Cleeng Freemium (Pro tier) Explained: Features & FAQs

For direct-to-consumer (D2C) businesses on a rapid growth trajectory, Cleeng's free Pro plan offers a unified and powerful solution to manage and scale your subscription services. It provides the essential tools to build a successful digital business, whether you operate in OTT, e-learning, health and wellness, or the creator economy.

Here are the key pillars of the Cleeng Pro plan:

Flexible Subscription Pricing Models

Configure subscriptions, limited passes, seasonal plans, and even live events. Adapt your pricing strategy as your business evolves by combining multiple monetization strategies.

Integrated End-User Support

Expert-built help centers and specialist human support. You can embed the support solution directly in your application with a simple drop-in script. This automatically enables human agent support to handle your end users’ inquiries. 

Analytics Suite

Track 40+ essential KPIs, including MRR, cancellation trends, winback insights, and churn analytics. You can access and even schedule sharing of multiple dashboards for clear performance tracking across your team. 

Built-in Merchant of Record

Embedding the hosted checkout flow automatically enables end-to-end payment orchestration and tax management for your service. In addition to handling payment processing, this activates global compliance, tax handling, and fraud prevention across more than 13,000 jurisdictions internationally and 37 currencies.

What is included in the Cleeng Pro plan?

See below for a detailed plan comparison:

Cleeng Merchant

Cleeng Merchant is a payment & tax management and processing solution for D2C subscription platforms. As a Merchant of Record, it handles the entire payment lifecycle, including transaction processing, fraud prevention, chargebacks, and compliance with international tax and regulatory requirements (including remittance to local authorities) - across 13,000+ jurisdictions and 37 currencies. 

By optimizing payment success rates and automating complex global compliance, Cleeng Merchant simplifies your subscription business, letting you focus on your product and audience while it manages payments, tax compliance, and regulations worldwide.

Transaction fees apply for this service. To learn more or to get started, contact your account manager or reach out to our sales team.

Feature FAQs 

What does the Pro plan include for free?

The free offering includes the full subscriber management system, a customizable checkout and self-service portal, a branded help center, 24/7 agent support access, and retention insights dashboards. The full list of features can be viewed in the plan comparison table.

What do I need to do to get started?

Sign up, create product pricing, embed your checkout flow & customer support platform, go live. Merchant setup includes compliance and tax onboarding, which will require you to verify your identity. You can connect your App Store data in a few clicks when you're ready.

What payment methods are available in the checkout?

Credit card, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal. All are supported for both initial and recurring payments. 

Can I customize the customer portal and communications?

Yes. The customer portal can be aligned with your brand colors, and you can configure transactional emails, upgrade flows, free trials, and more.

Do I need to connect my own payment gateway?

Once verified, you have access to Cleeng's Payment APIs and can connect your own PSP. You can also handle payment orchestration end-to-end via our integrated Merchant of Record solution.

Can I sell both one-time purchases and recurring subscriptions?

Yes, both one-time and recurring billing models are supported out of the box. This includes one-off events, one-time purchases, passes, seasonal models, and more.

Does the platform support coupon codes or promotional offers?

Yes, you can create and manage discount codes, trials, and time-limited promotions.

Can subscribers manage their own billing info and payment methods?

Yes, the self-service portal allows subscribers to update billing details anytime, in addition to upgrading their plans, applying coupons, viewing transaction history, and performing other account actions.

Is there a way to offer trials and prevent trial abuse?

Yes, you can configure free trials with built-in eligibility control.

Can I restrict content or features based on plan type or geography?

Yes, entitlements and content access can be customized based on plan or location.

Are failed payments handled for subscribers?

Yes, smart retry logic and dunning flows are built in to recover failed payments.

Is localization and translation supported?

Your plans or offers can be localized to serve customers in different regional markets. Communication with end users via automated emails are supported in 6 languages - English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. Hosted customer flows support English and Spanish today, but will also support French, German, Italian, and Portuguese in the near future. 

What tools do I have to reduce churn or win back lapsed subscribers?

