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Build custom subscription experienceswith 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: Integrations.........................................
04. How to get started..........................................................
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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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Own the subscription exerience from start to finishReCharge provides a RESTful API with robust
documentation and full developer support. Use the API to
break down and rebuild every aspect of the subscription
experience to fit your brand. Additionally, utilize over
25 different webhooks to customize each step of the
customer journey, including the following objects:
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.
Address Charge Checkout Customer Discounts
One-Time Purchases
Order Products Subscription
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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.
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.
Limitations
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 2 calls 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.
All API requests must be handled via HTTPS.
As mentioned previously, our API access includes
documentation and 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 products
3rd party app integrations
Custom post purchase email flows
Single page checkout flows Digital product subscriptions (i.e., membership models)
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Complex productsExamples 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 used the ReCharge API to create a
headless commerce solution, decoupling the front end
from the backend. This enables them to optimize sales
of their digital subscription offerings. Read more in the
case study here.
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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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IntegrationsExamples part 4:
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Use the 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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