4 payments insights that will change how publishers operate

The publishing landscape is undergoing a significant transformation driven by economic uncertainty, new technology, and evolving consumer behavior. To thrive in today's unpredictable environment, publishers must adapt—starting with their payment processes.

Continue reading to discover valuable insights drawn from an in-depth analysis of media publishers. By the end of this article, you will have everything you need to improve subscriber retention, unlock international growth, enhance the effectiveness of your promotions, and recover more high-quality subscribers.

1. Retention isn’t just about great content—it’s about solving involuntary churn

Retention is more challenging than ever. Inflation, shrinking consumer budgets, and the rise of free-to-read alternatives have made subscription loyalty increasingly fragile. In response, many publishers have invested heavily in engagement strategies like newsletters, podcasts, and games designed to deepen relationships with their audience.

However, many publishers have overlooked the most impactful way to improve retention: addressing involuntary churn. Also known as passive churn, involuntary churn occurs when a legitimate payment transaction fails, causing a subscriber's recurring order to be cancelled, despite wanting to stay enrolled. Our data shows that involuntary churn accounts for up to half of all cancellations across various industries.

The missed opportunity is substantial. Publishers that prioritize reducing involuntary churn through effective payment recovery can boost their top-line revenue by 10% or more, all without changing pricing or launching new marketing campaigns.

The lesson is clear: Retention isn’t just about creating more engaging content; it's also about ensuring that paying subscribers never slip through the cracks.

Did you know? When compared to the broader subscription market, publishers experience 6% more failed payments on initial transactions. This difference highlights the outsized revenue impact that failed payments have on publishers.

Learn how to evaluate a recovery solution: 10 questions to ask your next payment recovery solution.

2. Global recovery strategies are outdated

Expanding into international markets has become a popular growth strategy, but it comes with unexpected payment challenges. Recovery rates in these markets are often much lower than anticipated.

Our research indicates that this issue is most prevalent among publishers relying on one-size-fits-all recovery solutions. These systems tend to retry failed payments a fixed number of times over a set period, regardless of the transaction's origin. While this approach may seem reasonable, it overlooks the variations in payment infrastructure, banking systems, and consumer behavior across different regions.

The good news is that low recovery rates in international markets are not a demand issue—they're a strategy issue. Machine learning models that analyze historical payment performance and tailor retries based on each country's financial infrastructure can significantly improve recovery rates. In short, growth in new markets is not only about content localization; it’s also about payment localization.

Did you know? Generic decline codes, such as “Do not honor” and “Cannot authorize at this time (Policy),” drive up to 25% of failed payments in the Asia-Pacific region, suggesting systemic bank-level friction rather than true customer churn.

3. Your trial promotions need a reset

Many publishers mistakenly believe that trial-to-paid conversion issues stem from marketing or content. They assume that marketing needs to adjust its messaging or that editorial content must provide more value. However, our analysis shows that the primary challenge often lies in payment processing.

In the media industry, first invoices are 3 times more likely to fail than recurring invoices. This makes the transition from trial to paying subscriber the most precarious point in the entire customer journey.

This is why publishers should rethink their trial design. Here are some recommendations:

Charge a nominal fee instead of offering a free trial to filter out low-quality subscribers who are unlikely to convert.
Don’t accept prepaid cards. They are correlated with lower customer quality and higher fraud exposure. We found that the dispute rate of prepaid cards is 5 times higher than that of other payment methods.
Consider extending your trial period, especially when combined with a nominal fee. This allows high-quality subscribers more time to appreciate the value of your publication.

The take-home is that trial conversions fail not because your messaging is ineffective or your content lacks appeal, but because your payment processes are not optimized.

Did you know? In the media industry, first invoices are 3 times more likely to fail than recurring ones.

4. Not all recovered revenue carries the same value

For many media companies, the default strategy for recovering failed payments is to send emails or SMS messages. However, data shows that using this approach as your primary method of recovery is ineffective and costs publishers millions.

Enterprise media companies that rely solely on these dunning communications to recover failed payments typically lose an average of $10 million in revenue each year. And that’s just the immediate hit. Subscribers who are recovered through dunning communications also churn at twice the rate of those whose payments are recovered through algorithmic retries.

In other words, a $10 million problem can balloon to a $20-30 million problem when the loss of customer lifetime value is factored in.

The takeaway here is clear: Not all recovery methods are equal, and not all recovered revenue carries the same long-term value. Dunning communications shifts the problem back onto the subscriber, often frustrating them at a fragile moment in the relationship. In contrast, automatic retries address the issue quietly, safeguarding the subscriber experience and preserving future revenue.

Did you know? Subscribers recovered through algorithmic retires stay enrolled 2 times longer than those recovered through dunning communications.

What publishers should take away

Lack of focus on involuntary churn, outdated global recovery strategies, fragile trial conversions, and an over-reliance on dunning communication point to a bigger truth: Publishers have yet to harness payments growth potential.

The publishers who succeed in the coming years won’t just deliver great journalism or build addictive games. They’ll also master the invisible infrastructure that keeps subscribers paying, month after month, year after year.

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