Challenge

Since 2023, LiveX AI has helped businesses deliver VIP customer service experiences through AI Agents that offer human-like interactions at scale. One of LiveX AI’s primary solutions helps B2C subscription businesses reduce churn by providing AI Agents that can understand the user’s problem or question, and then resolve the issue before that user cancels.

When developing LiveX AI, cofounder and chief AI officer Jia Li knew the company’s AI Agents would need to do more than answer questions—they would also need the ability to take action. Offering real-time solutions and personalized recommendations that include different pricing options and incentives is a key way subscription companies retain users, so to create a fully automated solution, LiveX AI needed to integrate its AI Agents directly into customers’ billing platforms. That way, AI Agents could automatically apply discounts or other pricing changes without requiring human intervention.

In addition to finding technology to enable its agentic commerce application, LiveX AI needed a payment solution that could support its own billing model, which charges customized fees based on usage. The company knew it would also continue experimenting with new pricing options as it scaled, and didn’t want to have to rebuild its billing infrastructure every time it made a change.

“We needed a really strong partner that we could design our AI Agents to work seamlessly with, while at the same time offering technology to meet our own billing infrastructure needs,” said Li.

Solution

LiveX AI launched on Stripe, knowing that Stripe’s developer-friendly APIs and well-documented resources would make it easier to build its AI agent platform around Stripe’s capabilities. In addition, the company knew that many of its customers would be using Stripe for their own subscription billing, making an integration with Stripe a foundational part of its churn reduction solution.

LiveX AI integrated the Stripe API directly into its platform, allowing its AI Agents to securely connect to a customer’s billing environment when that customer also uses Stripe. The team relied heavily on Stripe’s documentation, which made it easy for developers to understand and implement the integration quickly.

The integration between Stripe and the LiveX platform means that a new client only has to provide their Stripe API key through their LiveX AI dashboard when they sign up. This allows LiveX AI Agents to connect securely with that customer’s Stripe environment so they can retrieve needed information during a live subscriber chat or apply new pricing to the subscriber’s account immediately after resolving an issue.

For example, an AI Agent can connect directly with a customer’s Stripe Billing platform to answer questions such as, “Why was I charged this amount?” or “When is my next payment due?” Agents can also react to subscriber concerns about costs by suggesting a different plan or offering a discounted subscription, and then make that change to the subscriber’s billing record through the Stripe API.

Beyond this direct integration between the LiveX AI platform and customers’ Stripe Billing accounts, LiveX AI provides additional guidance to help customers get the most out of their Stripe integration. For example, the LiveX team encourages customers using Stripe to take advantage of Smart Retries to help reduce involuntary churn.

LiveX AI also integrated Stripe Billing and Stripe Invoicing to enable its usage-based billing model. The company typically offers new customers a two-week trial period to track metrics, such as its volume of agent interactions, and then estimates a total fee for a full year of service. The finance team then programs Invoicing to bill that amount in installments, such as quarterly or semiannually, through ACH or a credit card. LiveX AI also tracks actual usage throughout the contract period, so it can reconcile any differences later or negotiate the next contract term based on current usage.

Looking ahead, that same Billing integration will support potential changes to LiveX AI’s subscription and billing model, such as establishing a set of standard subscription tiers and pricing and allowing self-service signups through the LiveX AI website.

Results

Easy integration helps LiveX AI serve customers faster

LiveX AI completed its Stripe integration in as few as four weeks, enabling it to quickly begin delivering value to early customers as it built out its AI agent platform. As LiveX expected, about 70% of its customers were already using Stripe for their business, which allowed them to connect their Stripe API to the LiveX AI platform and start using AI Agents in minutes.

“Stripe’s billing features and capabilities have played a key role in shaping our AI Agent’s retention process, providing flexibility and more options for optimizing retention outcomes,” said Li.

Stripe-enabled pricing options reduce churn 200%–300%

The direct integration between LiveX AI Agents and customers’ Stripe accounts has made discounting offers one of the most effective retention methods that LiveX AI provides. One customer saw a 300% increase in free trial to paid conversions when the LiveX AI Agent offered personalized recommendations that included different pricing options during its interactions. Another customer reduced churn 200% after introducing the AI Agent for churn control during negotiations over a potential cancellation.

“We can target those people who are really price sensitive and then only promote the coupon to them, rather than to 100% of the population,” said Li. “It reduces churn while also saving a lot of costs.”

Stripe Billing creates foundation for new pricing models

Using Billing and Invoicing to automate installment billing for its flexible outcome- and usage-based contracts simplifies LiveX AI billing team’s workload while allowing them to produce invoices in half the time it took using other invoicing solutions. Although LiveX AI currently is focused on serving its enterprise customers, the company has already begun developing standard subscription tiers and pricing in Billing that will support smaller customers in the future.

“Thanks to Stripe, all the billing logic is already built. We won’t have to rebuild anything to make that shift,” said Li.