Build Custom Subscription Experiences with the ReCharge API

Table of Contents

01. The Challenge with SaaS.................................................

02. ReCharge API at a Glance................................................

Limitations......................................................................................

Dedicated Support....................................................................

03. Customize the Entire User Experience..............

Examples Part 1: Complex Products................................

Examples Part 2: Advanced Subscriptions...................

Examples Part 3: Customer Self Service........................

Examples Part 4: Analytics & Integrations.....................

04. How to Get Started..................................................................

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2

The Challenge with SaaS

The traditional SaaS product model has some

limitations.

There’s no shortage of amazing SaaS products that’ll

help Shopify merchants optimize some aspect of their

business, but at the same time, we’ve all experienced

those occasions when a promising out-of-the-box

SaaS solution could only go so far.

As a result, the individuals who are asked to select a

new SaaS solution often end up choosing a product

that comes with the fewest number of compromises. If

a SaaS solution even comes close to meeting 80% of a

business’s needs straight out of the box, it’s considered

a huge win.

But what about the remaining 20% of requirements?

Expecting out-of-the-box software to address

100% of the needs for 100% of businesses just isn’t

a realistic expectation; it’s a mythical creature.

It’s the other unicorn of the SaaS world.

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Faced with the inevitable compromise, employees

or founders will typically grab pen and paper, draw 2

columns, and endeavor to create the now familiar nice-

to-have versus must-have lists. Then they try to check

all the boxes in the must-have column and hope that

the nice-to-have column doesn’t end up completely

empty.

More recently, business users have become much

more software savvy and their needs have become

even more complex, so that best-case, 80%-of-

requirements-met scenario has become has become

the new other unicorn of SaaS.

In ReCharge’s case, the complexities of recurring

billing are often hidden until a Shopify merchant tries

to create a perfectly-matched solution for how they

envision their business’s subscriptions should be set

up, managed, and fulfilled. But just like other SaaS

solutions, it’s not all feasible straight out of the box.

Enter the ReCharge API.

With the ReCharge API, merchants don’t have to

compromise, and with your help, they can go from

having 80% of their requirements met to the elusive

100%. Ride that unicorn.

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ReCharge API at a Glance

Endpoints & Webhooks

ReCharge provides a RESTful API, event-driven

webhooks, and a multitude of customization options

that allow for complex integrations with other systems

and apps.

Our API endpoints include:

Using the Subscriptions endpoint, you could change

a subscription product’s price, delivery frequency

and charge frequency. In more advanced scenarios,

you could swap out one product for another, or

even change a product’s variant on a monthly basis

throughout the calendar year.

Subscriptions

Customers

Addresses

Charges

Orders

Discounts (Currently in Alpha testing)

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To continue with the scenario of changing a product

variant each month: Webhooks could be used as a

trigger on the backend to automatically update a

customer’s subscription product.

You would simply configure an order created webhook,

and whenever it fires, your app would then make an

API call using the Subscriptions endpoint to change the

product variant for that particular subscription.

Webhooks could even be used to create SMS

receipts for a merchant’s customers following any

type of transaction. There are so many possibilities for

automating a merchant’s business.

ReCharge webhooks are a mechanism for reacting

to specific events that are triggered in the

system, such as checkout completions, customer

activations, or subscription cancellations.

Additionally, you can cancel, pause, and reactivate

subscriptions using the Subscriptions endpoint.

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We officially support shell scripts, Python, PHP and

Ruby, and we’re working on expanding support for

other languages.

Limitations

All API requests must be handled via HTTPS.

The rate limiter operates using a leaky bucket

algorithm, which allows for infrequent bursts of calls,

and it allows your app to continue to make an unlimited

amount of calls over time.

The bucket size is 40 calls (which cannot be exceeded

at any time), with a “leak rate” of 2 calls per second

that continually empties the bucket to make room for

additional calls. Your app’s API calls will be processed

almost instantly if there’s room in your bucket.

The ReCharge API limits the volume of requests

to ensure uncompromised performance for our

merchant stores.

