Glossary
Infrastructure purpose-built to handle recurring revenue: proration, plan changes, dunning (failed payment recovery), usage-based billing, and the lifecycle events a simple one-time checkout doesn't need to handle.
Why It Matters
A standard checkout flow only needs to charge a card once. Subscription businesses need to handle plan upgrades mid-cycle, failed renewal payments, cancellations, and usage-based charges that fluctuate month to month — none of which a basic payment integration is built to manage correctly on its own.
This is part of our Intelligent Commerce capability — commerce infrastructure built around the customer relationship, not just the transaction.
See the full Intelligent Commerce capabilityRelated Terms
What is 'dunning' in this context?
The automated process of retrying and recovering failed subscription payments — expired cards, insufficient funds — before a customer is involuntarily churned, often through retry scheduling and customer notifications.
Can subscription billing handle usage-based pricing, not just flat plans?
Yes — modern subscription billing infrastructure is generally built to handle metered, usage-based charges alongside flat recurring plans, calculating variable amounts each billing cycle.