Flixel grows recurring revenue by enabling smart subscriptions

CASE STUDY

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Challenge: Flixel wanted to move from licenses to a hybrid model supporting licenses, subscriptions and upgrades.

Solution: Using Paddle’s checkout on the web and in-app, Flixel was able to easily roll out their subscription products, tailor messaging, and deliver upgrades, all while increasing revenue and continuing to provide a great customer experience.

Results: 90% of Flixel orders are now subscriptions, and the customer experience has greatly improved.

Platforms

Size 20-50 employees

Previous provider FastSpring

Canada

Themes

Location

subscription in-app

payments up-sell

Web

iOSmacOS

Professional photographers, videographers and digital marketers use Cinemagraph Pro on iOS and Mac to create cinemagraphs, a visually spectacular blend between still photographs and short movies. Flixel’s software has received a highly coveted Apple Design Award and is now used as an essential tool by small teams and agencies as well as multi-national organisations such as Facebook, HBO, Ikea and Mercedes-Benz.

Flixel makes magical tools for digital storytellers

ABOUT

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CHALLENGE

Moving towards subscriptions without losing customers

Like most successful companies, Flixel didn't just build great software, they also built a great business model in the process. Flixel had started with one-off software licenses but realised that this simple business model made it hard to run a business: sales and cashflow were impossible to forecast and the constant need to use discounts to drive sales greatly reduced the customer lifetime value. Flixel recognised the value of a subscriptions model as a great way to achieve a stable, recurring cash flow and to optimize their pricing. They also wished to minimise the impact on their business and customers in the short term and settled on a hybrid model: offering both the traditional licenses as well as the new subscription plan. This model was however not supported by Fastspring, their then checkout provider, whose technology had been built for a simpler age and did not enable experimentation, flexibility, upsells or different subscription tiers.

People mostly bought our software when there was a promotion, so we made lots of money one month and then very little the next month: it’s hard to run a business like that.

Mark Pavlidis, CTO

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Mark Pavlidis, CTO

SOLUTION

Switching to Paddle to combine licenses and subscriptions

Paddle had most of the functionality to support Flixel already built-in and shared a similar vision. Both companies worked together to enable the flexibility that Flixel desired, a great example of the way the Paddle roadmap is constantly driven forward by the ideas and needs of its most advanced partners.

Thanks to Paddle, Flixel was able to take payments on the web as well as natively within their Mac app, removing all friction from the purchase experience. Flixel was also able to A/B test their pricing and messaging to push customers towards their subscription plan, while keeping traditional licenses as an alternative option.

Compared to their previous checkout experience the overall flow has also been s t re aml ined , decre as ing checkout abandonment and improving customer experience - especially around the issues that plagued the old platform such as purchase views that were not optimised for customers on smaller screens.

The Paddle dev team were really accommodating to make the appropriate changes for us to be able to support our innovative model.

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RESULT

Better customer experience and a smooth move to subscriptions

The customer experience has greatly improved, thanks to both the optimized checkout experience and the ability to create user-friendly purchase and upgrade flows. This has been instrumental to the smooth move to subscriptions, leading to a higher and more predictable revenue stream. Paddle is ready to support Flixel with the next steps of their growth, whether it’s the addition of different tiers of subscriptions, the ability to easily upgrade / downgrade plans, or increased business analytics and customer conversion tools.

0%

It’s been really successful for us: most of our sales are now in subscriptions.

Mark Pavlidis, CTO

25%

50%

75%

100%

2015 2016 2017

90% of Flixel orders are now subscriptions, and the customer experience has greatly improved.

Subscriptions

One-off Licenses

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Paddle’s mission is to help software businesses succeed - enabling you to focus on creating products the world loves.

Hundreds of developers and software companies rely on our checkout, payments and licensing solution to sell their products globally, as well as using our powerful analytics and marketing tools to understand and grow their businesses.

To learn more about Paddle please contact vendors@paddle.com or visit paddle.com

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