For DTC brands, the payment page isn’t just a final step, an afterthought—it’s a revenue lever. The right mix of payment methods impacts conversion, churn, LTV, and international scale. Yet, too many businesses leave payments in finance and/or operations. While there are good reasons for it, they should, in fact, have a cross-functional element.
When considering options, the key is to adopt a customer-centric approach to payment options. As Abi Spooner, Strategy Partner at Atlas, always a strong proponent of customer-centricity, says, “Customers expect different payment methods to be available. Understanding what your audience wants and how they engage with you is essential. As much as your product needs to solve customer needs, your payment funnel needs to react to customer expectations.”
Let’s look at some of the considerations.
TL; DR:
Prioritise Conversion:Offer at least 3 top payment methods per market.
Optimise by Platform:Apps = frictionless wallets. Web = broader orchestration. Design accordingly.
Localise for Growth:Match payment methods to regional preferences. No local options = lost sales.
Treat Payments as Strategy: Don’t leave it to finance or operations alone. Payment design impacts growth, retention, and LTV.
Stay Customer-Centric: Test what works for your audience. Build payment flows that reflect actual user behaviour.
Conversion lives (or dies) on payment options
If acquisition is a priority, start at checkout. Checkout.com data shows 61% of consumers abandon a transaction if their preferred payment method isn’t available. That abandonment rate rises even higher on mobile.
According to FinTech Magazine, “retailers offering four express checkout methods (e.g. Apple Pay, PayPal, Klarna, credit cards) achieve 67% conversion rates, while those with a single option convert at 54%. Sites without express checkout options report 52% conversion rates.”
It’s even more important on mobile. “This shift (in sales via mobile devices) means businesses must optimise for mobile-friendly transactions. Traditional payment gateways can feel clunky on mobile devices, while Google Pay and Apple Pay offer a frictionless, mobile-optimised experience” (Sports Fusion).
According to Amaury de Closset, CEO and Co-founder of Limio, the general rule of thumb is to offer the three most popular methods in a country to maximise conversion. “You are generally always going to offer debit/credit cards, so the 2nd might be a popular local option such as iDEAL in the Netherlands and a global wallet like PayPal or Apple Pay. Below that, you risk losing some customers by not offering their favourite method; above that, you create cognitive overload in selecting the payment method.”
Key takeaway: Payment Methods are not neutral—they’re active participants in conversion.
2. Involuntary churn is a silent killer
Involuntary churn—customers lost to failed payments, expired cards, and billing errors—often accounts for 20–40% of total churn in subscription models. That can be a costly problem.
According to Recurly (2025), the median subscriber churn rate across industry sectors are as follows:
Voluntary
Involuntary
All industries
2.5%
0.9%
Education
4.2%
1.3%
Digital media and entertainment
3.7%
1.8%
Consumer goods and retail
3.3%
0.8%
Software
2.2%
0.7%
Business and professional services
2.6%
0.8%
Publishing
2.1%
1.1%
Recovery is possible. For involuntary churners, smart retry logic, account updater services (e.g., Visa Account Updater), and dunning workflows can recover up to 75% of failed payments.
According to the Recurly report, referring to involuntary churn, “engaging with the subscribers early in their lifecycle is important, but it is even more important to understand that nearly half of the subscriber journey takes place after a missing payment has been recovered.”
Key takeaway: Benchmark your involuntary churn monthly. If it’s high, build intervention paths.
Payment method shapes customer psychology
Digital wallets do more than speed checkout—they lower the perceived pain of paying. A 2024 paper on arXiv found that digital wallet users (such as Apple Pay) experienced lower friction and hesitation at checkout, suggesting greater ease and confidence compared to traditional card users.
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), meanwhile, can be critical for subscription bundles with higher upfront costs. Services such as Klarna, Affirm or Afterpay remove friction by helping customers commit to fixed instalment plans without upfront cash strain. For example, businesses on Stripe have seen up to 14 per cent increases in revenue with BNPL services.
