What Is Recharge? Shopify Subscriptions, Plans and Fees
By Joris van Huët · Recharge's own site
The short answer: if your Shopify store already sells subscriptions and the problem is subscribers leaving, Recharge's Starter plan is $149 a month plus 1.50% + 20¢ per transaction, with 60 free days counted from the day the app is installed (pricing page, checked on 5 November 2026). It is a subscription platform for Shopify brands: widget and checkout, a customer portal, cancellation, failed-payment and win-back flows, bundles, an API and analytics.
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Three sums before the trial:
- Work out the usage fee, then the break-even. For example, 2,000 subscription orders a month at $40 is $80,000; Starter's usage fee is $80,000 x 1.5% + 2,000 x $0.20 = $1,600 and Scale's is $80,000 x 1.25% + $400 = $1,400, so Scale's $350 higher monthly fee is covered from $350 / 0.0025 = $140,000 in subscription sales a month (pricing page).
- Start from the subscriptions you already hold. Shopify's own app is free, but bundles do not work with it (Shopify help); Recharge lists migration support under Scale, not Starter.
- Decide the churn figure you will defend. Flow metrics refresh once a day at 1:30 AM ET (Flows guide); write last month's cancellations and active subscribers down first.
What Recharge does
The homepage claims 71% of subscriptions sold on Shopify stores and 20,000 brands (homepage), figures about Recharge's book rather than your store. Subscribers sign up through a product-page widget and Shopify's checkout, manage orders in a portal, and meet Cancellation Prevention at the exit, a survey with an offer tied to each answer; Failed Payment Recovery retries declined cards, and Win Backs email lapsed subscribers 30 days after they cancel (Win Backs guide). Automate flows swap a starter kit for refills (Automate guide).
Developers get a REST API with a bucket of 40 requests leaking at 2 a second (rate limits), webhooks that retry 20 times over 48 hours (webhooks), a Storefront API and JavaScript SDK (Storefront docs), a Zapier app (Zapier guide) and an Analytics MCP connector through which Claude or ChatGPT read aggregate metrics and nothing else (MCP article). Its Hit Subscribe podcast last published on 28 September 2023 (Apple Podcasts).
Who it suits, and who it does not
A Shopify brand in food, beauty, pets or supplements with enough subscribers that an exit offer and a retry schedule move revenue. Less so a store with a handful of subscriptions, where Shopify's free app does without a usage fee, and a store off Shopify, though the developer docs add BigCommerce (docs).
What it costs
From the pricing page, in USD plus tax, checked on 5 November 2026:
| Plan | Monthly fee | Usage fee per transaction | Term |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $149 | 1.50% + 20¢ | Monthly, after a 60-day trial |
| Scale | $499 | 1.25% + 20¢ | Monthly |
| Custom | Quoted | Volume-based | 12 months |
Starter carries the checkout integration, the portal, Cancellation Prevention, Failed Payment Recovery, Win Backs, Automate and the API; Scale adds bundles, tiered discounts, subscriber-journey A/B tests, the Remi AI agent, Concierge SMS, the SDK and migration support, and Plus and Custom run on 12-month terms (pricing FAQ).
Recharge gains most when the trial ends on Scale: the 60 free days run from the install date rather than from launch, and the tools a trial is meant to prove, bundles, A/B tests and the Storefront API, sit under Scale at $499 a month, so a store that installs before it is ready spends its free days on setup and meets the upgrade question with its first invoice (pricing page).
How it compares
Rival prices were checked on 5 November 2026.
- Shopify Subscriptions. Free, rated 3.8 from 890 reviews, no bundles (app listing); for a small line with no churn tooling.
- Loop Subscriptions. Free to 50 active subscriptions, then Starter at $99 a month plus 1.0% (Loop pricing).
- Skio. One Scale plan at 499 a month billed annually, plus 1.25% + 20¢ per subscription order, no currency named (Skio pricing).
- Appstle Subscriptions. Metered by subscription revenue with no transaction fee, free to $500 a month (App Store listing).
- Bold Subscriptions. Launch at $24.99 a month plus 2%, Grow at $49.99 plus 1% (App Store listing).
Getting started
How to use Recharge builds a Cancellation Prevention flow with a country branch, one offer per reason and the MCP connector reading the results.
FAQ
Does Recharge have an MCP server?
For analytics only: the connector, in early adopter status, answers aggregate questions across 130+ metrics from Claude or ChatGPT, returns no record-level data and cannot change the store (MCP article).
What are Recharge workflows?
Automate flows act on a subscription after an order; Flows under Churn tools and Loyalty run cancellation, win-back and rewards journeys; Workflows by Recharge is the legacy tool that Automate overwrites on a shared trigger (Automate guide).
Is pricing different on Shopify Plus?
Plus merchants may get discounted pricing through the Custom plan, by contacting sales (pricing FAQ).
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