Configure Term Optimization and proactive plan upgrades
Increase lifetime value and reduce churn by intelligently identifying customers on a monthly plan who are likely to upgrade to longer term. Retain automatically reaches out by email, in-app, and during payment recovery.
Retain Term Optimization analyzes customer engagement and other subscription data to determine which customers are likely to upgrade to a plan with a longer term length, like a quarterly or annual plan.
Retain automatically reaches out at the right time with the right messaging — in-app, via email, or during payment recovery — prompting customers to upgrade using a secure payment form.
How it works
Customers on an annual plan have a lifetime value (LTV) that's 2-4x times higher than customers paying monthly, and they're less likely to churn. However, most customers aren't ready for a long term commitment when they first sign up.
Retain Term Optimization works to automatically upgrade customers to annual plans — no effort required on your part. Here's how it works:
Retain identifies customers who are likely to upgrade
Using customer engagement data, Retain identifies customers that are primed to upgrade to a longer-term plan.
Retain automatically prompts customers to upgrade
Retain reaches out by email, in-app notification, or during payment recovery attempts to prompt customers to upgrade to the best longer-term plan for them using a secure payment form.
Customers upgrade plans
When customers choose to upgrade, Retain takes care of it for you — automatically switching their plan in your billing platform. You can check out live dashboards to see how Term Optimization is improving cashflow and LTV.
Term Optimization targeting
You're in control of how Retain identifies customers who are likely to upgrade. There are three targeting options you can choose from:
Less churn
When you target for less churn, Retain identifies your less engaged, though not entirely unengaged, customers. These customers are more likely to churn than engaged users, so it's a good idea to lock them in on a longer plan length.
More cash
When you target for more cash, Retain identifies your highly engaged power users. These customers are much more willing to commit to an annual plan, especially since they're saving money by upgrading.
Sweet spot
When you choose the sweet spot, Retain targets a balance of both so that you're upgrading customers who are likely to churn and who are most engaged.
Outreach methods
You can choose how Retain reaches out to customers who are identified as likely to upgrade to a plan with a longer term length:
Retain sends emails prompting customers to upgrade, using messaging that's been optimized for success.
During payment recovery
Retain can prompt customers to upgrade when entering updated payment details during payment recovery.
In-app
Retain presents customers with an in-app notification, reaching customers when they're using your product.
Retain x Paddle Billing
If customers choose to upgrade using Term Optimization, Retain automatically upgrades the related subscription in Paddle Billing for you. There's no need to build logic to handle this.
Before you begin
Set up Retain
If you haven't already, connect Paddle Retain to your billing platform and set up Paddle Retain.
Use Paddle Billing? Billing automatically integrates with Retain, so you're ready to get started. Click the Paddle > Retain link to jump to Retain to review your setup.
Set up Term Optimization
Grab a copy of the Paddle Retain Term Optimization configuration template.
Fill out the spreadsheet by adding the price IDs for your monthly plans in the first column, then the corresponding annual plan price IDs in the second column. You can get price IDs by going to Paddle > Products, clicking into a product, then choosing Copy ID from the menu next to a price in the list, or by using the list prices operation.
Choose which Term Optimization targeting you want to use. You can target for (1) less churn, (2) increased revenue, or (3) both.
Choose which outreach methods you want to use. You can send emails, send in-app notifications, and prompt customers to upgrade when updating their payment method as part of payment recovery.
Send the completed spreadsheet to us at pw_product@paddle.com. In your email, let us know which Term Optimization targeting and outreach methods you want to use. We'll take care of the rest.
Simulate Term Optimization
Now you've set up Retain Term Optimization, simulate a term optimization notification or form to see how it looks for customers.
