What subscribers really want (and won’t tolerate)

During August 19 to 21, we hosted a three-part virtual series to explore one of the biggest questions in the subscription industry: What do subscribers really want?

Hosted by Mary Rosberg, VP Growth Evangelist at Recurly, the series brought together Robbie Kellman Baxter, Expert Subscription Strategist and Consultant, and Matt Croning, Founding Partner at House of Kaizen. 

They dove into the entire subscriber lifecycle, sharing fresh insights on everything from acquisition and loyalty to churn. Keep reading to get the recap, or watch the full series on demand to get even more actionable advice.

Key takeaways

If you only have a minute, here are five of the most important insights from the event:

1. Acquisition has shifted from volume to value: The new goal is to attract the right subscribers and build relationships that last. Success is measured in lifetime value, not just sign-ups.

2. Flexibility is now table stakes: Today’s subscribers expect to be in control. Features like pausing or skipping are essential. Our research shows that while 55% of consumers want the ability to pause their subscriptions, only 37% have the option.

3. Loyalty is a strategy, not a vibe: Lasting loyalty is built through intentional, practical actions. It starts with a strong onboarding process and is sustained by delivering the right value to the right person at the right time.

4. Personalization is about connection: True personalization is about understanding consumers’ needs and guiding them to the specific value they’re looking for within your service.

5. Churn is a feedback loop: When a customer cancels, it’s not the end of the road. It’s an opportunity to learn, improve, and refine your win-back strategy. Often, a simple discount (cited by 34% of subscribers who switch) is enough to bring them back.

Episode 1: The truth about acquisition in 2025

The series kicked off with a hard look at acquisition. While price will always be a factor, the speakers agreed that subscribers now demand more than just a good deal. As Robbie put it, "Price always matters… but increasingly, a clean user experience, and flexibility around payments are becoming table stakes."

This signals a major shift in acquisition strategy. The old playbook of acquiring as many users as possible, as quickly as possible, is officially outdated. Matt explained that brands are moving from a quantity-driven approach to one focused on lifetime value: 

"What's changing certainly is the value of acquisitions," he said. "Organizations are recognizing that the benefit of a subscription product is not the volume of acquisitions, but it's the duration, the accumulated value of that relationship between the product and the person."

But what's changing certainly is the value of acquisitions and organizations recognizing that the benefit of a subscription product, the benefit of a subscription relationship is not the volume of acquisitions, but it's the duration is the accumulated value of that relationship between the product and the person. And so at the end of the day, using price as that lever, not just to acquire numbers of people, but perhaps to push it in the other direction and to create more value and to invest more in that relationship in some ways, even if it means a higher price, but a better overall relationship can change the quality of the acquisition and shift it from just purely about quantity, which I think is a really good trend we're seeing these days.

The discussion also touched on how different generations approach subscriptions. Robbie noted that younger consumers, who grew up in a subscription-first world, are often more impulsive — quick to sign up, but also quick to cancel. This makes building a trusted, long-term relationship (what Robbie calls a “forever transaction”) more important than ever.

Recommended reading: Why retention should be your #1 business goal in 2025

Episode 2: Loyalty is not a vibe — it’s a strategy

How do you build that long-term relationship? Episode two was all about loyalty, reframing it as a deliberate strategy built on practical, intentional actions.

Personalization is a cornerstone of any modern loyalty strategy — a staggering 72% of subscribers expect personalized recommendations. But the panel pushed beyond the buzzword to define what that really means.

"It’s really about getting people to the specific value they want," Robbie explained. "Don’t show me everything you have. Show me what I want and what I need at the right moment to deepen my engagement." She pointed out a critical pitfall: when customers don't find value, it's often a failure of presentation, not a lack of it.

So when I think about personalization, it's more about nudging someone along on the good path that's going to lead to the outcomes that they want, the value that they sought that brought them to your offering in the first place.

So it's not about what font you choose or, you know, the layout or saying, hi, Robbie, to make it feel more personalized. It's really about getting people to the specific value they want. Don't show me everything you have. Show me what I what I'm want and what I need at the right moment to Yeah. Deepen my engagement and increase the value that I'm that I'm getting from you. I think a lot of times, you know, I've worked with a lot of organizations that have people canceling who say there's not enough value there, when the when the problem is not that there's not enough value, but that that individual couldn't find it, or didn't know it was there. So when I think about personalization, it's really about getting people to value as quickly as possible and reducing the noise for them in increasingly large and complex offer.

Matt offered a grounded approach, suggesting that effective personalization doesn't always require complex AI. "Just taking a couple steps back and segmenting the audience into something as few as two, three, four, five groups could provide a level of personalization […] that’s far better than wherever they may be now."

This strategic approach starts the moment a subscriber signs up. A successful onboarding experience directly translates into a higher lifetime value. But it doesn't stop there. 

The perception of control is a huge driver of loyalty. Giving subscribers easy-to-use options to pause, skip, or even downgrade their plan makes them feel secure and respected, which in turn, makes them stick around longer. In fact, Nearly half of consumers that have the option to pause have never paused their food (45%) or streaming video (40%) services. 

Episode 3: Churn is not the end — it’s a revenue lever

In the final session, the panel tackled one of the industry's most feared metrics: churn. The key, according to Robbie, is simple: "Make it easy for people to leave and make it easy for them to come back."

When a customer cancels, it’s a critical learning opportunity. But too often, businesses accept surface-level cancellation reasons like "it's too expensive." Robbie challenged this, noting these are often polite ways of saying, "None of your business." 

By digging deeper with a simple offer — "Would you stay if I offered 10% off?" — you can often uncover the real issues and address them. This is backed by data showing that 34% of consumers who switched providers could have been kept with a simple discount.

The relationship with a subscriber doesn't end at cancellation. Matt emphasized, "You may no longer have access to the product, but you still have a relationship with that company." 

And and the ones that are doing a really good job of asking the right kinds of questions are also not just meeting the needs of those customers with a lower price offering, but they're providing other forms of engagement ongoing. So you may no longer have access to the product for which you were paying for before, but you still have a relationship with that company. And you're still potentially getting value from that company in a way that you're going to want to remain engaged. I think we often forget that having been a customer, there was a point in time in which I said, yeah, the value proposition and the equation makes sense. I'm getting what I want, and I'm paying what I want potentially, but then that breaks.

And that doesn't mean that it's broken forever. It can be repaired so long as we understand how people really value that relationship going forward. And so it's always good to look at your former customers as your next best new customers, but you have to have a really strong understanding of how to do that. It can't be to offer them the same thing you offered them in the past. That just won't work.

Mary shared a powerful example from FabFitFun, which continued to provide her with valuable content after she canceled. And eventually, that strategy worked. She came back. This proactive, value-driven approach is the key to turning churn into a true revenue driver.

Get ahead of what’s next

Subscriptions are constantly evolving, but one thing is clear: the businesses that win will be the ones that stop guessing and start truly understanding their subscribers. By focusing on value, flexibility, and genuine connection, you can build the kind of relationships that last.

To dive deeper into these topics and get even more actionable advice from our expert panel, watch the full three-part webinar series on demand now.