Gen Z and subscriptions in Brazil: How consumer behavior shapes recurring revenue strategies 

As Gen Z becomes a more established part of Brazil’s consumer market, understanding how this generation engages with brands has become increasingly relevant for businesses across industries.

But understanding a generation does not mean finding a one-size-fits-all approach. Gen Z has grown up in a digital, connected, and highly personalized environment, and research from Brazil and other markets points to behaviors worth examining around how younger consumers manage subscriptions, assess value, and choose how to pay. These patterns offer useful insights, but they do not necessarily play out the same way across every market, subscription category, or customer base.

Generational research can help identify behaviors worth paying attention to, while first-party data can reveal whether—and how—those patterns appear among a company’s own subscribers. Together, these insights can inform decisions about retention, plans and pricing, payment methods, and the overall subscriber experience.

In this article, we’ll draw on findings from Brazil and international markets to explore what research reveals about Gen Z’s relationship with subscriptions and examine what businesses can look for in their own data to develop a more informed subscription strategy for Brazil.

Gen Z takes a more dynamic approach to subscriptions 

Gen Z already plays a significant role in Brazil’s subscription market. Data from Privacy, a Brazilian subscription content platform, offers one example: Gen Z accounts for 51% of its user base, making it the largest generational group on the platform. 

But Gen Z’s relationship with subscriptions is not necessarily defined by continuous participation. International research into streaming suggests that younger consumers may approach subscriptions more flexibly, subscribing to access specific content and canceling when that immediate need has been met. 

In 2026, the Generations in Play report from Dentsu and IGN Entertainment, based on research from Kantar and UC Berkeley involving 6,250 highly engaged entertainment consumers in the US, UK, and Australia, found that 59% of Gen Z respondents subscribe—and then unsubscribe—from a streaming service to watch a specific title. 

This behavior is part of a broader pattern known as subscription cycling, in which consumers move in and out of subscriptions rather than maintaining them continuously. They may cancel after using a service and later return to it or switch between different options. 

Research from the US provides further evidence of this dynamic. According to Deloitte’s 2025 Digital Media Trends survey, more than 50% of Gen Z and millennial consumers had canceled at least one paid streaming service in the previous six months, compared with 39% of consumers overall. But cancellation was not always permanent: 40% of Gen Z respondents had canceled and resubscribed to the same streaming service within a six-month period, compared with 24% of consumers overall. 

Taken together, these findings illustrate how subscription relationships can involve periods of participation, cancellation, and return, rather than following a continuous path.  

What does this mean for your subscription strategy? 

Although these findings come from streaming research conducted outside Brazil, they raise an important consideration for subscription businesses operating in the Brazilian market: the subscriber journey does not always end at cancellation. 

Rather than assuming that the same behavior applies across every subscription category or market, businesses should examine what happens before and after churn within their own subscriber base. 

For businesses serving multiple generations, analyzing their own subscriber data can reveal important differences in behavior: 

• How long does each generation remain subscribed, on average?
• What are the main reasons for cancellation?
• How many subscribers return after canceling, and how long does it take them to come back?
• Do generations differ in their choice of plans or payment methods or in how often they reactivate? 

The answers can provide a more complete picture of the subscriber journey and help identify where greater flexibility could support retention or make future reactivation easier. Options such as temporarily pausing a subscription, switching plans, or updating a payment method can then be evaluated based on the behaviors observed among your subscribers. 

The goal is to identify how Gen Z consumers actually engage with your subscriptions in Brazil and use those insights to make informed decisions about retention, flexibility, and reactivation. 

Price and value influence Gen Z’s choices 

For Gen Z consumers, purchasing decisions are not necessarily about finding the lowest price. Research from Brazil suggests that factors such as quality and trust also play an important role in how younger consumers evaluate brands. 

In a 2026 survey of 4,800 young people in Brazil aged 14 to 28, CIEE, a Brazilian nonprofit focused on education and youth employment, found that product or service quality was the leading factor in what made respondents admire a brand, cited by 48%, ahead of price (26%) and customer service quality (24%). 

Trust also emerged as an important consideration in earlier research. In 2022, the Brazilian findings from a global Edelman report showed that 78% of Gen Z respondents would buy new products from a brand they trust, even when those products were not the cheapest option. 

Although these studies do not focus specifically on subscriptions, they point to an important distinction: price and perceived value are not the same thing. What consumers are willing to pay depends, in part, on what they believe they are getting in return. That distinction is particularly relevant to subscriptions, where consumers repeatedly evaluate whether a service is worth maintaining.  

Research from the US streaming market provides additional context on how price and value factor into those decisions. In its 2025 Digital Media Trends report, Deloitte found that more than 66% of Gen Z and millennial respondents used free ad-supported video services, highlighting the relevance of different pricing and access models among younger streaming audiences. 

