Subscription businesses require software that handles the full subscription lifecycle reliably.
Subscription revenue is the model that investors and operators love — predictable, compounding, and scalable. The software infrastructure that makes it work reliably — billing, dunning, plan management, and churn analysis — needs to be built correctly. We build subscription-first applications.
Building or operating a subscription business that needs reliable billing infrastructure — subscription lifecycle management, failed payment recovery, and the metrics to optimize retention
Subscription businesses fail at their billing infrastructure in predictable ways. The most expensive:
No dunning. When a subscription payment fails, the default response for most early-stage products is: do nothing. The user loses access, maybe gets an email, and churns. A proper dunning flow (automatic retries, increasing urgency emails, explicit grace period, and final cancellation) recovers 20–40% of failed payments that would otherwise become involuntary churn.
No upgrade/downgrade handling. The subscription plan was set up in Stripe but the application doesn't handle mid-cycle changes. Users who try to upgrade or downgrade get a broken experience. Revenue from plan upgrades isn't captured because the self-serve path doesn't work.
No subscription metrics. MRR, ARR, churn rate, and LTV should be derivable from the billing system. Products with poorly structured Stripe setups can't produce these metrics without manual reconciliation.
Billing state inconsistency. The application maintains its own record of subscription status, but webhook handling gaps mean the application state diverges from Stripe's state. Users who cancelled in Stripe still have access. Users who paid can't access the product.
Subscription business powered by Stripe Billing with complete lifecycle management: trials, upgrades, downgrades, cancellations, dunning, and the revenue metrics that inform retention strategy
Stripe Billing architecture
Products, Prices, and Customers structured correctly for the business model. Trial periods, monthly/annual pricing, and per-seat pricing configured in Stripe before any application code.
Webhook handler
Complete webhook processing for all subscription lifecycle events: `checkout.session.completed`, `invoice.payment_succeeded`, `invoice.payment_failed`, `customer.subscription.updated`, `customer.subscription.deleted`. Local billing state updated on every event.
Dunning flow
Smart Retries enabled in Stripe. Dunning email sequence (via Resend) at defined intervals after first failed payment. Grace period with restricted access before cancellation.
Self-serve plan management
Stripe Customer Portal embedded in the application for subscription management, plan changes, and payment method updates.
Revenue metrics dashboard
MRR, ARR, new MRR, expansion MRR, churned MRR, and churn rate calculated from Stripe data. The billing metrics the business needs to operate.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
Subscription business powered by Stripe Billing with complete lifecycle management: trials, upgrades, downgrades, cancellations, dunning, and the revenue metrics that inform retention strategy
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Subscription billing infrastructure has defined scope. Fixed price.
Questions, answered.
Stripe's Smart Retries (ML-optimized retry timing) handles the retry logic. The email sequence should be: Day 1 (payment failed, update your card), Day 5 (reminder), Day 10 (final warning), Day 14 (access restricted). Adjust the grace period for the product's average engagement cycle.
Stripe Billing supports subscription pausing — temporarily suspending a subscription and resuming it at a later date. This is a valuable churn-reduction tool for customers who want to pause rather than cancel. Implementation is available as a feature addition.
Stripe billing setup + webhook handler + dunning: from $14k. Full subscription platform with metrics dashboard: from $22k. Fixed-price.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.