Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

Tech selection is always tricky. In this week’s dose, we talk about ecom platforms, subscription apps, and the other important components of the subscription tech stack.

This week’s dose is also a podcast! Listen in or watch on your favorite platform:

Join Us On My Birthday: Great Subscription Experiences

This is an incredible panel! Subscription experiences from different industries coming together to talk about how the right experience drives both growth and retention.

Plus - it’s on my birthday! No need for a cake or present, just attend. ;)

This will be a great opportunity to share how brands are using experience as a differentiator.

💊 What’s in My Subscription Tech Stack

Everyone loves a good tech stack rundown—but many of the ones you see online are more about affiliate links than actual performance. This week, I’m breaking down what I recommend (and what I use) across subscriptions, analytics, email, and more. You’ll also get my take on how to evaluate tools like an operator—not a hype follower.

Your Ecom Platform Comes First—And It Impacts Everything

Let’s clear something up: your subscription success doesn’t start with the subscription app. It starts with your ecommerce platform.

Shopify is the go-to for a reason. It's consistent, it plays well with third-party apps, and you can move fast. Sure, WooCommerce can give you a ton of control—especially if you need flexibility around payments or you're in a high-risk category like supplements or CBD. But with that freedom comes chaos: plugin conflicts, custom code nightmares, and inconsistent setups across hosting providers.

Even though Shopify used to be more restrictive, it’s opened up a lot. And with the rise of dev talent familiar with Liquid, you can now build just about anything you need. They’re leaning heavily into AI as well.

Bottom line: your ecommerce platform isn’t just infrastructure—it defines what your stack can actually do.

Pick Subscription Tools Based on Use Case, Not Vibes

Too many brands pick their subscription platform based on how slick the demo looks or how friendly the AE was on the sales call. That’s a mistake.

Here’s the truth: most subscription apps can make the front end look however you want with a little custom development. What matters more is how well the platform supports your real goals—processing, integrations, API flexibility, advanced bundling rules, upsell flows, gifting options, and portal features that drive action, not churn.

I’ve worked with clients across Recharge, Skio, Stay, Loop, Autoship Cloud, Smartrr, and even more niche tools. They all have their pros and quirks. Recharge is better than it gets credit for these days, especially on support and analytics. Skio makes bundling and setup incredibly easy. Stay’s portal visuals are some of the best. Loop is building little analytics tips into every layer of their platform.

But here’s how I really evaluate them: What core job is this platform going to do for the subscriber? And which tool makes that easy, not painful?

If you don’t know what your subscribers need, any tool will look good. If you do, the choice gets a lot clearer. What this means is evaluating the core actions that drive value for your subscribers. Is it bundling? Gifting? Loyalty? Every platform does a lot of the same thing, but there are small differences among certain features.

The Rest of the Stack: Email, Analytics, and Optimization Tools

Let’s round this out with what else is in my recommended stack—and why.

Email: We mostly work with Klaviyo, for obvious reasons: flexible, widely supported, and strong integrations. We often pair it with Zaymo for in-email subscription actions and upsells, which boosts retention and AOV without needing extra clicks. For SMS, Klaviyo works fine, but Postscript and Attentive shine. Skio and Recharge both offer solid native SMS tools, too.

Analytics: Triple Whale, Lifetimely, Peel, and SARAS are the ones we see most. SARAS is especially exciting with their Pulse product for SMBs, and we’re testing HAM with clients now. What matters most isn’t which one you use—it’s whether the data is helping you answer real business questions. If you’re just looking at dashboards but not acting, the tool doesn’t matter.

Surveys & Personalization: Post-purchase surveys are underutilized. Bestie and KnoCommerce are the best we’ve used, and you can use that data to shape flows, segment cohorts, and surface better offers. For popups, we love Alia; for quizzes, we love Digioh—especially Digioh’s ability to customize experiences based on whether the visitor is a new or returning customer.

Other Tools: Replo for landing pages, PostPilot for direct mail, Givvy for gifting subscriptions.

That’s my current view of the tech stack. But here’s the most important thing: don’t let the tool lead the strategy. Let your strategy lead the tool selection. There’s no best platform—there’s only the best fit for your business model, your margin structure, and your customer behavior.

Until next Tuesday, that’s your Subscription Prescription. 💊

 - Matt Holman 🩺

The Subscription Doc