Compass Coffee amps up total revenue by 122% with prepaid subscriptions

Compass Coffee is a leading next-gen coffee roaster that combines high-quality coffee with ethical sourcing and frictionless customer experiences, online and in their 22 cafe locations. The next chapter of their omnichannel success story began in 2021, when they migrated to Ordergroove to grow their subscription program rapidly and profitably. 

“We recognized that a consistent coffee experience day-to-day was important to our customers, and that offering subscriptions would be the best way to deliver it to them,” said Joel Shetterly, Head of Brand at Compass Coffee. 

With a brand reputation built on legendary customer service — and the power of a cup of coffee, served right, to be the compass that points customers in the right direction for the day — their subscriptions would have to live up to the high bar for customer experience that Compass Coffee set with their cafes.  

“As a design-driven company, we wanted to carry the ethos of our cafes over to our online store and make the whole subscriber experience as intuitive as possible.” 

Their vision was to optimize their website to focus on the subscriber experience, making it easy for customers to get the exact coffee they want when they want it — creating a frictionless shopping experience that would make their brand indispensable to their audience. But making their subscription offering as smooth and intuitive as the experience of walking into one of their cafes proved to be nearly impossible with Compass Coffee’s first subscription solution, which lacked the flexibility and innovation they needed to deliver an experience that was true to their vision.

“Our first subscription provider didn’t have the flexibility to support the level of customization we envisioned, and they didn’t want to work with us to build those customizations ourselves,” Joel said. “Even something as small as updating formatting on product pages to show pricing benefits was difficult, that’s when we realized it was time to upgrade.” 

Brewing up a better subscriber experience with Ordergroove

Determined to deliver the consistent subscriber experience their customers desired, Compass Coffee embarked on a search for the right subscription partner. They needed a solution with solid foundations to support a smooth subscriber journey, flexible and creative capabilities for customization and innovation, and comprehensive subscription analytics to drive continuous optimization.

But perhaps most importantly, Compass Coffee wanted a subscription provider who was open to collaboration, listening to feedback on features, and providing strategic partnership — and Ordergroove was the only solution that ticked all of their boxes. 

“We have big hopes and dreams for our subscriber experience, and Ordergroove has made them possible from the get-go,” said Joel. “By collaboratively developing new features with us, supporting us technically with an expert team that’s always engaged and available to us, [Ordergroove is] a true partner.”

This close partnership enabled Compass Coffee to deliver so much more than a basic subscriber experience. After kicking off some small initial improvements like redesigning the enrollment offer and adding strike-through pricing to communicate the value of subscriptions, Compass Coffee went to even greater lengths to continuously improve and advance the subscriber experience with Ordergroove’s expert guidance.

That’s where Prepaid subscriptions came in.

Boosting subscriber retention with Prepaid subscriptions

Prepaid subscriptions enable subscribers who know they love a particular product to pay in advance for a set number of subscription orders in exchange for a steeper discount. Unlike bulk-purchasing options, which can leave inventory to go stale in cabinets for months, prepaid subscriptions ensure peak freshness, save customers money, and create a great subscriber experience. 

For merchants who prioritize quality like Compass Coffee, Prepaid subscriptions are a win-win for unlocking all the “good stuff” that eCommerce brands are looking for — from stronger retention to long-term profitable growth. While Compass Coffee was technically able to offer Prepaid subscriptions with their first provider, their team was too bogged down helping subscribers navigate the challenges that come with more rigid technology — like difficulty managing orders and payment methods — to consider leveling up their offering.   

In fact, subscription-related inquiries made up the bulk of Compass Coffee’s online support tickets before they upgraded to Ordergroove. Whether subscribers wanted to change the delivery date of their order or swap a product, it required hands-on support from Compass Coffee’s internal resources. And perhaps most importantly, it compromised the subscriber experience and failed to deliver the consistent and accessible experience their brand is known for. 

Given the amount of time their team spent troubleshooting standard pay-as-you-go subscriptions with their first provider, Compass Coffee set out to nail the basics of a stellar subscriber experience before taking advantage of the retention-boosting powers of Prepaid subscriptions — and switching to Ordergroove empowered them to do both. 

“The subscription management experience for our customers since switching to Ordergroove’s Subscription Manager is just phenomenal,” said Joel. “All of those support tickets have literally disappeared.” This change in customer experience and satisfaction opened the door to offering alternative purchasing options like Prepaid subscriptions for better retention. “Ordergroove’s Prepaid subscriptions were just the logical next step for our loyal customers,” Joel noted.

