Recurring & direct response
Subscription and continuity merchant accounts
Commonly assigned MCC
5968 · 5817 · 5734
The category actually assigned is set by the acquirer at boarding and can differ from these.
The short version
Subscriptions concentrate two problems. Disputes arrive on a lag, so a ratio that looks fine in month two can breach in month six. And a meaningful share of them are not fraud at all — they are customers who did not recognise a descriptor or could not find the cancel button.
Both are addressable, and addressing them is most of what a good processor does for a subscription merchant. Account updater matters more here than anywhere else: involuntary churn from expired cards is usually larger than voluntary churn.
What is actually being priced
What underwriting is looking at.
Lagging ratio
Disputes land months after the initial sale, so ratio measured against current-month volume understates real exposure.
Descriptor confusion
A descriptor that does not match the brand the customer bought from produces disputes indistinguishable from fraud in the data.
Cancellation friction
Click-to-cancel expectations are now regulatory in several jurisdictions, not merely good practice.
What we put in place
- Recurring billing with account updater across the major networks
- Descriptor configuration per brand and per offer
- Pre-dispute alerts that stop the next rebill before a chargeback posts
- Retry and dunning logic tuned against your real decline reasons
What underwriting will ask you for
Assemble these before you apply anywhere. The list does not get shorter by waiting, and having it ready is the single biggest thing you control about how long this takes.
- Billing intervals, trial structure and price points
- Live cancellation path
- Churn, refund and chargeback rates by cohort if you have them
- Descriptor as it currently appears on statements
On this account
What a boarded account in this vertical usually carries.
Also in recurring & direct response
Tell us about your subscription business.
We will tell you whether a route exists right now, which acquirers are writing the category, and what your file needs before it goes anywhere.