1 week ago
Investors Use UPI AutoPay to Expose Dead Users
UPI AutoPay lets people pay for subscriptions automatically.
Some people may stop using an app but forget to stop the payments.
Investors are now checking whether paying customers are also using the product.
They call customers who keep paying without using an app “dead users.”
This matters because those customers may cancel later, reducing a company’s revenue.
Investors are asking companies for clearer evidence of real engagement.
Some experts say inactive customers can also reveal problems through complaints and poor app reviews.
Regulators in India and elsewhere are paying closer attention to recurring-payment practices.
Companies therefore need to show both payment retention and actual user activity.
Indian venture capitalists are using UPI AutoPay data to assess genuine customer retention during fundraising.
NPCI data showed nearly 1.8 billion UPI e-mandate transactions were processed by the top 10 banks in July, compared with 585 million in July 2025.
Investors distinguish between users who continue paying and users who actively use an application.
Experts warn that inactive subscribers may eventually cancel mandates, causing revenue and retention figures to fall.
Regulatory scrutiny is rising over unauthorized recurring debits and difficulties canceling UPI AutoPay mandates.
- Who
- Indian venture capitalists, consumer technology companies, payment experts, and regulators.
- What
- Investors are examining UPI AutoPay activity to distinguish genuinely engaged customers from inactive subscribers who continue paying.
- Where
- India, with related recurring-payment action discussed in New York City.
- When
- Scrutiny has increased over the past few months; the article cites July transaction data and a New York City rule taking effect on 1 October.
- Why
- Investors want to assess sustainable retention, revenue quality, regulatory risk, and potential future IPO performance.
Investor and Regulatory Concerns
AutoPay Growth and Business Perspective
What payment retention shows
Investor and Regulatory Concerns
Investors argue that continued payments do not necessarily prove active engagement, because subscribers may have forgotten to cancel their mandates.
AutoPay Growth and Business Perspective
UPI AutoPay has become mainstream and provides a recurring-payment signal that investors can use, although companies must show whether those payments correspond to real product use.
Long-term business risk
Investor and Regulatory Concerns
Experts warn that businesses relying on inactive users may eventually face cancellations, falling revenue, poor reviews, and weaker IPO performance.
AutoPay Growth and Business Perspective
Companies using AutoPay are attracting growing investor attention and processing substantial revenue, making the metric increasingly important in fundraising discussions.
Key facts
- July UPI e-mandates
- The top 10 banks processed nearly 1.8 billion UPI e-mandate transactions in July.
- Comparison figure
- The top 10 banks processed 585 million UPI e-mandate transactions in July 2025.
- Consumer-tech revenue
- Consumer technology companies process at least ₹2,500 crore in cumulative revenue through UPI AutoPay, according to IndigoEdge director Prithvi Ramadhyani.
- Companies using AutoPay
- More than two dozen companies now use UPI AutoPay, compared with only a couple of scaled companies 15 months earlier.
- Fundraising example
- Superliving raised $7 million in a Series A round led by LightSpeed.
- India regulatory review
- The Reserve Bank of India directed NPCI to investigate complaints about unauthorized recurring debits and difficulties canceling active mandates.
- New York City rule
- A municipal click-to-cancel rule introduced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani is scheduled to take effect on 1 October.
Quotes
Manavdeep Singh Grover
Founder and CEO of Superliving, an AI-powered preventive health and lifestyle platform.
“There’s user retention and then there’s payment retention. User retention is whether someone continues using the app over the next three or four months, while payment retention is whether they’re still paying. If there’s a gap between the two, you can have ‘dead’ users who are still paying without realising it or switching it off. That is a challenge.”
livemint.com
“Let’s say 100 users renewed their autoPay this month. Of those 100 users, how many were actually using your app? That has become one of the most important metrics. If only 20% of paying users are using the app, your app doesn’t have any retention.”
livemint.com
Sources
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