From streaming services to tacos to heated seats in BMWs, people sign up for subscriptions for a variety of reasons. The reason that tops them all, though, is price. Pricing is critical to the success of subscription-based companies, not just during the acquisition phase. Price is also the number one reason people cancel their subscriptions, which means offering the right price at the right time is essential to minimizing churn and scaling your subscription business.

Recurly already offers more plan pricing options than anyone–options that help you create and adjust subscription plans that attract new subscribers and retain existing ones. But we’re not ready to stop there. We’re introducing a new plan pricing option: ramp pricing.

What is ramp pricing?

The new Recurly ramp pricing feature allows you to define price increases or decreases for a subscription across a specified interval of billing periods. In short, you set the price to “step up” or “step down” over time.

In its simplest form, a subscription plan using ramp pricing has just two steps. For example, a subscriber could be charged $5.99 per month for six months, followed by the regular price of $9.99 per month after the initial period. A more creative ramp pricing plan could have several (we support up to 12!) pricing steps, all defined by you.

But ramp pricing is not a one-way street–it can work in reverse too. A plan’s price could go down over time as a reward for customer loyalty and longevity. For example, you could drop the subscription price by $10 for subscribers after one year as a show of appreciation.

Ramp pricing features and benefits

The new ramp pricing feature is easy and flexible to set up and manage:

• Scale price up or down for plans and subscriptions  
• Establish up to 12 ramp intervals
• Automatically communicate changes via customer email
• Support for multiple currencies
• Built-in reporting for plan testing and analysis

Ramp pricing’s benefits are real:

• Customer acquisition: Attract new customers with a low price to start off the subscription and increases over time
• Customer retention: Reward loyal customers with a plan where the price decreases over time
• Simplified plan management: Use ramp pricing as a simple, automatic way to build in future price increases

You’ve got options with Recurly

While ramp pricing is our latest addition, Recurly already offers more billing options than anyone, including:

• Fixed: A set price on a set schedule
• One-time: Single, non-recurring charges (i.e. setup fee)
• Tiered: Charge a unit price set by a corresponding tier
• Volume-based: A unit price based on the price of the highest tier reached
• Stairstep: A fixed price based on the highest tier reached
• Usage-based: Pay for use, with prices down to fractions of a penny
• Prepayment: Allows for prepaid account balance

Ramp it up!

Ramp pricing is available now to Recurly customers on the Pro and Elite plans. Check out our ramp pricing video to see it in action or reach out to our Support team with questions.