8+ years growing brands on KPIs, now with AI
Stop Leaking MRR on Recharge
We build retention and acquisition systems that grow subscriber LTV, cut churn, and compound your recurring revenue.
8+ years growing DTC brands · Google, Meta & TikTok Partner · AI-powered where it moves the number
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The Challenge
Running Recharge Means Managing a Revenue Engine That Leaks in Slow Motion
Your Recharge dashboard tells you what happened. It rarely tells you why, or where the leak is before it compounds.
Subscription brands on Recharge face a specific, layered problem: MRR looks stable while the cohort underneath it is quietly collapsing. A blended churn number of 6% can mask a failed-payment queue that's never been properly dunned, an M1→M3 drop-off that's been normalized, and a cancellation flow that's sending 40% of save-offer traffic to a dead-end page.
The first-renewal cliff is real. Between 40 and 60 percent of subscription churn decisions happen after the first delivery. If your post-purchase onboarding flow is a single confirmation email and a 'your next box ships in 30 days' Klaviyo message, you're losing subscribers before they've had a chance to become loyal ones.
On the acquisition side, the attribution problem is structural. Meta and Google see your first-order revenue. They don't see that the subscriber who paid $49 on day one is worth $420 over 12 months, so your ROAS targets are calibrated to the wrong number, and you're systematically underspending on the cohorts that actually build MRR.
And when you're operating at $5M to $50M ARR, an NRR drift from 92% to 84% is a $400K-plus annual revenue hole that won't show up in your new-customer dashboards until it's already done the damage.
The Opportunity
The Brands Compounding MRR Right Now Are Winning on Infrastructure, Not Product
Recharge's own 2025 State of Subscription Commerce data makes this stark: the gap between top-quartile and bottom-quartile net revenue retention has widened to 34 percentage points, and the differentiator isn't product quality. It's automation infrastructure.
That gap is your opportunity. The 32% of subscription brands that layer additional tooling on top of their billing platform's built-in automation achieve 2.1x higher net revenue retention than the 68% running on defaults. Most of your competitors are in that 68%.
On the retention side: brands running multi-step, reason-routed cancellation flows retain 3 to 5 times more subscribers at the point of cancellation than brands showing a single 'are you sure?' modal. Brands that send six or more lifecycle touchpoints between sign-up and third renewal see 42% lower voluntary churn. Annual prepaid plans reduce churn by 51% compared to monthly plans, and annual subscribers are 2.4x more profitable.
On the recovery side: Recharge's built-in dunning recovers an average of 28% of failed payments. Brands that connect Recharge to external multi-channel dunning sequences recover 55 to 65%, a 2x improvement. For a brand processing 5,000 recurring orders monthly at $50 AOV with 3.5% involuntary churn, that gap is $52,500 to $73,500 in recovered revenue per year, from infrastructure that runs without you.
On acquisition: if you're bidding to a 2.5x ROAS on first-order revenue and your subscriber LTV is $300 over 12 months on a $49 first order, you're leaving your most profitable channel underfunded. Anchoring acquisition ROAS to subscriber LTV (by cohort, by channel) is the unlock that lets you outspend competitors who are still optimizing for the wrong number.
What Most Get Wrong
What Most Recharge Brands Get Wrong (and What Generic Agencies Miss Entirely)
Running blended churn as the only churn metric
Active and passive churn require completely different interventions. A brand with 6% blended monthly churn might have 2% voluntary churn that's addressable with better cancellation flows and 4% involuntary churn that's addressable with dunning, but if you're only watching the blended number, you're treating both problems with neither solution. For DTC subscription, healthy gross revenue retention sits at 60–75%; if you don't know your GRR vs. NRR split, you don't know which lever to pull.
Ignoring the M1 cliff and calling it 'normal churn'
When 40 to 60 percent of churn decisions happen after the first delivery, your onboarding sequence is your retention strategy. Brands that normalize first-renewal drop-off as 'expected' are leaving the highest-leverage intervention point untouched. A three-email welcome series that doesn't address product usage, expectation-setting, or subscription value will hemorrhage subscribers that a properly sequenced flow would have kept.
Optimizing acquisition ROAS to first-order revenue
Meta and Google don't know your subscriber LTV. If you're telling them to optimize toward a $49 conversion, they'll find you customers who pay $49 once. The brands compounding MRR are feeding subscriber LTV data (by cohort, by channel) back into their ad platforms and bidding to the 12-month value of a subscriber, not the day-one transaction. Without this, you're systematically underspending on the highest-LTV acquisition channels.
