I think long term subscription plans should be preferred as they produce lower churn So the received wisdom says, but particularly with card payments, churn ra

I think long term subscription plans should be preferred as they produce lower churn So the received wisdom says, but particularly with card payments, churn rates due to random charge failures are insane. On top of that, the services that handle the payments and subscription management are often relatively new and prone to making changes up to and including things like dumping their whole API or doubling/trebling their prices overnight, making them terrible business partners to rely on. Literally every such service we have ever used has done something like that to us at some point. We are seriously considering dumping any form of recurring subscription, and all the baggage that goes with them, at one of my businesses. The proposed alternative is a simple tiered pricing model where customers have a choice of periods, with the longer ones being more cost-effective for them, but all payments are single, one-off charges only. This would be combined with something I'm seeing a lot lately, which is saving the customer's payment details so that extending for a further period can be done with just a click or two. The alternative we've been considering is one of the services that goes further, outsourcing our entire payment and sales tax infrastructure to them as merchant of record. Given how prohibitively complicated sales taxes are becoming on international transactions if you want to stay compliant, I wonder if this might soon become the only viable operating method for small businesses and startups anyway. However, these services all seem to be really cagey about telling you what using them will really cost and how legally robust their strategy for sales tax management really is, and I have no reason to believe they will be any more reliable as long term partners than the billing/subscription services, so right now we're hesitant to pursue this idea. I'd be very interested in the results if anyone else has tried either of these changes recently and is willing to share their experience.