Subscription Business Software — Recurring Revenue Under Control
Subscription business software is a custom platform that unifies plans, recurring billing, churn analytics and a self-service customer portal in one system you fully own. We build it on your own backend, so MRR, retention and LTV are computed from your real data — not from a third-party SaaS dashboard that charges a percentage of your revenue. The result: visibility into every subscription, lower churn and predictable monthly income.
What the solution includes
The subscription management system covers the full lifecycle — signup and plan, renewal, upgrade, downgrade and cancellation — with no per-seat monthly license and no cap on the number of subscribers.
- ✓Flexible plan catalog — monthly, annual, trials, freemium, usage-based and tiered pricing, promo codes and annual-payment discounts, all configurable without a new deploy.
- ✓Automated recurring billing — scheduled invoice generation, VAT logic, proration on plan changes and e-invoices compliant with local legislation.
- ✓Dunning against failed payments — automatic retry attempts, email and SMS reminders, smart routing of card declines — typically recovers 30-45% of otherwise lost subscriptions.
- ✓Real-time churn analytics — monthly and voluntary/involuntary churn, cohort retention curves, cancellation reasons and early at-risk signals.
- ✓MRR, ARR and LTV metrics — breakdown of new, expansion, contraction and churned MRR, customer lifetime value and payback period by acquisition channel.
- ✓Self-service customer portal — subscribers change plan, update the card, download invoices, pause or cancel themselves — cuts support tickets by 40-60%.
- ✓Payment integrations — Stripe Billing, myPOS, card payments and SEPA direct debit, with card tokenization and a PCI-DSS compliant flow.
- ✓Webhook and API layer — two-way sync with your CRM system, accounting and product, so subscription status is identical everywhere.
Who it is for
A product team with monthly and annual plans, trials and usage-based add-ons. The system tracks activation, expansion MRR and net revenue retention by cohort, while self-service upgrades raise ARPU without sales involvement. Card declines are recovered automatically, not manually by support.
Gyms, online courses, media sites, subscription boxes and maintenance contracts. Recurring billing issues invoices automatically, dunning chases expired cards, and the portal lets the customer pause the subscription instead of cancelling outright.
Agencies and software firms with monthly retainers, seat-based licenses and multi-year contracts. The system prorates when seats are added, sends pre-renewal reminders and surfaces contraction/expansion signals to the account manager before the client leaves.
How we build it
We do not resell a billing SaaS. We build custom software on your own backend, so the subscription logic, data and metrics stay with you and never depend on a third party's pricing policy.
1. Plan and revenue modeling
We map every plan, billing cycle, trial, discount and add-on, and define how MRR is recognized on upgrade, downgrade and proration and which events count as churn. This stage decides whether revenue reports will be correct, so we lock it before writing code.
2. Recurring billing core
We build the scheduler that generates invoices, computes VAT, applies proration and triggers a dunning sequence on a declined card. The logic is idempotent — a retry never charges twice — and keeps an audit log of every charge.
3. Payment and accounting integrations
We connect Stripe Billing, myPOS or a bank gateway via integrations with card tokenization. Invoices sync to the accounting software, and webhooks keep the CRM and product in real-time sync with subscription status.
4. Self-service portal and churn panel
We ship a branded portal where the subscriber manages plan, card and invoices, plus an admin dashboard with MRR movement, cohort retention and cancellation reasons. The cancel flow offers pause or downgrade before final cancellation — retains 15-25% of leavers.
5. Testing, migration and stabilization
We run billing simulations over a year of subscription events, migrate existing subscribers without breaking the cycle and stay in observation mode for the first two billing periods until MRR reports match bank receipts to the cent.
Why Saitami
Prices are fixed in EUR — no percentage of revenue, no per-subscriber license. For a narrower focus see recurring billing system, and for product scale-up SaaS platform development or full business software.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why custom subscription business software instead of Chargebee or Recurly?
Off-the-shelf billing SaaS charges a percentage of processed revenue or a fixed fee per subscriber — at scale that becomes expensive and unpredictable. A custom system is a one-time investment on your own backend: the data, metrics and payment logic are entirely yours, with no vendor lock-in and no subscriber cap. The economics typically break even within 12-18 months.
How do you reduce churn technically?
Two mechanisms. First, dunning against involuntary churn — smart-scheduled retries, expiring-card reminders and an alternate payment method; this typically recovers 30-45% of failed payments. Second, a cancel flow with pause, downgrade or a discount before final cancellation, plus early at-risk signals in the admin panel for subscribers with declining activity so the account team reacts in time.
How much does it cost and how long does it take?
From €5,400 for a platform with a plan catalog, recurring billing, one payment integration and a churn panel — typically 5-7 weeks. A self-service portal, multi-gateway, usage-based billing and accounting sync start from €9,000. The only recurring cost is hosting and processor fees — no license to us.
Can you migrate our existing subscribers?
Yes. We migrate subscribers, active plans, billing dates and payment tokens from Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly or a custom database without breaking the current billing cycle — nobody gets a double invoice and no subscription stops. We run a parallel observation mode for the first two periods until reports match bank receipts.
Who owns the system and the data?
Entirely you. You receive the full source code, the database and the documentation. The platform runs on your hosting or cloud, with no dependency on our server and no subscription fee to Saitami — that is why we call it custom, not SaaS resale.
Ready for your own subscription platform with predictable MRR?
Send us your plans, current payment processor and approximate subscriber count. Within 48 hours we prepare an architecture diagram and a fixed EUR quote for the recurring billing and churn panel.
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