You have access to detailed retention analytics as well as automated exports to feed your engagement tools with predefined customer segments. If you are a Braze user, you can directly share real time events between Cleeng and your Braze instance.

Can I segment my subscribers for different experiences or messaging?

Yes, subscribers can be segmented by plan, behavior, geography, lifecycle events, and much more. The default data exports provide advanced filtering options, allowing you to customize customer lists as part of automated export schedules. 

Can I use the platform even if I'm not selling through an app store?

Yes, the platform is built for direct-to-consumer sales on the web and other channels.

How do I know when I’m approaching the 10,000 subscriber limit?

We recommend setting up alerts on your subscriber count so you’ll be notified as you get close to important milestones. Our team also monitors growth and will proactively reach out if your trajectory suggests you may soon approach the limit. That said, please keep in mind that monitoring your subscriber volumes remains your responsibility.

Are there any usage or API call limits on the Pro plan?

There are no limits on API usage on the Pro plan.

How can I or do I need to migrate my data or upgrade seamlessly if I outgrow the Pro plan?

Data migration is not required to upgrade to the Enterprise plan. However, should you find a subscriber data migration a good next step for your business, Cleeng's highly experienced migration specialists will give you a complete guide to the full process.

Is there a difference in performance or reliability between Pro and Enterprise accounts?

No, Cleeng provides a highly robust, highly scalable platform for customers, regardless of which pricing plan you are operating on.

Technical FAQs 

What integrations are available?

For data, App Store Connect, Zapier, Amazon S3, as well as Google Sheets, webhooks and SFTP. You can use Zapier or S3 to feed your engagement tools, or connect directly to Braze or Mailchimp. For Merchant users, the Avalara tax solution is fully integrated. Even more integrations are available on the Enterprise plan.

Is data export and analytics access available on the Pro plan?

Yes. All user, subscription, and transaction data is exportable, and exports can be fully automated.

Do you support webhooks for real-time event handling?

Yes, webhook support is available for real-time data and lifecycle events.

What SDKs or libraries are available for frontend integration?

The embeddable customer flow widgets are framework agnostic and work with any JavaScript-capable environment

Can I migrate from another system?

Yes, but how you do so can differ based on your business. If you are working with a certified Cleeng partner, then you can benefit directly from our team's migration expertise. We are migration specialists and have migrated a large number of services from billing, payment, and mobile platforms. Payment migration is a specialized expertise, which is why we we like Pro-plan customers to benefit from the guidance of our trusted partners.

We also provide comprehensive documentation for a do-it-yourself (DIY) migration, designed for organizations with a mature development team. In this model, your team leads the migration process and is responsible for ensuring data integrity and a successful outcome.

For an overview of what migration entails, please see our general Data Migration article.

Can I use Cleeng to manage cross-platform entitlement?

Yes, but this is only possible on the Pro plan if you are supported by a certified Cleeng partner. Cleeng harmonizes purchases and subscriptions on your different platforms (Apple, Google, Samsung etc.) with a unique framework for synchronizing subscription lifecycles - which ensures a unified subscriber experience across all platforms. This is not supported on the Pro plan if your app is being built or maintained by a non-certified development agency. 

Is the customer self-service portal embeddable in my existing site or app?

Yes, the portal can be embedded within your existing web application. You can also apply styling to match your current user experience. 

Is there sandbox access for testing before going live?

Yes. Cleeng offers a sandbox environment that mirrors production, allowing you to test all flows thoroughly before going live.

What’s the average time to launch using this platform?

You can launch on your first day on the platform. Setup time is less than 60 minutes.

Security & Compliance FAQs

How secure is subscriber and payment data? (e.g., PCI, GDPR compliance)

The platform is fully compliant with PCI-DSS and GDPR standards.

What security features are included in the Pro plan?

All security features are fully implemented across the platform,  so there is no difference between pro or enterprise plans.

Is my data encrypted and protected to the same standard as Enterprise users?

Yes, there is no difference in data encryption standards across plans. 

Will my data be deleted if I stop using the service or remain on the Pro plan for an extended period?

As long as your publisher account remains active, your data will not be deleted. If as a publisher you choose to stop using the Cleeng service, data will be anonymised according to Cleeng policy.