Key takeaway: Payment type can change a buyer’s mindset. Offer what supports commitment, not just completion.
4. Websites and Apps: Two sides of the coin
Psychological differences also play a role in how consumers approach payments on websites versus mobile apps. According to Baymard Institute‘s comprehensive mobile UX research, checkout experiences differ significantly between platforms, with mobile app users benefiting from streamlined processes where “stored address information and payment details can be used repeatedly” compared to mobile websites.
This convenience factor extends beyond mere usability—neuroscience research published in Frontiers in Psychology demonstrates that mobile payment methods create both reduced “pain of paying” and increased “pleasure of paying” compared to traditional payment methods. The implications are clear: consumers develop different psychological expectations and tolerances for friction depending on whether they’re shopping through a browser or a native app.
According to Steve Price, Atlas’ Membership Partner, “altering payment types within your checkout for websites and mobile” is important. “People are more likely to complete a DD or SERPS on desktop than on mobile, because [on mobile] they are conditioned for simple one- or two-click payment. For example, for iOS, have Apply Pay as the first option and Google Pay for others. It’s about thinking of the consumer who could be about to order and what they are expecting–even sub-consciously.”
A Nielsen Norman Group article also highlights the psychological differences to consider. “Entering credit-card details is labour-intensive, annoying, and, especially on mobile, error-prone,” which drives a higher preference for alternative payment methods like Apple Pay and PayPal on mobile platforms.” Something that seems so obvious when viewed from a customer-centric perspective, but that is often overlooked.
Mumbai-based Suprio Guha Thakurta is a business growth consultant and former Chief Strategy Officer of The Economist. He Thakurta offers four tips:
Mobile-Optimized Payment Methods: Prioritise frictionless payment options, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other stored-wallet solutions, in apps to avoid abandonment caused by tedious form fills. These options consistently deliver higher in-app conversions (up to 20–30% better than manual card entry).
App Store Payment Constraints: Factor in platform commissions (Apple’s 15–30% fees) and limitations when designing pricing strategies for app subscriptions, encouraging web-based sign-ups with lower friction and fewer fees.
Cross-Channel Consistency: Web environments benefit from versatile payment orchestration and direct integrations with bank debits, while [mobile web] and apps should leverage native wallet integrations that provide a seamless user experience.
Technical Considerations: Recognise that retry logic, update notifications, and error messaging differ significantly between web and app settings; optimise accordingly to maximise conversions and minimise churn.
Key takeaway: Adopt a customer-centric approach to design a platform-appropriate checkout UX.
The general case for Alternative Payment Methods (APMs): According to APEXX, the general outlook for APMs is highly positive. “Digital wallets, for instance, are expected to account for 54 per cent of global e-commerce transactions by 2026, while credit and debit cards represent 16 and 10 per cent of transactions, respectively.”
However, as this Primer article explains, providing highly localised payment methods is crucial for staying competitive. Many consumers expect to see their preferred local payment options available at checkout. Without these options, you risk losing valuable conversions.”
Steve (Atlas) agrees. “Just because one works in one territory, it may not work in another. At The Telegraph, PayPal was less popular in the UK [while] it was more popular in the US.” However, there was also a churn consideration. “Churn was higher in the US, so we had to test and learn about where to place PayPal in the checkout, especially on mobile, to balance initial acquisition quantity versus quality (survival and churn).”
Suprio (growth consultant; ex-Economist) told me that in India, “local payment methods like UPI/Paytm significantly outperform cards due to regulatory and consumer preference factors, reducing payment failures from over 20% with cards to ~3–5% with UPI or Paytm.”
Commenting on global e-commerce growth, emerchantpay writes that “merchants must adapt and tailor their payment offerings to meet the payment preferences of specific countries and markets. For example, consider including Pix for Brazilian consumers and SEPA Direct Debit for payments within the European Union. By aligning your payment strategy with hyper-localised APMs which address the unique demands of their consumers, merchants can elevate their payment experience and maximise conversions.” The same applies for subscriptions.