Leaving Recharge's dunning on default settings and calling it handled
Recharge's built-in dunning recovers 28% of failed payments on average. That's the floor, not the ceiling. Brands that treat the default three-retry sequence as 'good enough' are leaving a 2x recovery improvement on the table. Multi-channel dunning sequences (email, SMS, and smart retry logic) push recovery rates to 55–65%. For most Recharge brands at scale, this is the highest-ROI infrastructure investment available.
Staying on legacy Recharge checkout and losing the Shopify extensibility stack
Brands still on Recharge's legacy checkout (pre-SCI migration) can't access Shopify Functions discount logic, post-purchase upsell extensions, or Shop Pay's full conversion stack. Shopify Checkout Extensibility was mandatory for all Shopify Plus stores by 2025. If your Recharge instance hasn't completed the SCI migration, you're locked out of the tools your competitors on native checkout are using to lift conversion and add prepaid term selectors, frequency options, and gift subscription flows at checkout.
Why Now
The Consolidation Just Reshuffled the Playing Field: Here's the Window
In April 2026, Recharge acquired Skio for a reported $105 million. The 'incumbent vs. scrappy challenger' dynamic that defined the subscription platform market for three years is over. The market has collapsed into effectively two players: Recharge (now including Skio) and Smartrr.
That consolidation creates a specific window. Brands that were on Skio are evaluating their stack. Brands on Recharge that were watching Skio as an exit option are now recommitting, or shopping alternatives. The competitive intelligence that operators built up comparing the two platforms is suddenly less useful, and the brands that move fastest to optimize their Recharge infrastructure during this period of market recalibration will be the ones that compound MRR while competitors are distracted by platform decisions.
At the same time, AI is changing what's possible in subscription retention at the operational level. AI-powered payment retry logic (not fixed-interval dunning schedules) is recovering failed payments at rates that weren't achievable 18 months ago. AI-assisted cancellation flow personalization, where the save offer routes dynamically based on stated cancellation reason and subscriber tenure, is retaining subscribers that static flows lose. And AI-driven cohort analysis can surface an M2 churn signal in week three of a subscriber's lifecycle, before the cancellation happens.
Most Recharge brands are still running the default infrastructure. The window to build a compounding retention and acquisition system (before your competitors do) is open now, not after the next platform update cycle.
The Mechanism
Where AI Creates Real Edge for Recharge Subscription Brands
Real productivity, not AI theater. Here's where it actually moves a number for recharge subscription brands.
Analytics and Cohort Intelligence
What AI does: AI monitors your Recharge subscriber cohorts continuously (M1, M3, M6, M12 retention curves by acquisition channel, offer type, and product) and flags deteriorating cohorts before they compound into MRR erosion. It separates active churn from passive churn automatically and surfaces which cancellation reasons are spiking before they show up in your monthly report.
The result: Brands catch the M1→M3 cliff early enough to intervene with targeted re-engagement, and stop treating blended churn as a single number that requires a single solution.
Why it matters here: For a Recharge brand at $10M ARR, an NRR drift from 92% to 84% is a $800K annual revenue hole. Catching a cohort deterioration signal six weeks earlier than a monthly manual review gives you the intervention window that manual reporting doesn't.
Email and Klaviyo Flow Architecture
What AI does: We build and optimize the Klaviyo flows triggered by Recharge subscriber events (failed charge, upcoming order, skip, cancel intent, reactivation) using AI to test subject lines, send-time optimization, and offer sequencing at a volume and speed that manual A/B testing can't match. Subscription brands that send six or more lifecycle touchpoints between sign-up and third renewal see 42% lower voluntary churn; we build the infrastructure to hit that threshold reliably.
The result: A fully architected Recharge-to-Klaviyo event stack: dunning sequences that escalate across email and SMS, pre-ship engagement flows that reduce skip rates, and cancel-intent flows that route save offers by stated reason (pause, frequency change, or discount) instead of showing every subscriber the same modal.
Why it matters here: The first-renewal cliff is the highest-leverage intervention point in the subscriber lifecycle. A properly sequenced onboarding and re-engagement flow addresses it systematically; a single confirmation email doesn't. For replenishment subscriptions running 4–7% monthly churn, moving the voluntary churn component by even 1.5 points is a compounding MRR gain.
Paid Acquisition Anchored to Subscriber LTV
What AI does: We restructure your Meta and Google campaigns around subscriber LTV by cohort and channel, not first-order AOV. AI bidding strategies are fed subscriber value data so the platforms optimize toward the customers who stay 12 months, not the customers who pay once. We run creative testing at the volume needed to identify which angles attract high-retention cohorts versus high-churn ones.
The result: Acquisition ROAS targets that reflect what a subscriber is actually worth (typically 2 to 3x the first-order value over 12 months) and campaign structures that scale the channels bringing in subscribers with the strongest M6 and M12 retention curves.
