woop01 - 9:01 pm on Oct 2, 2006 (gmt 0)

I know others have said it but auto-renewal is by far and away the best way to improve your renewal rates.

90%+ of my income comes from automatic renewal subscriptions. I can only imagine how annoying it would be for my customers to have to go through the payment process every single month they remain with my sites. It would absolutely destroy our renewal rates. We also offer a mail in option for customers who aren’t comfortable paying online and the biggest problem with have with them is they get upset when their subscription level drops at the end of the term because they aren’t on auto-renewal.

You claim the main reason you don’t want to use auto-renewal is the chargeback issue. Why would you make it more difficult for your valuable customers to continue paying you just so you could avoid dealing with a few idiots who don’t read directions?

If you want to avoid them, make it clear that your subscriptions automatically renew and give your customers detailed directions on how to cancel them. We use Paypal for most of our subscriptions and between Paypal and our own pages, users are told six times during our subscription process that they will need to cancel their subscription if they don’t want to be billed again.

I will no longer tolerate an auto renewal on a 6 - 12 term - for anything. Can't remember that last one that I saw that was handled well. Typically, the longer the term, the lower the ethics. If the service is valuable enough to me, I will renew. If not.....

Have you heard of this site? [webmasterworld.com ]

The bottom line is asking how to increase online subscription renewal rates without automatic renewals is like asking how to make your car go faster without starting the engine.