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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