primal-queen

How Primal Queen built a 9-figure subscription experience that executes flawlessly

migrated from
Skio
Industry
Health / Nutrition / Fitness / Supplements

TL;DR

Primal Queen scaled subscription revenue from $2M to $100M+ in under two years. Loop powers the subscription strategy. Mountainy ships it.

The integration between them is the story.

Results reflect Primal Queen's measured experience. Outcomes vary by brand, vertical, product, and implementation.

There are growth stories. And then there is Primal Queen.

The brand launched in 2024 with one sharp insight: women's hormonal and energy needs a deserved dedicated beef organ formula. Not a watered-down version of a men's product.

Within a year, Primal Queen had scaled subscription revenue from $2M to $100M+. Fronting some of the highest-spending paid campaigns in DTC wellness. Showing up in Target stores and on TikTok Shop.

Then came the wall.

The wall most subscription brands hit.

It's not acquisition. It's what happens after the first order ships.

At 9-figure scale, the subscription program stops being a checkout toggle. It becomes the entire customer experience. Welcome offers. Milestone gifts. Save flows. Retention incentives. New product launches.

Every piece of that strategy lives or dies on one question: can the system actually deliver it?

Most brands lose this fight quietly. What's designed in the platform never makes it into the box.

Primal Queen needed two things at once. A platform flexible enough to design any subscription experience. A 3PL coordinated enough to actually ship it.

The strategy layer

Building a retention engine on Loop

Primal Queen built its retention engine on Loop with four moves that work together.

1. Dynamic welcome offers for new subscribers to lower the barrier to recurring commitment.

2. Segmentation by tenure, behavior, and spend so the experience evolves as the relationship deepens.

3. Cancellation flows tuned to the real reasons supplement subscribers leave - not generic "are you sure?" prompts.

4. A reward journey that meets subscribers earlier in their lifecycle (more on this below).

But the most interesting move came when Primal Queen started launching new products.

Turning the subscriber base into a launch channel

In the last year, Primal Queen launched three new SKUs - Goddess Creatine Bites, PQ7 (an appetite control supplement), and Marrow (a joint support formula).

Most brands launch new products by pouring more money into paid acquisition. Primal Queen did the opposite.

They used Loop's upsell module to put new products in front of their existing subscribers - the customers who had already tested the brand, were most loyal, and had the highest intent. 

Aggressive 50% subscriber-only discounts. Featured directly in the customer portal at the moment of highest engagement.

Zero CAC. Highest conversion intent. Built-in fulfillment.

Then they did the smarter thing: they tested everything.

Primal Queen built 10+ personalized upsell profiles, each targeting a different subscriber segment with a different offer. 

The results made the strategy obvious.

Across the upsell profiles, Primal Queen has layered in meaningful incremental revenue every month — entirely from existing subscribers, at zero acquisition cost.

The top-performing profiles consistently outperform paid acquisition on both conversion rate and margin. 

New product launches now have a built-in distribution channel before a single ad dollar is spent.

Rewarding subscribers earlier, not later

Primal Queen's original reward structure followed the standard subscription playbook: free gift at order #6, another at order #12. 

The problem with order-count rewards is that they punish your most committed customers with a long wait and they completely miss the high-spend subscriber who's stacking multiple products per order.

Primal Queen shifted to spend-based reward journeys. 

A free Primal Queen Fanny Pack at $150 cumulative spend. A free Primal Queen Tumbler at $300.

Now a subscriber who orders multiple products in a single shipment hits the first reward in their first or second order not their sixth. The reward feels earned, not endured.

The customer portal shows the progress bar live: "You're on the way to get a FREE Primal Queen Fanny Pack!" with a visual marker tracking spend against the next milestone.

The execution layer: Mountainy

A platform can design any subscription experience. But if the warehouse can't execute it, the strategy collapses on contact with reality.

A 3PL might handle a million orders a month. But if "first-time subscriber" doesn't trigger a different kit. If "six-month milestone" doesn't surface, a gift. If recurring orders ship before customer service can edit them - the elegant strategy becomes a generic monthly shipment.

Mountainy was built around the opposite assumption: the subscription program is the customer experience.

Two warehouses - Arizona and Pennsylvania. A 2 PM EST same-day cutoff. Seven-day fulfillment. A shared Slack channel with Primal Queen's 45+ CX agents for real-time resolution.

What Loop tags, Mountainy picks. What Loop sequences, Mountainy ships.

Where Loop and Mountainy meet

Follow one subscriber to see it.

A new customer signs up for Primal Queen's flagship formula. Loop tags her as a first-time subscriber. Mountainy routes her order through a custom kitting line - different packaging, a welcome insert, the scented heart that loyal subscribers keep mentioning in reviews.

Three months in, she adds Creatine Bites from an upsell offer in her portal. Mountainy picks the new SKU into her recurring shipment without missing the cutoff.

She crosses $150 in cumulative spend. Loop triggers the Fanny Pack reward. Mountainy adds it to her next box.

If she ever cancels, Loop's save flow meets her with an offer matched to her stated reason. If she accepts, her next order is held for 24 hours - long enough for the CX team to confirm, edit, or adjust.

Then it ships.

None of those steps require a person to remember to do them. That's the entire point.

What the data says

Primal Queen scaled subscription revenue from roughly $2M to $100M+ on Loop, becoming one of the fastest-growing female wellness brands in DTC.

Upsell profiles in the customer portal have layered tens of thousands in monthly revenue from new product launches at zero CAC.

On the fulfillment side, Mountainy held same-day shipping SLAs across both warehouses through peak-season surges. The team supported Primal Queen's expansion into TikTok Shop, Target, Amazon FBA, and international DDP shipping.

All without breaking the subscription experience.

What the merchant said

Primal Queen

"Excellent communication and delivers on promises. I've worked with 5+ 3PLs over the past few years and so many overpromise and underdeliver. Mountainy has been exceptional. Communication in Slack has been a great asset and the fulfillment has beat expectations. Great partner we'll have for years to come!"

Chuckie Gregory, Co-Founder, Primal Queen

The takeaway

Subscription strategy is only as valuable as the system that executes it.

Most subscription stories stop at the platform. Churn reduction. Save rates. Dunning recovery. All real, all important, all easy to demo.

The harder story is the one most brands quietly lose at 9-figure scale: whether the experience designed in the platform actually reaches the customer's doorstep intact.

Primal Queen's growth from $2M to $100M+ wasn't powered by Loop alone or by Mountainy alone.

It was powered by the line between them disappearing.

If you're building a subscription brand approaching the scale where strategy stops being the bottleneck and operations start - the platform matters. The 3PL matters.

The integration between them matters more than either one in isolation.

See what Loop can do for your subscription program → Book a demo

Looking for a 3PL built for subscription brands → Schedule a call with Mountainy

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