Pause subscriptions: Review & resources

Test your knowledge on subscription pause configurations, API endpoints, and churn metrics. Access a comprehensive directory of technical resources, including API documentation, webhooks, Recurly Engage details, and industry benchmark reports to finalize your customer retention strategy.

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Retain • Pause Subscriptions

Review & resources

Check your understanding, then take everything you've learned into your pause strategy.

Navigation Menu

Navigate Home Path Overview 1 Why pause reduces churn 2 Things to consider 3 How to enable pause 4 Tracking your pause impact

Review & resources

Knowledge check

Two quick questions to confirm the concepts that matter most before you put pause into practice.

Question 1 of 2 · Multiple choice

A subscriber on a monthly plan wants to pause for two months. Which API endpoint should you use?

pause_subscription, with remaining_pause_cycles set to 2

update_subscription, setting next_bill_date two months forward

resume_subscription, then pause_subscription

terminate_subscription, then create a new subscription at resume

See answer

pause_subscription with remaining_pause_cycles set to 2 — for monthly plans, this is the correct and straightforward approach. It suspends billing for two full monthly cycles and resumes automatically. The update_subscription postponement method is reserved for annual plans, where using pause_subscription would incorrectly schedule a full annual cycle pause instead.

Question 2 of 2 · Multiple choice

Your voluntary churn rate hasn't changed in the 60 days since you enabled pause. What's the most likely reason?

Your maximum pause duration is too long

60 days is not enough time to draw conclusions — wait for 90 days of data

Both: 60 days is too early to conclude, and pause may not be visible in the cancellation flow

Pause only reduces involuntary churn, not voluntary churn

See answer

Both: 60 days is too early to conclude, and pause may not be visible in the cancellation flow. The average subscriber takes around 80 days to decide whether to return or cancel permanently — so 60-day data is inherently incomplete. And if pause isn't surfaced at the moment of cancellation intent, most at-risk subscribers will never see it. Check placement before drawing conclusions about the program itself.

Reflection

Question 1 of 1 · Reflection

Think about your current cancellation flow. At what point — if any — does a subscriber encounter an alternative to canceling?

If the answer is "nowhere," that's where pause belongs first. If there's already a save offer in place, consider where pause fits alongside it — not as a replacement, but as the option for subscribers whose reason is temporary rather than resolved by a discount.

Continue your journey

Explore the pillar

Explore all Retain paths

Pause is one layer of a full retention strategy. Explore dunning, Account Updater, and cancel save flows in the Retain pillar.

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Resources

Pause subscription

Recurly Docs: Pause subscription Recurly Docs: Postpone subscription Recurly Docs: Hosted Account Management Recurly Blog: Why pause is a powerful retention tactic

API reference

API: Pause subscription API: Resume subscription API: Update subscription Webhooks: Subscription notifications

Recurly Engage

Recurly Engage: Recurly integration

Benchmarks & research

2026 State of Subscriptions report

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