And the results speak for themselves. Nearly a year after implementing Prepaid as a standard offering, Prepaid subscribers have a 30% higher Lifetime Revenue (LTR) value than standard pay-as-you-go subscribers, highlighting the model’s success in driving customer loyalty and increasing recurring revenue output. 

In fact, Prepaid subscriptions have taken Compass Coffee’s subscription performance to the next level across the board — now over three years into their partnership with Ordergroove, they’ve more than doubled their subscription-driven recurring revenue (+122%) and nearly tripled their active subscriber base (+173%) — and Compass Coffee attributes much of this success to the flexibility and data-driven decisions that Ordergroove’s platform enables. 

Flexible technology and advanced analytics unlock an exceptional Prepaid experience

From initial sign-up to managing ongoing shipments, switching to Ordergroove enabled Compass Coffee to create a seamless experience for their Prepaid subscribers — including those who initially chose a pay-as-you-go subscription. With Ordergroove’s limitless flexibility and focus on a frictionless customer experience, Compass Coffee’s customers can easily upgrade to Prepaid plans from right within their Subscription Manager. No canceling and restarting their subscription necessary.

Plus, subscribers can still pause or skip prepaid orders, or swap to different flavors or variants of products, even in the middle of a prepaid cycle. Delivering this unmatched flexibility from the start has helped Compass Coffee unlock the full gamut of retention benefits from Prepaid subscriptions — and Ordergroove’s advanced analytics allow them to continuously innovate on their delightful experiences based on subscriber behavior to drive higher lifetime value (LTV) and retention. 

“Using Ordergroove’s analytics to monitor subscriber cohorts helped us figure out where customers tend to ramp up or drop off in their subscription,” said Joel. “That’s how we came up with powerful ideas like letting existing subscribers upgrade to Prepaid from the subscription manager — and giving a free mug as a gift to subscribers with their first recurring order to make them feel really valued.” 

Whether Compass Coffee wants to convert the customers most likely to subscribe, reward their most valuable subscriber cohorts, or measure the overall health of their subscriber experience — Ordergroove puts all the insights they need on a silver platter.

“Our analytics from Ordergroove provide clear insights into our subscriber journey,” Joel said. “This visibility allows us to convert more one-time orders into subscriptions, standard subscriptions to Prepaid ones, and just continually improve our offerings.” Joel explains, “We didn’t have visibility into these parts of the customer journey before Ordergroove, and we’re grateful that our subscription analytics paint such a clear picture for us to make meaningful decisions off of.” 

Beyond unveiling key areas of opportunity for Compass Coffee, customer satisfaction has never been easier to measure with these powerful Prepaid analytics. Joel’s team can tell at just a glance that 62% more subscriptions renew for a second Prepaid term than for the same number of orders via standard subscriptions. “The lack of negative feedback and the high adoption and retention rates in comparison to standard pay-as-you-go subscribers indicate that we’re truly solving a problem for our Prepaid customers,” Joel said. 

Joel’s assessment couldn’t be more right. On average, Compass Coffee’s Prepaid subscribers stay on for 73% more orders than standard or pay-as-you-go subscribers, and in some months, that number rises to 100% or more. Plus, less than 0.5% of their support tickets come from Prepaid subscribers–proving that in addition to driving more recurring revenue, it’s a frictionless and easy experience for subscribers to manage.

Partnering with subscription experts for continuous growth

From 122% growth in total subscription revenue to a 173% increase in active subscribers — and unlocking 73% more orders and 30% higher LTR per subscriber with prepaid subscriptions — Compass Coffee has a lot to be proud of, but they’re quick to share the credit with Ordergroove’s tenured team of subscription experts. 

“We’ve basically tripled our subscriptions since we came onboard with Ordergroove,” said Joel. “We wouldn’t be able to do that without real partnership and continuous support from the Ordergroove team.”

With Ordergroove providing strategic guidance and flexible technology to actualize their vision,  Compass Coffee is already crafting a world-class subscriber experience in the coffee category — but they’d be the first to tell you that this is only the beginning. 

“We consider our positive results so far early success, and we’re excited to keep investing in our subscriber experience,” Joel said. “We have big plans for 2025, and they all revolve around continuing to partner with Ordergroove to maximize our subscription growth.”