Subscription
A subscription is a monthly fee for software you do not own. Stop paying, stop using. Stripe and Paddle bill subscriptions for most SaaS, and MobiTaste uses Paddle as its merchant of record.
What it means in operation
The fee is charged on the same day each month against the card on file. The renewal is automatic. The customer can cancel any time from the billing portal, and the access continues to the end of the paid period. On MobiTaste, plans bill monthly by default; annual billing is available with a small discount on Growth and Pro. When you cancel, your data stays available for export for 90 days, then the account is purged. There are no setup fees, no overage charges, and no per-order cuts. The price you see on the pricing page is the price you pay.
Why it matters
The subscription model is the dominant way SaaS is sold for a reason: it aligns cost with value continuously. If the software stops earning its keep, you stop paying. That requires the vendor to keep earning the renewal every month, which keeps the product moving. For the buyer, the subscription is a soft commitment: easy to start, easy to leave, expensive if forgotten. The hard part is forecasting which subscriptions matter in 12 months. The buying decision is whether the vendor’s price stays predictable under usage growth.
Related terms
- Plan tier: the package the subscription buys.
- Merchant-of-record billing: the billing entity behind the charge.
- Trial: the free window before the subscription starts.