Series

Running a Subscription Business

The engineering behind recurring revenue: peak trading, failed payments, strong customer authentication and micro-donations.

4 parts · 20 min total reading
  1. 1
    Scale & Performancepeak tradingload testingk6

    Peak Trading Readiness: How We Prepare a Subscription Platform for Valentine's Day

    For a flower subscription business, Valentine's Day is our Black Friday. Here's the readiness playbook I use: load testing, capacity planning, change freezes, kill switches, runbooks and a calm war room.

    6 Feb 2024 · 6 min read
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  2. 2
    Engineeringpaymentssubscriptionschurn

    Involuntary Churn: The Engineering Behind Recovering Failed Subscription Payments

    Some of the customers a subscription business loses never chose to leave. Their card simply failed. I treat failed-payment recovery as an engineering system: smart retries, decline handling, card updaters and dunning, all built on idempotent, observable queues.

    19 Mar 2024 · 6 min read
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  3. 3
    ArchitecturepaymentsSCAPSD2

    SCA, 3D Secure 2 and Recurring Payments: An Architect's Guide for Subscription Platforms

    Strong Customer Authentication changed how subscription businesses take card payments. Here's how I think about 3D Secure 2, merchant-initiated transactions, exemptions and keeping PCI DSS scope small now that v4.0 is the only version in town.

    14 May 2024 · 6 min read
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  4. 4
    CTO CraftPenniescharityaward

    Winning the Pennies Unsung Hero Award: What Micro-Donations Mean in Tech

    In October 2024, I received the Unsung Hero Award from Pennies at their 5th Annual Awards ceremony. This is what micro-donations look like from the engineering side, and why it matters.

    20 Oct 2024 · 2 min read
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