Recharge releases: The modern subscriber experience

In 2025, subscription checkouts rose 18%, and subscriber AOV increased 5.4% year over year. Growth is concentrating around subscribers, and that shift changes how brands should prioritize conversion, lifecycle strategy, and long-term value creation. The subscriber experience is no longer a supporting motion, it is foundational to how efficiently subscriptions scale and perform. 

To support brands we have launched four exciting product updates to help brands build experiences that convert better, engage longer, and scale with confidence.

• Affinity 2.0: A redesigned drag and drop customer portal that makes subscriber management frictionless.
• Upsell & Cross-sell: Intent-based offers are cart, checkout and post-purchase
• AI Agents: Continuous, personalized conversations across the subscriber lifecycle
• Loyalty: Visible credits and rewards that encourage engagement and reduce churn

Learn more by watching our product announcement webinar here.

Affinity 2.0: The customer portal, reimagined

The customer portal is one of the most influential, and often overlooked, parts of the subscriber experience.

Subscribers may not think about it explicitly, but every moment of friction runs straight through it: changing a delivery date, swapping a product, skipping an order, or deciding whether to stay subscribed at all. When those actions feel laborious, subscribers don’t blame the experience — they blame the brand.

Affinity 2.0 transforms the portal from a basic management surface into a flexible, branded experience.

With modular, drag-and-drop customization, brands can design a portal that:

• Makes core actions easy and obvious for subscribers
• Highlights education, offers, and subscriber-only value
• Reflects the look and feel of their brand

For subscribers, this means more control and less frustration.

For brands, it means the portal becomes an active hub for engagement, not just a place to manage logistics.

The result is a portal that builds trust, reinforces value, and supports retention at every stage of the subscriber lifecycle.

Maximize every purchase: Smarter upsells at the moment of decision

High-intent moments shouldn’t be wasted.

Too often, upsells and cross-sells are treated as broad campaigns. They’re delivered too early, too late, or without enough context to be useful. The modern subscriber experience requires something more precise.

Recharge now enables smarter upsells across cart, checkout, and post-purchase, when subscribers are already deciding.

This includes expanded capabilities to:

• Upsell into larger pack sizes
• Encourage prepaid subscription options
• Surface add-ons that align with what’s already in the order

Instead of interrupting the experience, these offers meet subscribers where they are, helping them upgrade into higher-value options without adding friction.

The outcome is higher AOV and stronger lifetime value, without sacrificing trust or usability.

Always-on conversations, scaled with AI agents

Modern subscribers don’t experience brands in isolated moments. They experience them as an ongoing relationship.

That’s where many subscription programs break down: even when individual interactions perform well, they don’t build on each other. Each message feels like a reset.

Recharge’s AI Agents are designed to change that.

Rather than powering one-off messages or reactive support, Concierge SMS helps brands create one continuous, cohesive conversation across the subscriber lifecycle spanning:

• Subscription order management
• Product education
• Actionable cross-sells 

Powered by personalized subscriber data, agents understand context and intent, making each interaction feel relevant and connected. And because they’re AI-driven, this continuity scales without requiring ongoing manual effort from teams.

The result is an experience where subscribers feel seen, understood, and engaged over time.

Loyalty that compounds over time

Loyalty only works when value feels real.

One of the biggest drivers of churn is simple: subscribers don’t realize what they’re giving up when they cancel. If earned value isn’t visible, loyalty becomes abstract, and easy to walk away from.

Recharge Loyalty is built around real, accumulated value: cash credits + free gifts. And those perks are surfaced where it matters most including in the customer portal and at cancellation moments.

By showing subscribers what they’ve earned, what’s coming next, and how much they’ve saved, loyalty becomes tangible. Cancellation stops feeling like a clean break and starts feeling like leaving value behind.

In practice, brands using our Loyalty tools have seen save rates increase by up to 65% when earned value is made visible at churn-risk moments.

Built on a stronger operational foundation

All of these experiences depend on one thing: they have to be easy to operate.

That’s why this release also includes core improvements that help teams scale without complexity:

• Bundles: Offer a guided, mobile-friendly bundle building experience that converts more customers
• Shopify Markets: Scale globally with localized pricing, content, and product availability
• Automate: Build holistic subscription experiences in one coordinated system
• Bulk Updates: Make complex program changes fast, safe, and scalable
• Flow Versioning: Iterate + ship changes faster on live flows

Together, these improvements ensure that delivering a modern subscriber experience is scalable and sustainable.

Designing for where subscription growth is headed

The modern subscriber expects more—more relevance, more flexibility, and more continuity across every interaction. Supporting that experience requires tools that work together, scale with intent, and evolve over time. These updates help brands grow alongside their subscribers as expectations continue to rise. 

Learn more and get started with The Modern Subscription Experience Implementation Guide.