The same survey also identified a challenge related to perceived value: 41% of US respondents said the content available on streaming services was not worth the price they paid. 

What does this mean for your subscription strategy? 

The research highlights an important consideration for subscription businesses: there is no single explanation for the choices Gen Z consumers make. Price, quality, trust, and perceived value can carry different weight in purchasing decisions, making it important to understand which factors matter most to your own subscribers. 

Rather than assuming that the same behaviors apply to all Gen Z consumers, businesses operating in Brazil should examine whether and how these patterns appear within their own subscriber base. Data on retention, cancellations, reactivations, and plan selection can help uncover differences among the younger consumers your business serves. 

The cancellation process itself is a useful place to start. By asking subscribers why they are leaving, businesses can distinguish between factors such as price, perceived value, product or service quality, and changes in customer needs. Combining these responses with behavioral data can then help identify which factors are associated with churn within your business. 

The same principle can inform how subscription plans are structured. Rather than assuming that price will always be the primary consideration, look at which features, benefits, and options different subscriber profiles value most. From there, different plans, service tiers, and other forms of flexibility can be evaluated based on the behaviors you actually observe. 

Gen Z also shows distinct payment behaviors 

Pix, Brazil’s instant payment system, is the country’s most widely used payment method, surpassing even cash, according to the Central Bank of Brazil. It also stands out among Gen Z consumers. 

A 2023 study by Serasa, a Brazilian credit bureau, found that 43% of Gen Z respondents used Pix as their primary payment method. In contrast, millennials and baby boomers were more likely to favor credit cards. 

But Pix’s prominence does not mean that other payment methods are irrelevant to younger Brazilian consumers. In a 2025 multigenerational survey by Cielo, a Brazilian payments company, credit cards emerged as a highly trusted payment method across generations. 

Digital wallets add another dimension to the picture. According to research published in 2026 by Abecs (Brazil’s electronic payments association) and conducted by Brazilian research institute Datafolha, one in four cardholders in Brazil reported using digital wallets. Among credit cardholders aged 25 to 34, that figure reached 47%. While this age group includes both older Gen Z consumers and millennials, the finding provides additional context on digital wallet usage among younger consumers in Brazil. 

Looking specifically at recurring payments, Fiserv research published in 2024 found that 19% of Gen Z respondents said they would stop using credit cards to pay for recurring subscription services, the highest percentage among the generations surveyed. While the finding does not indicate which payment methods these consumers would choose instead, it highlights the importance of alternatives to card-based recurring payments. 

What does this mean for your subscription strategy? 

The different payment behaviors observed among Gen Z consumers highlight the importance of offering a choice of payment methods. Pix may play a prominent role among younger Brazilian consumers, but that does not diminish the relevance of other options. A diversified payment mix can help accommodate different preferences even within the same generation. 

Market research alone, however, cannot determine which payment methods will have the greatest impact on a particular business. For subscription businesses operating in Brazil, analyzing conversion rates and payment performance by method can help reveal how their own subscribers prefer to pay and where opportunities for optimization may exist. 

First-party data is particularly important when looking at a group as broad as Gen Z. Differences in customer profiles, products, and purchasing contexts can lead to behaviors that differ from those identified in broader market research. 

The possibility that some Gen Z consumers may move away from credit cards for recurring payments makes it particularly relevant for subscription businesses in Brazil to monitor the development of Automatic Pix. Launched in 2025, Automatic Pix enables recurring payments through the country’s instant payment system, based on prior customer authorization. 

Early data from PagBrasil indicates growing usage within its own ecosystem. Between Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, Automatic Pix transactions increased by 182%, while the number of new users grew by 181% and recurring users by 177%. 

Although these figures are not specific to Gen Z, they illustrate the growth of a Pix-based alternative for recurring payments, built on a payment method that already plays a significant role among younger Brazilian consumers. 

Is your subscription strategy keeping up with your subscribers? 

Understanding Gen Z does not mean finding a formula for serving this generation. It means identifying behaviors worth paying attention to, tracking how they appear within your own subscriber base, and maintaining the flexibility to adapt your strategy as those behaviors evolve. 

As Gen Z’s presence in Brazil’s consumer market continues to grow, that ability to adapt becomes increasingly important. For subscription businesses, the next step is to turn first-party customer data into decisions about plans, retention, subscriber experience, and payments, without relying on fixed assumptions about how a generation is expected to behave. 

That is where PagStream® comes in. PagBrasil’s solution for managing subscription programs and recurring revenue models gives businesses visibility into the subscriber lifecycle and key performance metrics. It also supports multiple payment methods, payment recovery strategies, and other capabilities that help businesses adapt to the needs of their subscribers. 

Talk to a PagBrasil specialist to discover how PagStream® can help your subscription strategy evolve. 

Frequently asked questions about Gen Z consumer behavior 

Find quick answers to common questions about Gen Z and subscriptions.