How Cinemark Movie Club became a top-performing subscription program with Recurly

With Recurly as its subscription engine, Cinemark built a top-performing loyalty program from the ground up through a flexible, member-first strategy.

Flipping the script on movie subscriptions

The magic of the movie theater is timeless. The smell of fresh popcorn, the hush of the crowd as the lights dim, the story unfolding on the silver screen — it’s an experience that streaming services can’t replicate. As one of the world’s largest movie exhibitors, Cinemark Theatres has been at the heart of that magic for decades. 

To build a sustainable, recurring revenue stream and deepen customer loyalty, Cinemark needed a subscription platform that could scale with their vision. With Recurly as its subscription engine, Cinemark launched Movie Club in 2017 and has achieved remarkable results since: a subscriber base of over 1.45 million members with an entertainment industry-leading retention rate.

Here’s how Cinemark combined a deep understanding of its audience with Recurly’s powerful platform to build a movie membership that’s a certified box-office hit.

The ultimate flexibility: Rolling over, pausing, and adapting

Cinemark’s commitment to flexibility is a cornerstone of its retention strategy. Unlike rigid, third-party movie passes, Cinemark built a movie theater membership designed to put the full experience in the hands of the customer.

Movie Club gives members one movie credit per month — with the freedom to roll it over if unused or share it with friends and family. There’s no “use it or lose it” pressure, just a personalized experience designed to fit each member’s lifestyle. Powered by Recurly’s subscriber management tools and plan options, Cinemark delivers this flexibility with ease, offering features like credit rollover and benefit sharing that keep members engaged and in control.

That same member-first philosophy drives other key features. Through its partnership with Recurly, Cinemark added another powerful retention tool: the ability for members to pause their subscriptions. 

When feedback revealed that many members didn’t want to cancel — they just needed a temporary break — Cinemark was ready to respond. Recurly's platform allows businesses to configure and offer a subscription pause feature directly to their subscribers. This means customers can temporarily suspend their recurring payments and service access, and then resume it later, all managed through Recurly's billing and subscription management system.

“The pause feature has been a really successful component of our philosophy to ‘make it easy and keep the customer first,'” says Megan Krouse, Director of Loyalty at Cinemark. It’s a key retention strategy that builds trust, improves satisfaction, and reduces churn — giving members a frictionless, customer-first experience.

Behind the scenes, Recurly also supports Cinemark with the tools to retain members at every stage — from managing plan preferences to recovering at-risk revenue.

Optimizing retention with tailored recovery strategies

One area where this collaboration has been especially impactful is in dunning optimization, which allows Cinemark to tailor the payment recovery experience based on a member’s selected plan.

“Having the ability to customize the dunning strategies based on the type of plan has been really helpful for us,” explains Krouse. “The cadence might be different if someone’s monthly versus annual, and the email content is adjusted so that it actually reflects the benefits they’re getting.”

Recurly enables Cinemark to adjust the timing and messaging of dunning emails for each plan — ensuring communications are personalized, relevant, and focused on the value members receive.

The ability to adapt and fine-tune these strategies comes from a strong, collaborative partnership.

 “Recurly's been one of our easiest relationships, because we get so much value out of our Customer Success Managers,” Krouse shares. “They’ve been really good about partnering and figuring out how we can make something work, so that it doesn't put quite so much on us to constantly ideate.”

Creating a personalized experience with behavioral data

Beyond operational flexibility, one of the most powerful aspects of Movie Club is how it has deepened Cinemark’s understanding of its audience. For them, true personalization goes beyond marketing tactics.

“It's really easy to get stuck in this mindset of personalization being about your marketing communications,” explains Krouse. “But we look at it as, ‘How can we understand what our customers need/want and build something that solves a problem for them?’”

This philosophy drives the company to move beyond traditional demographics to focus on member behavior. Recurly's analytics and reporting tools empower Cinemark to analyze granular behavioral trends, enabling personalized experiences that drive engagement and retention.

Rather than simply looking at age or location, Cinemark analyzes how people interact with their theaters. They look at the frequency of visits, the size of the party — whether it’s a solo moviegoer, a couple on a date night, or a family of five — and what types of movies and tickets they purchase. This nuanced view allows Cinemark to identify and target potential members who might not seem like obvious candidates. 

For current members of Movie Club, Cinemark uses Recurly’s data insights to reinforce the program’s value. 

“We tested sending out a mini, end-of-year wrap-up that shows the number of movies a member saw and the amount of money they saved,” Krouse shares. “That way they can see all the value they’re getting out of their subscription.” 

Recurly’s detailed analytics also allow Cinemark to track complex member journeys — like switching from monthly to annual plans — and support agile, creative marketing through tools like its coupon and promotion engine.

What’s next for subscriber growth?

With over 1.45 million members and counting, Movie Club continues to scale — a feat made possible by Recurly’s infrastructure, which allows Cinemark to manage growing volume without complexity or downtime. In fact, the movie theater subscription has seen steady year–over-year growth of 12%. 

This impressive growth is bolstered by exceptional retention. With Recurly’s automated dunning workflows and retention tools, Cinemark Movie Club boasts an entertainment industry-leading retention rate.

But the team is already looking ahead to the next act, shifting focus from pure acquisition to deepening member engagement and increasing lifetime value.

“Long-term, where the goals are likely to shift is less about acquiring new members and more about making sure every member is super engaged,” Krouse shares. 

The future of Movie Club likely includes even more personalization and flexibility. Leveraging Recurly’s flexible platform, Cinemark can continue evolving Movie Club to meet changing preferences, allowing members to enhance their core benefits in a way that makes sense for them.

As Cinemark sets the stage for its next feature, the partnership with Recurly remains central. With strategic support from Recurly’s team and continued investment in new platform capabilities, Cinemark is well-equipped to deliver a dynamic, responsive member experience that keeps audiences coming back.