Software Solutions for Software Subscription Businesses
A subscription product earns on renewal, and its commercial rules change each month: seats added, plans changed, cards failing. The seller needs a record of what each customer pays for and may use. This page covers the business and the records it depends on.
Run plans, seats, renewals and entitlements for a product sold by subscription.
A subscription is never finished. Each month some customers add seats, some change plan, some cancel and a few cards fail, and every change alters what the account may use.
Self-serve subscription products
A product sells plans by card, with sign-up and cancellation done by the customer.
Team and company plans
A product sells seats to organisations, with an administrator who adds and removes users.
Hybrid with sales-led deals
Some customers pay list prices online while larger accounts negotiate a rate and pay by invoice.
The workflow for software subscriptions.
- 1
Choosing a plan
The buyer compares plans, picks seats and a monthly or yearly period, and sees the total before paying.
- 2
Creating the account
On payment the account is created and the product is told which features and limits apply.
- 3
Changing seats or plan
An administrator adds seats or moves up a plan. The charge for the rest of the period is prorated.
- 4
Collecting renewals
Each period a charge is attempted. A failure triggers retries, a notice and a grace period.
- 5
Cancelling or pausing
The customer cancels or pauses from the portal. Access follows the rule you have set for the paid term.
The challenges, and what they cost.
What is specific to this trade.
These are requirements we would confirm in discovery. They describe what the solution may need to handle. They are not features that already exist.
- Plan structure: seats, usage limits, add-ons and annual discounts
- Proration and refund rules written as policy, not left to individual staff
- How the product will ask for entitlements and receive change messages
- Whether recurring payment will use cards, mandates or reminders
What we would build for software subscriptions.
Chosen from the commerce capabilities this business needs, not a list of everything.
Who works in the system, and what each can do.
What it would connect to.
An integration is confirmed only after its API, access and scope are checked. A connection that updates on a schedule is described as scheduled, not real-time.
- Your application, through an interface that reports and receives entitlements
- A payment provider’s recurring billing, after its documentation, limits and your registration have been checked
- Your accounts package, fed with invoices and credit notes
- The helpdesk that holds your support history, if its interface can be reached
How the work runs, and what we need from you.
What you provide
- Your plans, limits and prices as they stand
- Your last twelve months of subscription changes
- The entitlements your product checks today
Write the rules down
Proration, grace periods and refunds are agreed as written policy before they are coded.
Replay real changes
Past upgrades, downgrades and failures are replayed through the new rules, and the totals are compared with your books.
Move customers in batches
A small group of subscribers moves first, so the first billing cycle can be checked by hand.
What you receive.
- Plan and entitlement definitions
- Recurring invoicing and retry rules
- The account portal
- A change-message interface for your product
How progress is judged.
Measures are agreed against your own baseline. We do not promise a result in advance.
- Accounts whose entitlements differ from their plan
- Failed payments recovered inside the grace period
- Changes charged by hand rather than by rule
Selling at home and abroad.
Subscribers abroad may pay in another currency and may be taxed differently. Display of prices is simple; collecting recurring payment across borders depends on the provider, banks and your registration.
The wider requirements for software are on the Software page.
Related subcategories.
Software Subscription E-commerce & Billing Software
Custom software solution
The plan, entitlement and renewal logic is written around your own product, because plans and limits differ from one product to the next. A payment provider’s recurring billing is used where it fits, confirmed in discovery.
Read about the softwareQuestions about software subscriptions e-commerce.
Can customers pay by UPI for a subscription?
Where the provider offers recurring mandates on UPI. Otherwise a reminder carrying a payment link goes out each period.
Can it handle usage-based pricing?
Only if your product reports usage in a form the service can read. Usage-priced invoicing is scoped separately.
Do we have to use your billing engine?
Not necessarily. Some providers cover billing well, and we then build only the entitlement and portal layers. Discovery settles that.
Talk through your commerce requirement.
Describe what you sell, where you sell it and what is slowing you down. An engineer will reply within one business day.
- No obligation
- A reply within one business day
- Your details stay private