub. Let's take...
Image courtesy Infosecurity magazine Recurly is working hard to help educate subscription billing companies about the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard - PCI DSS. We issued a white paper about PCI DSS V3.0, a recent, comprehensive update to the standard. Now, right...
Recurly’s customers rely on our search functionality to find accounts, transactions, and other information so they can solve their customers' problems. By March of 2014, however, Recurly’s search functionality had become an example of tech debt: it worked well enough to ignore, until it didn’t. We’d been planning on rebuilding...
At Recurly we constantly monitor mailing lists, forums, IRC channels and many other places for vulnerabilities that may cause software we use as part of our platform to be insecure. We update software every day, usually within minutes of vulnerabilities being discovered. Today was no exception. We had our production systems...
As many of our merchants know, Recurly’s hosted pages allow you to get up and running quickly with little to no development work. Our hosted pages include subscription signup pages and a customer subscription management portal called “Hosted Account Management”. Next week, we’re rolling out new features for Recurly’s Hosted Account...
Over the past 5 years, Recurly has built a company centered around the success of our customers. We believe that providing a flexible and nimble billing service to our customers allows them to achieve extraordinary outcomes. We elevate billing from a simple back-office function to a genuine competitive advantage. We...
Today a new vulnerability was announced in SSLv3. The vulnerability allows attackers who might be in a position to execute a MITM (Man In The Middle) attack against a client to decrypt SSLv3 traffic. Luckily, SSLv3 hasn't been used by clients (web browsers) for a number of years now, replaced by TLS. At Recurly we...
So you want to implement the latest and greatest in recurring billing functionality and ease into your app, but you're not sure where to start. Today we're going to create a quick and easy implementation using Recurly.js and our API! We'll create an account with billing info, and a subscription, for...
Managing subscriptions just got easier with an update to Recurly's subscription logic. In the past, merchants could allow customers to sign up for multiple subscriptions of different plans and multiple subscriptions of the same plan, as long as they were on one renewal cycle. We recently extended our functionality to...
Channel Development is a key component of any effective revenue growth strategy. For solutions like Recurly that are highly self-service and strive to be developer friendly, the community of consultants and creative agencies that work with our platform are a growing source of new business. As the technology experts serving...
We’re extremely excited to announce the general availability of one of Recurly’s top requested features, the Account Updater. This service automatically updates customer credit card information when it changes, without you having to take any action, and is offered as a free service through Recurly! Why is this important? Over...
At Recurly we use Redis to power website caching, queuing and some application data storage. Just like all the systems we use internally, it has to be stable, have automatic failover incase of failure, and be easily scalable should we need to add more capacity. What is redis? Redis is...
Introducing Starsky, an opinionated, high-level NodeJS module for building services with RabbitMQ. This post is full of nerdy stuff involving programming, message queues and why we decided to build our own RabbitMQ module. If you want to cut to the chase, go checkout out the project and get started now! Why did we...
Recurly’s Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) report is a helpful tool that gives you a best effort approximation of your monthly recurring revenue at any given time. Using the MRR report in your admin console, you can drag your cursor along the graph to find your MRR on any given day,...
Today we are pleased to announce the general availability of our new .NET API Client Library! A complete rewrite of the previous client, it now brings full support of Recurly API v2 to the world of .NET, including: Plan supportPlan AddOns supportCoupons supportImproved paginationImproved validationIncreased...
At Recurly, we’re constantly making updates to our product to give you new features and an improved Recurly experience. With these new improvements come changes to our Terms of Service, effective April 9, 2014. This new policy allows Recurly to better accommodate new features and services by allowing third party...
We are often asked whether or not merchants need SSL, given the the fact that Recurly is already PCI compliant. The short answer is Yes. Any website handling credit card information should always use SSL in conjunction with Recurly’s PCI compliant checkout forms to best ensure customer data is encrypted...
Whether you have multiple products using Recurly, or have a production, sandbox, developer, and QA site, Recurly makes it simple to navigate between each site with just one set of credentials. To access a Recurly site from a specific account, just follow these steps: Access your...
When creating a subscription, Recurly will default to starting that subscription immediately. Sometimes you want to have the option to give a particular customer a different trial length, a future start date, or charge them a prorated fee for the remainder of the period and have them renew on a...
By default, when a new subscription is submitted through the Recurly.js buildSubscriptionForm, the e-mail address will be used as the account_code for the newly created account. Many merchants would prefer to use their own account_code, perhaps matching their own internal code for that customer. That way when using the API...
With so many different payment gateway options out there, it’s not at all uncommon for merchants to switch from one gateway to another. We get questions all the time about how to switch payment gateways and, more importantly, how switching gateways will impact a merchants' billing. The short answer is...
From time to time your customers may ask that their subscription billing be paused while they go on vacation, use up their current product, or just want to hold off on receiving their next service. Luckily, Recurly makes it easy to do this! To postpone...
Declined transactions are easily one of the most common topics that come up in Recurly Support, and for good reason. At first glance it’s not always easy to figure out why a transaction was declined, or what the next steps are to resolve the transaction (if any). Here are a...
A common question we get here at Recurly Support is how to customize email content based on a specific customer. Recurly’s emails are global in the sense that there’s no way to fully customize your emails on a per-user basis; by default, the same language/content will be sent to all...