Key takeaway: Align your checkout options with local market preferences.
6. Payments are a growth system, not a backend task
Still routing all payment issues to ops or finance? That’s arguably a missed opportunity. Payments intersect with:
Acquisition: More methods = more customers
Retention: Fewer failures = longer lifespan
Expansion: Localised checkouts = wider reach
One school of thought is to treat payments as a product, much like UX or marketing.
For Suprio (growth consultant; ex-Economist), “Payments should unquestionably be viewed as a strategic growth function rather than a mere operational necessity. Payment optimisation directly influences top-line revenue through increased authorisation rates, improved customer retention, lower involuntary churn, and enhanced customer lifetime value (LTV).
“Subscription companies investing strategically in payments—employing intelligent retries, payment orchestration, proactive expiry management, and locally tailored methods—report substantial ROI, with revenue lifts of 5–10% annually from reduced churn alone.
“Organisations that approach payments strategically (with dedicated payment teams, sophisticated analytics, and proactive payment innovation) gain competitive advantage, turning what traditionally was seen as cost-management into a powerful growth lever.”
Amaury (Limio) emphasises the cross-functional nature: “The basics of payments are operational and should have its permanent home with the Finance team. However, your growth team or product team should also continue to explore strategic growth initiatives related to payments, such as rolling out a new payment method to enhance conversion or retention.
“Some initiatives can be pretty finance-focused, e.g. optimising which payment gateway you use to process payments in a specific geography or adding more fraud screening – those could just be driven by Finance. [However] overall, payments are a core part of the customer experience, so there will always be a cross-functional element.”
Key takeaway: Make payment methods part of strategic, not just operational, thinking.
The final word The payment page is where intent becomes revenue. For subscription brands, it’s not enough to build great products—you need to remove every barrier between customer desire and customer conversion. Get the payment experience right, and it will support your overall endeavours: higher conversion, lower churn, and sustainable growth at scale.
Heyl is a Content Partner at Atlas and Founder of That Coalition, a fractional event services and content provider.
Heyl has worked with third-party clients such as Chartbeat, Lineup Systems, and Tubular Labs in Europe and the US, Prospect in the UK, and industry bodies such as PRCA (Communications and Public Affairs) in the UK, MVFP (German Publishers Association) and the Association of Indian Media (AIM).
Subscribe! Our editor carefully curates two InternetRetailing newsletters a week filled with up-to-date news, analysis and research. In addition to this, there is a dedictaed mailer focusing on the subscription economy with detailed commentary from Heyl every second Wednesday – click here to subscribe to the FREE newsletter.
And why not follow us on LinkedIn to receive the latest updates on our research and analysis.
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You are in: Home » Subscriptions » Payments are a growth leader: Why subscription strategies need checkout intelligence
Payments are a growth leader: Why subscription strategies need checkout intelligence
Cobus Heyl
For DTC brands, the payment page isn’t just a final step, an afterthought—it’s a revenue lever. The right mix of payment methods impacts conversion, churn, LTV, and international scale. Yet, too many businesses leave payments in finance and/or operations. While there are good reasons for it, they should, in fact, have a cross-functional element.
When considering options, the key is to adopt a customer-centric approach to payment options. As Abi Spooner, Strategy Partner at Atlas, always a strong proponent of customer-centricity, says, “Customers expect different payment methods to be available. Understanding what your audience wants and how they engage with you is essential. As much as your product needs to solve customer needs, your payment funnel needs to react to customer expectations.”
Let’s look at some of the considerations.
TL; DR:
If acquisition is a priority, start at checkout. Checkout.com data shows 61% of consumers abandon a transaction if their preferred payment method isn’t available. That abandonment rate rises even higher on mobile.
According to FinTech Magazine, “retailers offering four express checkout methods (e.g. Apple Pay, PayPal, Klarna, credit cards) achieve 67% conversion rates, while those with a single option convert at 54%. Sites without express checkout options report 52% conversion rates.”
