From annual installments to a monthly subscription
I designed the recurring payment model and a new customer area. Recurring overtook the annual plan in new customers.
- Company
- allu
- Role
- Senior product designer, sole designer
- Years
- 2023-2024
- Platform
- Checkout and customer area
- 32ksubscribers added in the model’s first year (company result)
- R$9.3MMRR in the model’s first year (company result)
The problem
Installments committed the full value to the customer’s card limit, so many people could not subscribe and approval was low. Once subscribed, customers had little visibility of their subscription and charges, and most of it went through support.
allu subscribes consumer electronics. Subscriptions used to be an annual plan paid in card installments.
Key decisions
Retention before acquisition
The goal was to move everyone renewing the annual plan to recurring. We launched gradually to existing customers first, then opened to new ones, adjusting interface and business rules month by month.
Trade-offSlower growth in new customers at first, to measure adoption over time. It proved right: the base grew even more once new customers came in.
Customer area first
A recurring relationship happens every month, so the customer area came first: recurring explained in its own, visually distinct sections, and every action clear about what will happen.
Trade-offThe checkout followed the customer area’s patterns instead of leading the work.
Show every charge
A full charge history per subscription, completed and failed, split into sections that make each one easy to find.
Trade-offA denser screen, in exchange for trust and fewer questions.
Who I worked with
As the only designer, I worked with product, engineering and support. Support tickets, conversations with customers and a benchmark shaped the direction. It was built on allu’s design system, which I created with WCAG 2.1 AA.
Results
Recurring overtook the annual plan in new customers, the success criterion we set. In the model’s first year, allu added 32,000 subscribers and R$9.3M in MRR, a company result the recurring model was part of.