Why it matters here: If you're bidding to a 2.5x ROAS on a $49 first order and your subscriber LTV is $290 over 12 months, you're leaving your most profitable acquisition channels underfunded. Reanchoring to LTV changes which campaigns scale and which get cut, and it changes your MRR trajectory more than any single retention tactic.
Conversion Optimization for Subscription Checkout
What AI does: AI-assisted analysis of your Recharge checkout flow (subscription offer placement, frequency selector design, subscribe-and-save discount framing, prepaid vs. pay-as-you-go offer architecture) identifies conversion leaks and tests fixes at a pace that manual CRO can't sustain. For brands on SCI (Shopify Checkout Integration), we use Shopify Functions and Checkout Extensibility to implement subscription-specific discount logic, prepaid term options, and gift subscription flows that legacy checkout can't support.
The result: Higher subscription opt-in rates at checkout, more subscribers choosing annual prepaid plans (which reduce churn by 51% vs. monthly), and a checkout flow that's fully compatible with Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay's conversion stack.
Why it matters here: Annual subscribers are 2.4x more profitable than monthly subscribers. A checkout flow that presents prepaid options clearly and reduces friction at the frequency-selection step directly shifts your subscriber mix toward the cohort with the highest LTV, before a single retention tactic is needed.
Creative for Subscription Acquisition and Retention
What AI does: We produce and test subscription-specific creative at a volume that identifies the angles attracting high-LTV subscribers, not just high-volume converters. For acquisition, that means testing value-proposition angles (convenience, savings, discovery, community) against each other to find which drives subscribers who stay. For retention and win-back, AI helps us generate and test personalized reactivation creative that matches the subscriber's cancellation reason.
The result: A creative system that generates 5x more testable angles per week than a traditional production process, with performance data segmented by subscriber retention outcome, not just click-through rate or first-order ROAS.
Why it matters here: Subscription acquisition creative that converts browsers into subscribers who cancel after one box is worse than creative that converts fewer but keeps them for 12 months. Testing creative against M3 retention (not just CPA) is the discipline that separates subscription-native creative strategy from standard ecommerce ad production.
Ready to see what this looks like for your recharge subscription brands business?
No obligation. A senior strategist will show you exactly where the wins are.
The Strategy
How Subscription Marketing Should Actually Be Run on Recharge
Most agencies run subscription brands like they're running a standard ecommerce store with a recurring billing plugin. They optimize for first-order ROAS, build a welcome email, and call the retention strategy done. That's not a subscription strategy; it's a customer acquisition strategy with a churn problem attached.
A real Recharge marketing strategy starts with the MRR model, works backward to the subscriber LTV by channel, and builds acquisition and retention infrastructure around those numbers.
On acquisition: Google Search captures high-intent subscribe-and-save queries ('monthly coffee subscription,' 'supplement subscription box') where the buyer has already decided they want a recurring product. Meta and TikTok handle prospecting and creative-led discovery, but campaigns are structured around subscriber LTV cohorts, not first-order conversion. Every acquisition channel is measured against the question: what is the 12-month value of the subscriber this channel brings in, and is the cost-per-subscriber justified by that number?
On retention infrastructure: the Recharge-to-Klaviyo event stack is the operational backbone. Every subscriber event (failed charge, upcoming order, skip, cancel intent, reactivation) triggers a specific flow. Dunning sequences escalate across email and SMS, not just email. Cancel flows route by stated reason (price, frequency, product dissatisfaction) and surface the appropriate save offer: pause, frequency reduction, or discount. The goal is to make active cancellation harder than staying, without being manipulative.
On cohort management: we track M1, M3, M6, and M12 retention by acquisition channel and offer type. When a cohort shows early deterioration (a drop in M1→M2 retention that's outside the baseline) we intervene before it compounds. We separate passive churn (failed payments) from active churn (deliberate cancellations) and address each with the appropriate tool.
On prepaid conversion: annual plans are the single highest-impact retention lever available on Recharge. A subscriber on an annual prepaid plan churns at roughly half the rate of a monthly subscriber. Checkout flow optimization, post-purchase upsell to annual, and targeted annual-offer campaigns are built into the strategy from the start, not added as an afterthought.
The result is a system where MRR compounds because acquisition brings in high-LTV subscribers, retention infrastructure keeps them, and the metrics that govern both decisions are the right ones.
The one number that governs this
The governing metrics: MRR growth rate, NRR (trailing 3-month average), active vs. passive churn split, subscriber LTV by acquisition channel, and acquisition ROAS anchored to 12-month subscriber value, not first-order AOV.
How We Help
What We'd Actually Build for Your Recharge Brand
We take on a limited number of subscription clients so every engagement gets senior attention. Here's how we'd map our capabilities onto the strategy above, starting with the highest-leverage infrastructure and building from there.