It’s even more important on mobile. “This shift (in sales via mobile devices) means businesses must optimise for mobile-friendly transactions. Traditional payment gateways can feel clunky on mobile devices, while Google Pay and Apple Pay offer a frictionless, mobile-optimised experience” (Sports Fusion).
According to Amaury de Closset, CEO and Co-founder of Limio, the general rule of thumb is to offer the three most popular methods in a country to maximise conversion. “You are generally always going to offer debit/credit cards, so the 2nd might be a popular local option such as iDEAL in the Netherlands and a global wallet like PayPal or Apple Pay. Below that, you risk losing some customers by not offering their favourite method; above that, you create cognitive overload in selecting the payment method.”
Key takeaway: Payment Methods are not neutral—they’re active participants in conversion.
2. Involuntary churn is a silent killer
Involuntary churn—customers lost to failed payments, expired cards, and billing errors—often accounts for 20–40% of total churn in subscription models. That can be a costly problem.
According to Recurly (2025), the median subscriber churn rate across industry sectors are as follows:
Recovery is possible. For involuntary churners, smart retry logic, account updater services (e.g., Visa Account Updater), and dunning workflows can recover up to 75% of failed payments.
According to the Recurly report, referring to involuntary churn, “engaging with the subscribers early in their lifecycle is important, but it is even more important to understand that nearly half of the subscriber journey takes place after a missing payment has been recovered.”
Key takeaway: Benchmark your involuntary churn monthly. If it’s high, build intervention paths.
Digital wallets do more than speed checkout—they lower the perceived pain of paying. A 2024 paper on arXiv found that digital wallet users (such as Apple Pay) experienced lower friction and hesitation at checkout, suggesting greater ease and confidence compared to traditional card users.
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), meanwhile, can be critical for subscription bundles with higher upfront costs. Services such as Klarna, Affirm or Afterpay remove friction by helping customers commit to fixed instalment plans without upfront cash strain. For example, businesses on Stripe have seen up to 14 per cent increases in revenue with BNPL services.
Key takeaway: Payment type can change a buyer’s mindset. Offer what supports commitment, not just completion.
4. Websites and Apps: Two sides of the coin
Psychological differences also play a role in how consumers approach payments on websites versus mobile apps. According to Baymard Institute‘s comprehensive mobile UX research, checkout experiences differ significantly between platforms, with mobile app users benefiting from streamlined processes where “stored address information and payment details can be used repeatedly” compared to mobile websites.
This convenience factor extends beyond mere usability—neuroscience research published in Frontiers in Psychology demonstrates that mobile payment methods create both reduced “pain of paying” and increased “pleasure of paying” compared to traditional payment methods. The implications are clear: consumers develop different psychological expectations and tolerances for friction depending on whether they’re shopping through a browser or a native app.
According to Steve Price, Atlas’ Membership Partner, “altering payment types within your checkout for websites and mobile” is important. “People are more likely to complete a DD or SERPS on desktop than on mobile, because [on mobile] they are conditioned for simple one- or two-click payment. For example, for iOS, have Apply Pay as the first option and Google Pay for others. It’s about thinking of the consumer who could be about to order and what they are expecting–even sub-consciously.”
A Nielsen Norman Group article also highlights the psychological differences to consider. “Entering credit-card details is labour-intensive, annoying, and, especially on mobile, error-prone,” which drives a higher preference for alternative payment methods like Apple Pay and PayPal on mobile platforms.” Something that seems so obvious when viewed from a customer-centric perspective, but that is often overlooked.
Mumbai-based Suprio Guha Thakurta is a business growth consultant and former Chief Strategy Officer of The Economist. He Thakurta offers four tips:
Key takeaway: Adopt a customer-centric approach to design a platform-appropriate checkout UX.
5. Go global? Localise or stall.
Expanding internationally? Checkout localisation isn’t optional—it’s foundational.