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Unlike some implementations of the leaky bucket

algorithm that aim to smooth out (i.e., slow down)

operations, with ReCharge you can make quick bursts

of API calls that exceed the leak rate.

If your app averages 1 call per second, it’ll never

trip a bucket overflow error (Note: ReCharge uses

conventional HTTP response codes to indicate the

success or failure of an API request).

ReCharge supports OAuth to negotiate a token

exchange as well as manual token creation.

Dedicated Support

Our API access includes robust documentation and

developer support from the ReCharge team. You’ll also

get real-time access to our experts on a dedicated

Slack channel, so you can ask questions about using

our API as you’re developing an app (we’re happy to

help, but we’re not able to debug your code).

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Customize the Entire User Experience

Many of our top merchants, in partnership with our

preferred agencies, have used the ReCharge API to

build:

Here are some recent examples of how merchants

have used the ReCharge API to tackle the “remaining

20%” of their requirements (and beyond).

Product bundles

Custom portals for customers

to manage their subscriptions

Complex product configurations

across multiple variants

“Build a box” subscription

products3rd party app integrations

Custom reporting and

analyticsCustom post purchase email

Single page checkout flowsDigital product subscriptions

(i.e., membership models)

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Complex Products

Examples Part 1:

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Product Bundle: Using the ReCharge API, The TOM Co created a

custom product selector that enables customers

to build their own subscription box. Customers

get to make a variety of product choices to build a

subscription that’s specifically tailored to their needs.

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Digital Product: Siren Marine uses an innovative membership business

model that combines digital subscriptions with physical

boat hardware. They used ReCharge’s API to give

customers the option to bundle the physical product

with the subscription fee.

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Build a Box: Ask two people about their coffee preference and

you’ll get three different answers. Verve Coffee

Roasters solved this problem by creating a build a box

service for coffee lovers. Customers can choose their

favorite roast, grind, frequency and more.

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Advanced Subscriptions

Examples Part 2:

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Quarterly Subscription:

Foodstirs offers kitchen product subscriptions that

ship quarterly. Using our API, they modified their

subscriptions rulesets such that customers are

automatically enrolled in the next ship date for the

following quarter—and in a way that allows them to

ship products on the same day for all customers.

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Free Trial: Hubble Contacts offers their customers a free trial

of their contact lenses, charging only for shipping

and handling. After 2 weeks, the subscriptions are

automatically converted into the regular, full-priced

monthly box.

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Customer Self Service

Examples Part 3:

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Subscription Management:

To ensure visual and brand continuity between their

website and the ReCharge customer portal, Tiege

Hanley used our API to completely customize the

experience for customers managing their own

subscriptions. The large icons and clear calls to

action make it easy for customers to modify their

subscriptions and billing details.

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Subscription Management:

BattlBox enlisted the ReCharge API to visually modify

the default ReCharge customer portal, focusing people

on the top 3 most-used activities via a modal lightbox.

The full functionality is still there, tucked away neatly

behind the BattlBox custom UI.

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Change Delivery Address:

Enabling customers to change addresses for

upcoming deliveries can be tricky, but Grunt Style

developed an innovative solution using the ReCharge

API. When a customer changes their next shipment

address, they can also check a box to change their

address for all future shipments.

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Analytics & Integrations

Examples Part 4:

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Advanced Reporting

When Excel documents don’t cut it anymore, you can

use our API to export data to your favorite dashboard

software for more advanced analytics. Build something

in house, or use popular business intelligence products

such as Tableau, Sisense, Microsoft Power BI and

more.

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We recently launched a Zapier integration so you

can easily integrate ReCharge with 1,000+ apps in the

Zapier library. If an app catches your eye but doesn’t

have the workflow options (i.e., triggers or actions) you

need, you can now build your own direct integration by

leveraging our API and webhooks.

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How to Get Started

It’s easy. Please reach out to us at

rechargepayments.com/developers

to request access to the API.

Once we’ve given you access, you can go to:

ReCharge Admin > Settings > Integrations > API tokens

Then click “Create an API Token” in the top right to

generate a new token for your store:

You can learn more about our API here.

And don’t forget to ask your partner manager

to give you access to the API Slack channel!

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