autoMate

autoMate controls custom logic and automates business rules for Recharge merchants by utilizing Recharge’s API to adjust subscription dates, charge dates, product swapping, and more. This article provides an overview of the integration, solutions, and support resources.

Before you start

• autoMate allows you to achieve custom workflows and features without having to build out an expensive private app or one-off custom solution. autoMate's functionality has already been built out, allowing decision-makers to focus their time on business requirements.
• With autoMate, custom solutions can be up and running in days rather than months because there is no need for intensive technical scoping. In addition, the app is fully hosted and supported by Union Works, which ensures uptime is managed outside of your organization.
• The autoMate team has extensive knowledge and experience in working with subscription businesses and Recharge’s API.

How it works

autoMate connects to the Recharge API and has the ability to update, add, edit, and remove any aspect of subscription-based rules or logic. The following steps outline how autoMate works with the Recharge API:

1. A customer subscribes to a new subscription product on your store.
2. The customer’s subscription is created in Recharge.
3. Recharge notifies autoMate of the new subscriber or order via a webhook.
4. autoMate acts on that subscription and sends it back to Recharge.
   • This step can occur once, or as many times as needed. In use cases such as SKU swaps, it will fire off each and every recurring subscription order.

Common autoMate use cases

autoMate can be used to solve many limitations with automated processes. Refer to the following examples of autoMate use cases:

• Swapping product IDs – autoMate can automatically swap out products in subscription boxes based on a defined schedule.
• Adding one-time products – Automatically add or remove one-time purchases from subscriptions, including free or discounted products used for incentives. autoMate can remove trial products and update subscriptions to full price on a regular schedule.
• Customizing delivery dates – Fulfill all subscription orders based on a custom delivery schedule. autoMate can update the delivery dates of subscriptions based on a pre-defined schedule or logic like the last Tuesday of the month or one box per quarter.

Solutions

Case Study: SKU Swapping

• Business Case: A merchant sells a subscription box that changes out products every month. They track the inventory of each box and need to swap product IDs in the subscription each month to ensure the warehouse sends the correct box.
• Conditions: The merchant sells different types of boxes so they need the ability to define different schedules for each type of box without the manual labor of bulk updating each shipment.
• Solution: autoMate was used to build and manage product schedules. The merchant defined the trigger product (subscription box sold on the site) and then assigned a product ID to each month of the year, so autoMate knew which product to swap next. autoMate detected which month the next delivery was scheduled for and ensured that the next queued order contained the product that matched the SKU schedule. This is known as SKU swapping. SKU swapping can be adapted to suit different methods of delivery, multiple products per delivery, and more.

Case Study: Custom shipment schedule

• Business Case: A merchant needs to control shipping fulfillment windows on their quarterly subscriptions. Store owners can define which delivery date is in each window and autoMate will ensure that the customers' orders are sent out in that specified range.
• Conditions: They could manage the shipping window dates as well as shipping windows if there were any changes in manufacturing.
• Solution: autoMate was used to read the shipping windows and update the next queued order based on the defined delivery date. An interface was built to manage those dates.

Case Study: Reward subscribers with free gifts

• Business case: The merchant wanted to improve retention by offering one-time gifts to subscribers at set dates in their subscription.  
• Conditions: The merchant needs to be able to create a rule to add a free one-time product to an upcoming subscription order, based on how many orders the customer is in their subscription.
• Solution: Union Works used autoMate to read the order count on the subscription and add a free one-time product to the next order accordingly.  This helps reduce churn by rewarding subscribers for their loyalty.

Support

More information on each autoMate feature can be found in autoMate's Help Center. Recharge recommends watching the demo videos to learn more.

If you’re interested in using any of autoMate's prebuilt solutions for Recharge, complete this form, and the autoMate team will be in touch. You can also contact Sam Henning to discuss using autoMate to help with subscription automation.