subscription-lifecycle

A subscription business leaks at five stages: trial start, trial-to-paid, renewal, involuntary churn (failed payments), and win-back of lapsed subscribers. Output is a lifecycle audit: each stage measured against its benchmark, the fixes ranked by revenue recovered.

Gather

1. read_context — pricing, plans, trial length, activation event, cancellation flow if documented.
2. connector_revenuecat_metrics when the RevenueCat Connector exists — MRR, active subscriptions, trials, trial conversion, churn, revenue 28d, per product. Without it there is no public fallback: work from the Foundation doc's pricing and trial, mark every stage metric "unmeasured", and say the RevenueCat Connector would add trial conversion, churn, and per-product revenue.
3. connector_asc_in_app_purchases when the ASC Connector exists — the in-app purchases and subscriptions as visitors see them: display names, groups, periods and product page promotion. Without it, take the plans from the Foundation doc and say the ASC Connector would add them. Price points come from the Foundation doc, or stay unknown.
4. connector_asc_analytics when available — downloads for the trial start rate, retention curve (renewal risk shows up as retention first).
5. connector_asc_reviews when available (fallback app_store_reviews) — pricing and paywall complaints, cancellation reasons users state in public.

Audit

Benchmarks per stage and the formulas are in references/benchmarks.md; read it before scoring. Walk the stages in order:

1. Trial — trial start rate, length per app type, the nurture sequence (day 0 → last day), the trial-end moment.
2. Conversion — trial-to-paid; the paywall's job. Point to paywalls for the paywall itself and pricing for the price ladder.
3. Renewal and voluntary churn — M1/M6 renewal, cancel reasons, engagement signals that precede a cancel, the cancellation flow (pause, value recap, exit survey, discount last).
4. Involuntary churn — Billing Grace Period length, billing retry, the in-app "update payment" moment; 20–40% of all cancellations are involuntary.
5. Win-back — offer ladder over 12 weeks, channels, StoreKit win-back offers configured in App Store Connect.

Score each stage: metric, benchmark, gap, revenue at stake (gap × subscribers × price), one recommended fix. Playbooks for stages 1, 3, 4, 5 are in references/stage-playbooks.md; read the section for any stage that scores below benchmark.

Output: lifecycle audit

Period · data source (RevenueCat / Foundation doc only)

Stage         Metric              Value   Benchmark   Gap   $ at stake
Trial         start rate
Trial         trial-to-paid
Renewal       M1 renewal
Churn         monthly churn
Involuntary   billing recovery
Win-back      resubscribe rate
MRR · LTV (ARPU / monthly churn)

Fixes, ranked by $ at stake:
1. [stage] — [fix] — [effort] — [expected effect]
2. …

This week: the single highest-leverage change.

Done when all five stages carry a value or "unmeasured", every gap below benchmark has a ranked fix with a revenue estimate, and the audit names what the RevenueCat Connector would add when it was absent.

Related Skills

• paywalls — design of the trial-end and cancel-flow paywalls.
• pricing — plan structure, annual discount, lower tiers.
• churn-prevention — engagement strategy behind voluntary churn.
• onboarding — activation before the trial ends.
• rating-prompt-strategy — a renewing subscriber is a strong prompt moment.