Ecommpay playbook targets failed subscription payments

Ecommpay has published a playbook on reducing failed subscription payments, which it says cost subscription businesses an average of 9% of revenue.

The payments company argues that billing-system problems are pushing some customers to cancel services they intended to keep. Its analysis found that 7% of recurring charges fail on the first attempt, while consumers are also reviewing their subscriptions more closely.

The report focuses on what Ecommpay calls “invisible retention” – payment recovery processes designed to stop avoidable failures from turning into lost subscribers. It says the issue often stems from expired card details, temporary lack of funds and network timeouts, rather than dissatisfaction with the product or service.

That matters as subscription businesses face tighter consumer protection rules in the UK. New rules under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act will require greater transparency, renewal reminders and simpler cancellation processes.

Ecommpay says its approach is intended to work alongside those rules, not replace them. Customers, it says, must continue to have visibility over subscriptions and the ability to cancel at any time.

Roy Blokker, Head of Strategic Sales at Ecommpay, said the industry has focused too heavily on winning customers while neglecting payment failures that can quietly erode revenue.

“Subscription businesses have spent years chasing acquisition, but many are failing to plug the quiet leak of failed payments,” Blokker said.

“It is, of course, right that consumers can cancel a subscription if they no longer want the product or service. But many do not leave because the product disappoints them. Sometimes they leave because the payment layer gives them a reason to reconsider.

“The next subscription growth advantage will not come from another discount or win-back campaign. It will come from payment infrastructure that keeps customers connected when billing fails in the background. We call this invisible retention.”

Four areas

The playbook identifies four areas that can improve payment recovery in recurring billing: automated retries, network tokenisation, Direct Debit and Variable Recurring Payments through open banking.

On retries, Ecommpay says merchants should move beyond fixed schedules and instead use decline-code analysis and salary-cycle data to time another payment attempt when success is more likely. Its retry system, it says, can recover 15% to 30% of transactions that fail initially before the customer needs to take manual action.

It also points to tokenisation as a way to reduce disruption when cards expire, are lost or are replaced. Merchants using its tokenised subscription system are seeing renewal success rates improve by as much as 3%, according to comparative merchant data cited by the company.

For higher-value or business-to-business subscriptions, Ecommpay makes the case for Direct Debit over cards. It says Bacs and SEPA Direct Debit can offer greater stability for recurring collections, with success rates above 95% when programmes are managed well, while also lowering processing costs on larger transactions.

The fourth option is Variable Recurring Payments, or VRPs, based on open banking. Ecommpay says these let customers authorise recurring payments within limits they set and manage through their banking app, while giving merchants immediate settlement and avoiding card expiry problems.

Consumer control

Ecommpay repeatedly refers to customer control in its analysis, reflecting the wider regulatory debate around subscriptions. It says payment recovery should not interfere with the right to cancel, but instead help ensure customers who want to continue are not lost because of avoidable technical or administrative issues.

That distinction is likely to become more important as policymakers and regulators scrutinise renewal practices and cancellation journeys. Businesses that depend on recurring revenue are under pressure to make subscription terms easier to understand and easier to exit.

Ecommpay was founded in London in 2012 and provides payment processing, acquiring and orchestration services. It offers card payments, open banking tools, recurring billing and Direct Debit products through a single application programming interface.

Its analysis suggests that, for subscription businesses, payment operations are becoming more closely tied to customer retention rather than serving only as a back-office function. Failed-payment handling, it argues, can determine whether a subscriber remains active or uses a billing prompt as a reason to review and cancel a service.

For merchants, that puts greater focus on how retries are timed, how stored payment details are maintained and whether alternatives to card billing should play a larger role in recurring payments. For customers, the aim is to avoid disruption while preserving “full visibility of their subscriptions and the ability to cancel at any time”.