Functional Mushroom Chocolates on Repeat
Lindsay and Charlotte didn’t set out to build a supplement company – they set out to replace one. Both were frustrated by a wellness industry that asked consumers to choke down pills, bitter tinctures, and chalky gummies in the name of health. Their answer was Alice Mushrooms: a line of functional chocolates that deliver real, science-backed benefits without asking you to sacrifice enjoyment to get them. The brand launched in October 2022 with two hero products – Brainstorm, a focus and energy bar powered by lion’s mane, cordyceps, and guarana, and Nightcap, a wind-down chocolate blending reishi, magnesium, and L-theanine for deeper, more restful sleep.
The brand found its footing quickly. Within its first year, Alice Mushrooms crossed seven figures in revenue and earned shelf space at Erewhon. But alongside retail growth, the DTC subscription channel at AliceMushrooms.com became a cornerstone of the business – a reliable engine for recurring revenue and long-term customer relationships.
Keeping that engine running smoothly means getting every shipment to every subscriber, every time. When packages go missing, get stolen, or arrive damaged, the brand absorbs the cost in more ways than one: lost product, strained support teams, and customers who may not give you a second chance. The challenge Alice Mushrooms ran into was that the shipping protection solutions on the market weren’t built with subscription commerce in mind.
The FTC Doesn’t Care About Your Workaround
Subscription customers aren’t passive – they actively manage their orders. They swap products in and out, adjust quantities, and change their bundles based on what they need that month. For most brands, that flexibility is a feature. But for shipping protection, it creates a serious compliance headache.
Under FTC guidelines, any charge that recurs – including shipping protection – must be transparently disclosed and accurately billed on every order. The majority of shipping protection apps stop at the first purchase, leaving recurring orders exposed. The ones that do attempt recurring coverage tend to rely on backend workarounds that skirt FTC rules and can’t account for order value changes over time.
A Real-Life Example
Picture a subscriber whose recurring bundle totals $31.49. At roughly 4% of the order value, their SavedBy protection fee is calculated, disclosed, and billed as part of their total recurring charge – right at checkout. Everything is above board.
Now remove SavedBy from that equation. The subscriber doesn’t see the protection cost upfront. If it gets tacked on after the fact, it’s neither compliant nor accurate. And when that subscriber adds a product next month, bumping their order value up? Coverage that wasn’t recalculated isn’t really coverage at all.
That’s the core problem: protection pricing has to move in lockstep with order value. Without that, subscribers are either overpaying for coverage that doesn’t match what they ordered, or receiving no protection whatsoever on their recurring shipments.
Someone Finally Cracked It
SavedBy is the only shipping protection provider with a native, FTC-compliant integration built specifically for Stay AI subscriptions. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Every time a subscriber modifies their order – adding a product, removing one, adjusting quantities – the integration automatically recalculates the protection fee to reflect the updated order value. No manual steps, no compliance gaps, no mismatched coverage.
Every recurring charge is billed with full transparency. Subscribers see exactly what they’re paying for at checkout, including their protection fee. On every subsequent order, the price updates dynamically based on whatever changes were made since the last billing cycle.
And coverage actually matches what’s in the box. Regardless of whether a subscriber’s order grows, shrinks, or stays the same, their protection reflects the real value of the shipment. They pay a fair amount for coverage that’s genuinely accurate.
For Alice Mushrooms, this integration meant they could finally protect subscription orders without cutting corners on compliance – something no other shipping protection provider had been able to offer.
New Revenue, Less Headache
- Subscription order protection grew from 0% to 58% – and continues to climb
- Every recurring protection charge is fully FTC-compliant
- Meaningful reduction in support volume tied to shipping issues
The impact showed up across the business. Protection on recurring orders became a net-new revenue stream that simply didn’t exist before. Claims that used to land in Alice Mushrooms’ support queue are now handled directly by SavedBy, freeing up the team to focus on growth instead of damage control.
Subscriber confidence improved, too. When every order ships with protection that accurately reflects its value, customers notice. There’s no gap between what they signed up for and what they actually received – and that consistency builds the kind of trust that keeps subscribers around longer. Longer retention means higher lifetime value, which is the metric that matters most for a subscription business.
Alice Mushrooms now has a clear path to protecting every subscription shipment it sends. Subscribers get dependable coverage and a self-serve portal to resolve claims on their own terms. It’s a better experience all around.
Want to see how Alice Mushrooms grew their subscriber base by 213% in 60 days after switching to Stay AI? Read the case study.
About Stay AI
Stay AI is built by retention-obsessed marketers for retention-obsessed subscription teams. Every touchpoint is a chance to keep a subscriber — and Stay isn’t willing to waste a single one. Stay AI is the leading subscription platform to provide tools that cover every stage of the subscriber lifecycle: converting one-time buyers, rewarding loyal customers, preventing churn with proprietary ML models, and winning back lapsed subscribers at exactly the right moment.
About SavedBy
SavedBy partners with leading DTC brands – including Skullcandy, ILIA Beauty, Hot Ones, and ALOHA – to take the pain out of shipping protection. Brands see more profit and fewer support tickets. Customers get peace of mind and the ability to file and track claims on their own, without waiting on hold. When a package goes missing, gets stolen, or shows up damaged, SavedBy steps in to handle both the process and the cost. The Stay AI integration remains the only FTC-compliant solution on the market for protecting subscription orders with real-time, dynamic pricing.
