Subscription-Based Business Models

Various industries have seen rapid growth in subscription-based business models over the last few years.

According to The Subscription Economy Index report, the subscription industry has grown by 435% in the past decade. And it’s expected to grow even bigger and reach a market size of $1.5 trillion by 2025. 

Seeing the data above, we can say safely that the subscription economy is here to stay. 

Be it a gym subscription, an OTT subscription, a subscription-based service, or a subscription to a SaaS tool — researchers say that eight in ten adults use some form of subscription product/ service and will continue to do so. 

But, what makes subscription business models so popular?

Subscription-based products/ services provide an affordable way for customers to access what they need. It has been proved that consumers won't mind paying for access to exclusive content/products/services. 

On the other hand, subscription commerce allows businesses to provide their services/products directly to customers, ensuring a better customer experience and a long-term relationship. 

Plus, the subscription model ensures a regular cash flow for businesses. 

However, retaining the customer long-term is not easy. While the success of the subscription business primarily depends on the continuous value added by the business, the ease of payment is equally important. 

In this article, we will discuss how subscription-based businesses can leverage digital payments to streamline recurring revenue, focusing on automation, reliability, and customer convenience.

Benefits of Digital Payments for Subscription Businesses 

From having complete control of your billing cycle and cash flow to improved customer experience through seamless transactions — there are not one but multiple benefits of digital payments for a subscription business. Let’s look at them. 

1. Improved Customer Experience

The most significant benefit of digital payment for subscription business is a seamless transaction experience for the consumers.

Digital payments make transactions faster. Consumers can set auto renewal mode with their preferred payment option to renew the subscription to the product/service. 

Consumers can even save the payment information details in a secure environment so that they don't have to enter all the details every time a transaction happens. 

They can simply set up the payment details once and enjoy the product/ service until they want to pause/cancel it. 

2. Enhanced Security Measures

Digital payments are safer than the traditional payment methods. 

With features like data encryption and fraud protection, tokenization of websites, and biometric payment methods, consumers trust digital payment methods. 

For example, PayBy, which enables business growth with cashless payments, is trusted by some of the leading brands in the UAE. 

The brand is also licensed by The Central Bank of the UAE, which helps them earn trust and a good reputation.

It has been given the highest levels of financial service approvals to conduct Stored Value Facility (SVF) and Retail Payment Services (RPS) operations. 

3. Diverse Payment Methods

Digital payment methods allow businesses to offer multiple payment methods, facilitating international transactions. 

The diverse payment methods enable customers to make cashless payments via 50+ payment modes. 

These include some of the popular customer choices like credit/debit cards, net banking, AliPay+, PayBy, Botim, and other digital wallets. 

Diverse payment options help subscription businesses reduce churn by offering various payment options for customers so that they can easily renew their subscriptions.

It also helps in global accessibility and currency support, which is essential for businesses that are operating globally. 

4. Streamlining Billing and Invoicing

Subscription businesses can automate their billing processes with digital payment methods. You can create a custom schedule to collect recurring payments from customers. 

All you need to do is set up a billing cycle of weekly, biweekly, monthly, or yearly payments for your subscription business.

With auto-debit on recurring payments, you can ensure continuous cash flow for your business. 

By leveraging digital payments, subscription business owners can create branded invoices and automate sharing via email or SMS with their recurring customers.

You can also provide customers with instant payment confirmation on recurring purchases with branded digital receipts. 

This helps build trust and reduce churn while minimizing failed transactions. 

Plus, digital payment methods empower you and the customer for a cashless transaction with a click-to-pay functionality on your invoices. 

Additionally, you can ensure further customer convenience by offering flexible payment plans, giving them full control. 

For example, you can offer options like buy now and pay later, pause payments when they don't want the subscription, change the payment mode, and so on.

5. Leveraging Subscription Management Platforms

Subscription management platforms like PayBy let you integrate payment gateways with your existing website so you can host the payment page and customize it according to your needs.  

And did you know that payment pages powered by PayBy are mobile-optimized, too?

PayBy also lets you offer customization and flexibility to your consumers. 

So, users can choose from diverse payment modes.

For example, you can enable cashless transactions and online payments via various international and domestic credit cards, debit cards, and over 1.5 billion wallets.

By leveraging subscription management platforms, subscription businesses can keep a tab of their recurring payment status on a real-time dashboard. 

Such real-time insights can help you identify inactive customers and payment failures so that you can make informed decisions to reduce customer churn. 

Improve recurring revenue with digital payments 

Payments are now an important part of the customer experience. 

Subscription businesses that rely on recurring payment, offering multiple payment options, directly address the customer's need for a seamless payment experience. 

Additionally, recurring payments help businesses to grow by ensuring continuous cash flow. 

PayBy helps subscription businesses to collect recurring payments easily. It offers everything a business needs to collect a payment on schedule. 

It gives complete control of the billing cycle and cash flow with auto debit on recurring payments. 

Get started with PayBy today.