Bearsville Soap Company review for Recharge Subscriptions

March 22, 2023

Our subscription business was previously with Bold. We transitioned to Recharge last year, largely based on the aesthetics of their customer portal - it looks slicker and we thought it would make for a better customer experience. Unfortunately, the back-end of Recharge has been a disaster for us. Our subscribers have been unable to update their payment method since DEC 27, 2021. It is now FEB 21, 2022. That's nearly two months since we've alerted Recharge to this issue, and unfortunately the problem still persists. We receive daily emails from our subscribers (who WANT to continue) but they're unable to update to their new credit card - and they have no choice but to let the subscription expire. I continue to follow up with Recharge every other day or so, and am told that they're "working on it." They've offered up a few workarounds, none of which worked. Needless to say, it's been a pain managing irritated customers (loss of time), and it has resulted in a loss in our subscription revenue (loss of money). But more importantly, it has been a such a poor experience for our most loyal, long-term, avid users. The last two months of listening to our subscribers' frustration, and watching our subscriptions decline has left us feeling unsupported and powerless, since there's still no fix. Below is just one of the endless customer emails we've received. This experience has been everything you want to avoid as a business owner - it's embarrassing and a poor reflection on everything we've been working to build. Recharge might look better, but Bold actually worked. CUSTOMER EMAIL: I have tried three separate times to access the subscription page with no luck, always a "third party access" issue. My card I used to pay for the subscription is expiring and since I can't update it I suppose I will just let you figure that I am cancelling my subscription. Thanks for the great soap that I have had and good luck. ***MARCH 28TH 2022 UPDATE*** Unbelievably, this issue still persists -- THREE MONTHS LATER. I have been passed along to six or seven different support reps. There has been no correction - nor any indication that they have even been able to identify the issue. It's been a constant flow of "our team is looking into it", "we're getting close", "we need an API key" (which has been supplied three times now) then the next rep steps in and repeats all the same responses. It is absolutely crazy that it's been three months; you'd think someone at Recharge would acknowledge this absurdity of this, and simply dedicate some time & thought to correct the issue - but it's obvious our business doesn't matter to Recharge. We'll await the next email of "we're working on it...." ***One Year Later Update***: While I still cringe at how painful our transition was to Recharge, we've since had an incredibly positive experience working with their team that manages their Bundles product. ADOLFO & PAOLA specifically are WONDERFUL. Since they are worth five stars and my migration is still one star, I'll change my rating to three stars. Long story short, I would not recommend migrating over to Recharge from an existing subscription platform, but if you're starting fresh, Recharge is certainly an option.