Are there any differences in audit logs, access controls, or data retention between Pro and Enterprise plans?

Since security is paramount to our service, there is no difference in  access control, data retention, or audit logs between Pro and Enterprise plans.

Commercial FAQs

How much does it cost?

You pay nothing for use of the Cleeng platform for your first 10,000 subscribers. If you choose to use Merchant to handle payments, tax management, and tax remittance, then you only pay when you generate revenue. There are no minimums or lock-ins, with zero fixed or monthly fees. 

How does it work if I choose the Merchant of Record service?

If you decide to use Merchant, a fee of $0.35 + 3.5% per transaction (special offer until 31/06/26, then $0.39 + 3.9% per transaction) will apply. This one fee covers processing (fixed & variable), interchange & scheme fees, currency conversion, fraud prevention, risk rule management, analytics, tax calculation, tax remittance, and chargeback handling. You will also continue to use all other Pro plan functionality for free. 

Is there a revenue share or commitment for the Pro plan?

No. You only pay when you generate revenue. There are no minimums or lock-ins.

What about chargebacks, taxes, and compliance? 

All of this is covered by the Merchant solution. We can handle tax calculation, VAT, local tax remittance, and reporting compliance, and chargebacks for you.

What happens if I go above 10,000 subscribers?

If you go beyond 10,000 subscribers, overage pricing of $0.39 will apply to any subscriber beyond the threshold in the month where the limit is breached. If you still prefer not to commit to an Enterprise plan, your account will automatically migrate to Pro+ pricing and your pricing will default to $0.39 USD per subscriber per month, with charges applying to each subscriber. If you are using Merchant, your Pro+ fees will change to a lower $0.33 + 3.3% per transaction. Should your subscriber base grow to 29,000, all subscribers beyond that threshold will generate a per-subscriber fee of $0.29. Note that you cannot return to the free Pro plan once Pro+ pricing has been triggered. 

How do fees compare to App Store commission?

In the App Store, subscription businesses pay a 30% fee on every transaction in the first year of a subscriber’s lifecycle. For example, a service with 5,000 subscribers paying $10/month would lose $15,000 per month in fees during year one, compared to just $3,900 per month if those same payments were processed with Cleeng Merchant with a standard $0.39 + 3.9% transaction fee. That’s a difference of more than $130,000 in annual savings by steering subscribers to web billing.

How do you count ‘subscribers’?

To keep things simple and consistent across different business models - whether you sell subscriptions, seasonal passes, or one-time access like pay-per-views or daily passes - we use the term “Managed User” in our agreements. A Managed User is anyone (on web or mobile) who has an active right to access your product in a given month, no matter the type of offer, payment method, or discount applied.

For instance, if the same person buys both a monthly subscription and a daily pass, they are counted as one Managed User. This also includes users on a free trial (if you offer one) and customers who have churned but still have access for the remainder of their paid or trial period.

How does Cleeng charge for Refunds and Chargebacks?

If you choose the Merchant model, our team will take care of processing refunds and chargebacks on your behalf. For each operation, a small reverse fee applies.

That’s it, there are no additional costs passed on to you. We’ll cover the handling of dispute management, bank escalations, and scheme fees. The only exception would be any penalties imposed directly by the payment schemes due to excessive chargebacks linked to your account.

Is support from Cleeng included in this plan?

Yes, our B2B support specialists are included as part of the service offering.

Do you provide reporting for transactions and revenue?

Yes, detailed transactional reporting is available through the dashboard.

Is there a trial period for paid features, or is it strictly usage-based?

There are no trial periods for features on the Pro plan, and no additional paid features. Fees only arise on a transactional basis through the use of Cleeng’s Merchant of Record solution.

How do I upgrade from the free plan, and is there any downtime?

You can upgrade by contacting the Cleeng B2B support or sales teams. Upgrading requires no downtime. 

Can I downgrade back to the Pro plan if my usage drops below 10,000 users?

It is not possible to downgrade back to the Pro plan. The Pro plan offer can only be availed of once, and having switched from the Pro plan, it is not possible to switch back at a later point.