As you may have noticed, some changes have been happening to recurly.com. Over the past 6 months we have been working to give our website a much-needed refresh. We started with the home page, which served as a jumping-off point to begin introducing a new design and structure to our...
Your Recurly account can be set to display all dates in your local time zone, but there may be times you want to change this configuration. For example, some merchants like to work in UTC when comparing data with their local systems (Please note that push notifications will always display...
Merchants today can use PayPal as a payment gateway, collecting credit card payments from their customers. But did you know that using Recurly.js or the Recurly Hosted Payment Pages, you can also allow your customers to checkout using PayPal? To process PayPal payments,...
One of the common questions we hear in Recurly support is "When should I void a transaction and when should I refund it?" Because Recurly strives to keep billing simplified, you need not worry - Recurly will automatically handle the transaction in the most appropriate manner. But for those of...
One of the most common topics for support is email templates. In just a minute or two you can easily customize the "from email name" on all emails that Recurly sends on your behalf. If you would prefer that your customer receive messages from your company’s...
Refunding transactions is easy with Recurly, but did you know a transaction can also be partially refunded? This is great for circumstances where a user has partially used up service, but needs a refund for time remaining. To issue a partial refund, a transaction...
As you’ve seen from our recent press and newsletters, Recurly is going through a significant growth period, both in terms of customers and internal employees. The product team is 5x this year what it was last year, which has allowed us to dive deep on some of the features we...
Article contributed by Mary Rosberg, Recurly's new Sr. Customer Success Manager. “The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous. Everything else is crap!” While Ashton Kucher isn't my favorite actor, I do love the above quote, delivered at high intensity to...
If you’ve been reading the Recurly blog lately, you know we’ve been rolling out some updates. Thanks, in part, to the growing design team at Recurly, we’ve updated the marketing website design as well as refreshed the subscription creation process flow. Most recently, with the introduction of manual payments, we rolled out...
Recurly is excited to power even more of your daily billing activities. Introducing our invoicing feature. Until now, Recurly has focused on collecting payments primarily through credit card and PayPal transactions. Today we are excited to offer you tools to send traditional invoices to your customers, empowering you to customize...
We’ve heard from a number of our merchants that they’d like more visibility not only into what we have been working on at Recurly, but into what features have recently rolled out. We’ll use our blog to regularly update you on the larger features that become available to our merchants....
Recurly exhibited at the Game Developer Conference this year in San Francisco. It was a new experience for us, but we were definitely energized by the game developer community and learned quite a bit about the unique billing challenges faced by game development studios. We...
We’ve made a big investment in the future of Recurly. Recurly is closing out the year having made a tremendous amount of progress. Not all progress has been evident externally, as our entire Engineering organization has been focused on making critical changes to our application architecture and preparing for our...
Over the past few weeks, we’ve had dozens of conversations with our customers regarding our hardware outage. We want to make to every attempt to be honest and transparent about the various problems that coalesced into an incident on Labor Day that resulted in our inability to decrypt some stored...
At approximately 3:30 a.m. (PDT) we experienced an intermittent hardware failure, which prevented some transactions from processing. Our team was alerted and mobilized quickly. We had both failover and extra replacement boxes on hand. Working with our vendor we were able to restore the service and re-rack several replacement boxes....
Tracking the activity of a customer's account is a critical feature for your customer support staff - and it's now available through your Recurly admin console! Inside your customer's account you'll now see an Activities view displaying the who, what, when, and why of all account activity (starting mid-December 2011)....
Recurly has been providing subscription billing for businesses since early 2010. We now power recurring billing for over 825 companies worldwide, and we've learned a few important things along the way. Here is a quick recap of some important insights for your business. Recurring billing is more than just managing...
Today, we're proud to announce that Recurly raised $6 Million in a Series A round of investment to grow our company well into the future. We'd like to thank our new investors from BV Capital for sharing our enthusiasm for our business. In addition to BV Capital, our existing investors:...
Back in March 2011, we launched Transparent Post to simplify PCI compliance for our merchants. Today, we are taking it to the next level with the release of Recurly.js. Recurly.js is our open-source Javascript library that gives you great looking credit card forms to securely create subscriptions, one-time transactions, and...
Today we're announcing the availability of our Add-On for Heroku users. This Add-On makes it simple for Ruby developers who are using Heroku to install the Recurly Ruby gem and offer subscription billing for their Heroku hosted applications. Heroku's Add-On catalog is HERE. Documentation for this Add-On is available HERE....
At Recurly, our goal is to help our clients professionally manage their subscription billing. That means we want you to look your best. To that end, we are thrilled to announce the latest revision of our Hosted Payment Page. The latest version incorporates dozens of enhancements aimed at giving you more...
We're excited to announce several new enhancements for our email templates based on all your feedback. First, we have a new default email template that packages the relevant information in much better presentation. Here's the new default New Subscription email: If you customized an existing email template...
We recently created a new documentation site to make our knowledge base more accessible and discoverable. We want to help our customers get live as quickly as possible. Please let us know if there's anything else you would like to see on this new site. Over the next several weeks, we...
As a .NET developer, I am excited to announce that Recurly now has a C#.NET client library well under way! We polled our customer base and found a large number of our customers are powering their websites with ASP.Net, but they don't have many options today when it comes to...