Subscription Analytics and Cohort Audit
Before anything else, we establish what your numbers actually are: GRR vs. NRR, active vs. passive churn split, M1/M3/M6/M12 retention curves by acquisition channel, and whether your current reporting is giving you an accurate picture or a blended number that's masking the real problem. This is the foundation everything else is built on.
Recharge-to-Klaviyo Flow Architecture
We build or rebuild the full Klaviyo event stack triggered by Recharge subscriber events: failed charge dunning sequences (email + SMS escalation), pre-ship engagement, cancel-intent flows routed by stated reason, and win-back campaigns. The goal is six or more lifecycle touchpoints between sign-up and third renewal, with each touchpoint doing specific retention work.
Dunning and Failed Payment Recovery
We audit your current dunning setup against the 28% baseline recovery rate and identify the gap to the 55–65% recovery range achievable with multi-channel sequences. We implement or optimize the retry logic, email and SMS escalation timing, and magic-link portal access to minimize the login friction that turns a recoverable failed payment into a passive churn event.
Cancellation Flow Optimization
We build or optimize your Recharge Smart Cancellation flows: reason routing, save offer sequencing (pause vs. frequency change vs. discount), and the A/B testing infrastructure to continuously improve deflection rates. Proactive, reason-routed intervention retains 3 to 5 times more subscribers at the point of cancellation than a static 'are you sure?' modal.
LTV-Anchored Paid Acquisition (Google, Meta, TikTok)
We restructure your paid campaigns around subscriber LTV by cohort and channel. Google Search captures high-intent subscription queries; Meta and TikTok handle prospecting with creative tested against M3 retention outcomes, not just first-order CPA. Every campaign is measured against cost-per-subscriber justified by 12-month LTV, not first-order ROAS.
Checkout and Prepaid Conversion Optimization
We optimize your subscription checkout flow for frequency selector clarity, subscribe-and-save framing, and prepaid term presentation. For brands on SCI, we use Shopify Functions and Checkout Extensibility to implement subscription-specific logic. The goal is to shift more subscribers toward annual prepaid at the point of conversion, before any retention tactic is needed.
Subscription-Native Creative Production and Testing
We produce and test acquisition creative at a volume that identifies which angles attract high-LTV subscribers. Creative performance is evaluated against M3 retention cohorts, not just click-through rate or first-order ROAS, so the campaigns that scale are the ones bringing in subscribers who stay.
Who's Behind This
Who we are, and what makes us different
Sagum is a performance marketing agency founded in January 2017 in St. George, Utah. We've spent 8+ years growing real brands and being judged on KPIs, not vanity metrics.
We deliberately limit how many clients we take so each one gets senior attention. We treat your numbers like our own, we never run generic playbooks, and your strategy is built for your business, because shouldn't your brand's marketing be custom to your brand?
Sagum.ai is our AI arm: the same proven operators now build AI into the work wherever it creates real edge, not as theater, but as leverage applied with discipline.
- 8+ years growing brands on performance KPIs, not vanity metrics
- Limited client roster, with senior attention on every account
- An extension of your team; your success is tied to ours
- Custom strategy per brand, never a generic playbook
- AI built in where it moves a number; judgment over hype
“Sagum is a performance marketing agency that's spent 8+ years growing brands by treating their numbers like our own. We take on few clients, never run generic playbooks, and now build AI into the work wherever it creates real edge, not hype. Your strategy is built for your business, and our success is tied to yours.”
“After six years, Sagum is our most important partner: trusted, communicative, and caring about our business as if it's their own.”
Proof
Reversed 3 years of decline to 237% YoY
Bisaddle
Challenge
Bisaddle had watched three consecutive years of revenue decline despite having a strong product. Their marketing infrastructure had stagnated: tracking was unreliable, their site was slow, and email contributed almost nothing to revenue. They needed a full rebuild, not a campaign tweak.
What we did
Sagum rebuilt the performance foundation: fixed attribution so the numbers could be trusted, redesigned the site to double load speed, restructured paid acquisition around the right metrics, and built email into a primary revenue channel, taking it from an afterthought to 48% of total revenue.
Result
Bisaddle reversed three years of decline and hit 237% YoY growth. The site redesign doubled speed and lifted conversion 122%. Email grew from negligible to nearly half of all revenue. The lesson for subscription brands: infrastructure and attribution come before spend, and fixing the foundation compounds faster than adding budget to a broken system.
Find Out Where Your MRR Is Leaking: Before It Compounds
No obligation. We'll audit your Recharge setup, cohort retention, and acquisition ROAS anchoring, and tell you exactly where the highest-leverage opportunities are for your brand.
Sagum · January 2017 · St. George, Utah · 8+ years