Three years into Adobe and Microsoft’s shift to cloud products and subscription billing, I’m sure it’s been discussed how a similar move to subscriptions could benefit your organization. Whether you’ve implemented a subscription billing model or just considered it, you’ve had to reflect on whether you might need a new ecommerce platform. You see, subscription commerce solutions are not all the same. And when you implement a subscription billing model, you’ll have to decide between building or buying a solution to handle payments, subscriptions events and other miscellaneous ecommerce capabilities. Building a solution on your own takes a lot of planning, development and maintenance. So if / when you choose to buy a subscription commerce solution, you’ll be looking at three main categories of providers:
- Billing / payment solutions
- Subscription management solutions
- Full-service solutions
Billing / Payments Solutions
These usually offer a payment gateway to securely capture credit card information from a online cart and transfer the data and funds to a merchant account. Few companies supply both services under the same roof, so it is typical to have one company provide the gateway and another supply the merchant account.
Subscription Management Solutions
Subscription management solutions focus on handling when each customer is due to be billed and for how much. These are great for managing subscription plans, but don’t address all your ecommerce needs.
Full-Service Solutions
These have subscription management capabilities, but also core ecommerce ones like payment processing, multivariate testing, localization, marketing, fraud prevention, affiliate marketing programs, customer support, etc.
Figuring out which solution best fits your business requirements can be tricky. Even providers that help you boost revenue in the short term might seriously limit your ability to respond to future shifts in products and services, pricing and market opportunities.
So how do you find a solution that meets your needs?
cleverbridge is proud to present a complimentary white paper to help you navigate the ins and outs of each type of subscription commerce solution.
Download now to discover:
- The pros and cons of three types of subscription solutions
- Concrete use cases for each solution type
- Questions to ask yourself when evaluating providers
- Questions to ask potential providers
