For a lot of small publishers, subscriptions are spread across three systems and a Word document. Card payments land in Stripe, the subscriber list lives in a spreadsheet, the mailing list goes to the printer as a CSV someone built by hand, and renewal letters get mail-merged when somebody remembers.
Adeptis brings that into one place. Subscription management sits over the same database as your CRM and circulation, so a subscriber is the same person whether you're despatching their copy, chasing their renewal or checking their consent.
Subscription records with a proper ledger
Each subscription has a status, a price, the number of issues remaining and a full account ledger: invoices, payments, credits and refunds. A subscription can be paid or complimentary, print or digital.
Prices come from rate cards you set up per title, so the team picks "1 year, 12 issues" from a list rather than typing a number. Renewal chains link each term to the next, so you can see a subscriber's history at a glance, and renewing is one click.
Online orders from your websites
Orders paid through Stripe on your public sites arrive in Adeptis for review. Each one shows what was bought, the reader's details, whether they opted in to marketing, and the Stripe reference.
Approve an order and Adeptis creates the contact, the subscription and the payment in one go. Reject it if it's spam. Nobody re-keys a card order into a spreadsheet, and the marketing opt-in is captured at the point of sale, not guessed later.
Subscription runs: fulfil an issue properly
When an issue is ready, pick the title and the issue, and Adeptis shows you who's due a copy. Preview the recipients, export the pending list to CSV for your mailing house, then commit the run.
Committing records the despatch and counts down each subscription's remaining issues. So "how many issues has this person got left?" always has a straight answer, and the renewals desk knows exactly who's coming up.
A renewals desk that tells you who to chase
Renewals are where small publishers quietly lose money. Not because readers say no, but because nobody asked at the right time.
The renewals desk sorts subscribers into chase buckets: three issues left, two left, one left, then lapsed by age (up to a month, 1 to 2 months, 2 to 3 months). Work down the buckets and print renewal letters straight from the desk. For the thinking behind the timing, see building a renewal series that works.
Paid and controlled circulation side by side
Plenty of B2B titles run both: a controlled-circulation print edition and a paid tier, or paid digital access alongside free registrations. In Adeptis the circulation requests and the subscriptions sit on the same contact, so you're not reconciling two lists before an audit. The ABC side is covered under circulation and ABC audit.
If you'd rather not run fulfilment and renewals in-house at all, our circulation and subscriptions bureau can do it for you.
When you've outgrown it
Adeptis is the right size for small and medium publishers. If you need multi-currency sales, corporate and multi-seat licences, deferred revenue and a full month-end pack, that's Avio, for larger publishers and groups. Its orders and subscriptions and renewals pages show the difference.
Want to see an order go from Stripe to despatch? Book an Adeptis demo and we'll take one through from start to finish.
Questions
Can readers pay for subscriptions online?
Yes. Orders paid through Stripe on your public sites come into Adeptis for review. Approving one creates the contact, the subscription and the payment.
Does it handle complimentary and digital subscriptions?
Yes. A subscription can be paid or complimentary, print or digital, and controlled-circulation requests sit alongside them on the same contact.
Does Adeptis send renewal emails?
Adeptis doesn't send email itself. The renewals desk shows who to chase and produces print-ready renewal letters; email reminders go out through your email platform.
We sell in several currencies and have corporate licences. Is Adeptis right for us?
Probably not. That's what Avio is for: multi-currency, corporate licences and finance-grade accounting. See Avio or Adeptis.