The general case for Alternative Payment Methods (APMs): According to APEXX, the general outlook for APMs is highly positive. “Digital wallets, for instance, are expected to account for 54 per cent of global e-commerce transactions by 2026, while credit and debit cards represent 16 and 10 per cent of transactions, respectively.”
However, as this Primer article explains, providing highly localised payment methods is crucial for staying competitive. Many consumers expect to see their preferred local payment options available at checkout. Without these options, you risk losing valuable conversions.”
Steve (Atlas) agrees. “Just because one works in one territory, it may not work in another. At The Telegraph, PayPal was less popular in the UK [while] it was more popular in the US.” However, there was also a churn consideration. “Churn was higher in the US, so we had to test and learn about where to place PayPal in the checkout, especially on mobile, to balance initial acquisition quantity versus quality (survival and churn).”
Suprio (growth consultant; ex-Economist) told me that in India, “local payment methods like UPI/Paytm significantly outperform cards due to regulatory and consumer preference factors, reducing payment failures from over 20% with cards to ~3–5% with UPI or Paytm.”
Commenting on global e-commerce growth, emerchantpay writes that “merchants must adapt and tailor their payment offerings to meet the payment preferences of specific countries and markets. For example, consider including Pix for Brazilian consumers and SEPA Direct Debit for payments within the European Union. By aligning your payment strategy with hyper-localised APMs which address the unique demands of their consumers, merchants can elevate their payment experience and maximise conversions.” The same applies for subscriptions.
Key takeaway: Align your checkout options with local market preferences.
6. Payments are a growth system, not a backend task
Still routing all payment issues to ops or finance? That’s arguably a missed opportunity. Payments intersect with:
One school of thought is to treat payments as a product, much like UX or marketing.
For Suprio (growth consultant; ex-Economist), “Payments should unquestionably be viewed as a strategic growth function rather than a mere operational necessity. Payment optimisation directly influences top-line revenue through increased authorisation rates, improved customer retention, lower involuntary churn, and enhanced customer lifetime value (LTV).
“Subscription companies investing strategically in payments—employing intelligent retries, payment orchestration, proactive expiry management, and locally tailored methods—report substantial ROI, with revenue lifts of 5–10% annually from reduced churn alone.
“Organisations that approach payments strategically (with dedicated payment teams, sophisticated analytics, and proactive payment innovation) gain competitive advantage, turning what traditionally was seen as cost-management into a powerful growth lever.”
Amaury (Limio) emphasises the cross-functional nature: “The basics of payments are operational and should have its permanent home with the Finance team. However, your growth team or product team should also continue to explore strategic growth initiatives related to payments, such as rolling out a new payment method to enhance conversion or retention.
“Some initiatives can be pretty finance-focused, e.g. optimising which payment gateway you use to process payments in a specific geography or adding more fraud screening – those could just be driven by Finance. [However] overall, payments are a core part of the customer experience, so there will always be a cross-functional element.”
Key takeaway: Make payment methods part of strategic, not just operational, thinking.
The final word
The payment page is where intent becomes revenue. For subscription brands, it’s not enough to build great products—you need to remove every barrier between customer desire and customer conversion. Get the payment experience right, and it will support your overall endeavours: higher conversion, lower churn, and sustainable growth at scale.
Cobus Heyl
Heyl is a Content Partner at Atlas and Founder of That Coalition, a fractional event services and content provider.
Heyl has worked with third-party clients such as Chartbeat, Lineup Systems, and Tubular Labs in Europe and the US, Prospect in the UK, and industry bodies such as PRCA (Communications and Public Affairs) in the UK, MVFP (German Publishers Association) and the Association of Indian Media (AIM).
Subscribe!
Our editor carefully curates two InternetRetailing newsletters a week filled with up-to-date news, analysis and research. In addition to this, there is a dedictaed mailer focusing on the subscription economy with detailed commentary from Heyl every second Wednesday – click here to subscribe to the FREE newsletter.
And why not follow us on LinkedIn to receive the latest updates on our research and analysis.
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