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As a Shopify store owner, you are fully aware of the existence of various Shopify apps that can provide your business with new options and capabilities that your Shopify subscription doesn’t have.
However, it is sometimes hard to navigate between similar apps and decide which one is the best for your needs.
Shopify subscription apps are among the most wanted ones on the platform, but there are so many of them.
But don’t worry, I had tons of experience with them, during my Shopify agency days, and will review them for you in this guide!
App
Best For
Standout Feature
Price
Appstle Subscriptions
Loyalty bonuses
Mystery Boxes
Starting from Free
Seal Subscriptions
Great analytics
Magic links
Starting from Free
Loop Subscriptions
Customer Portal
Premade widgets
Starting from Free
Subify Subscriptions
Easy management
Custom subscription boxes
Starting from Free
Recurpay Subscription
Free migration from other apps
Pay-as-you-go subscription
Starting from Free
Propel Subscriptions
Affordability
Advanced email notification system
Starting from Free
Casa Subscriptions
Customization on demand
One-time subscription payment
Starting from Free
PayWhirl Subscriptions
Drag-and-drop interface
Automatic payment retries
Starting from Free
Yotpo Subscriptions
No coding knowledge needed
Automated SMS updates
Starting from Free
Recharge
All-in-one solution
Customizable bundles
Starting at $99/month
Bold Subscriptions
Great APIs
Maximizers that increase revenue
Starting from $49
Shopify Subscriptions
Free transfer of existing subscriptions
Auto-billed subscriptions with discounts
Free
Subscription apps for Shopify are used to offer subscription-based products or services to your customers. The subscription fee is usually charged monthly or annually, and this model is used to create a more predictable revenue for your business. For example, Adobe and other software companies are following this model.
Shopify subscription apps are therefore important for giving you the opportunity to tap into a new stream of revenue and offer different types of services to your customers.
Appstle is currently the best Shopify subscription app, although it is only around three years old! The free plan they are offering certainly plays a role in it!
Appstle saw that most of the competitors catered towards either small and medium businesses or enterprise businesses, and decided to try a “catch-all” strategy. It seems it works because their pool of customers includes both small niche shops and huge enterprise businesses.
They are offering a Free to install plan, and several paid plans. There is a steep pricing difference between them, as they are designed for different business sizes. Each of the premium plans comes with a 10-day free trial period.
Free to install plan
Free until your store reaches $500/month in subscription revenue. 0% transaction fees
Starter plan ($10 per month)
Sell up to $5000/month in subscription revenue. 0% transaction fees
Business plan ($30 per month)
Sell up to $30,000/month in subscription revenue. 0% transaction fees
Business premium plan ($100 per month)
Sell up to $100,000/month in subscription revenue. 0% transaction fees
They are also offering a custom enterprise plan, but you need to contact them for that.
Appstle is a good option for small and medium businesses, but enterprise businesses report some issues with using this app. Overall, I had a good experience with them, one of the easiest learning curves and user-friendly interfaces, with responsive customer support. If you are a new merchant, this app is great for testing subscriptions.
Seal Subscriptions App emerged in 2020 and they gave some established Shopify subscription apps such as Recharge a run for their money instantly. Seal is similar to Recharge in some aspects, especially when it comes to the level of customization they offer to their customers. But the most important advantage they try to leverage is the existence of a free plan, and their paid plans are much cheaper than Recharge’s.
Seal Subscription has a great pricing system, which makes it affordable and suitable for every Shopify business. They are not targeting enterprise businesses like most of their competition, and it truly feels they care about every single customer they have, no matter the subscription plan they are on.
Seal offers a Free plan, Supersale plan, Rising Star plan, Legend Plan, and a special Enterprise plan you have to contact them about. Each of the paid plans has a 30-day free trial.
Free plan
Supersale plan ($4.95 per month)
Rising Star plan ($7.95 per month)
Legend plan ($19.95 per month)
Seal Subscriptions App has a very dedicated team that takes feedback seriously. In the first two years, they had some issues with integrations and there were errors that affected store performance for some users, but in the last 12 months they have a stream of excellent reviews and they receive only praise. Our experience with them is very positive, which is why we think they are among the best Shopify subscription apps.
Loop subscriptions is one of the rare Shopify subscription apps that has a perfect 5.0 rating. They are not that big yet, but there are lots of users who migrated from Recharge and they are very happy with Loop.
I don’t know if they specifically target unhappy Recharge users, but there are many similar features between these two apps and many happy Loop users that were previously unhappy with Recharge. That is probably the biggest reason why they are maintaining a perfect rating on the store. Besides unhappy Recharge users, Loop is more suitable for enterprise merchants, because of steep pricing tiers.
Pricing tiers might be viewed as inadequate for this type of an app, despite Loop offering a Free plan.
Free plan
Growth plan ($99 per month)
Enterprise plan ($399 per month)
I have used Loop since their inception in 2021 and they are really great. What stands out the most is how much they listen to user feedback! They are often developing new features based on their customer’s ideas, and that’s one of the reasons why their rating is so high. Because of steep pricing tiers they are not for everyone, but I recommend them to enterprise merchants, the investment in this app will pay off.
Subify subscriptions app is one of the newer on the market — they emerged at the beginning of 2022, but they quickly became one of the best Shopify subscription apps, with a stellar 4.9-star rating. The ability to integrate this app with Shopify and other popular Shopify apps and the existence of a free plan are the main reasons why users love it.
Subify subscriptions app is one of the few apps in this category that gives a completely free plan to its users. While it is not enough for merchants with a vast selling network, it is great for new Shopify users to test things out. However, premium subscription plans with lots of options are suitable even for enterprise businesses.
Subify offers a Free to install plan, Essential plan, Basic plan, and Subify plan. All of the premium plans have a 14-day free trial attached.
Free to install plan
Essential plan ($9 per month)
Basic plan ($39 per month)
Subify ($79 per month)
Subify is definitely out there with the best Shopify subscription apps! The type of customer support they are providing is easily among the best on the platform, and the app itself is very well-coded, reliable, and easy to use. Subify lacks some options and features compared to its competitors, but if you are looking for a reliable app to manage subscriptions, you won’t make a mistake with them.
Recurpay is just under three years old with a steady growth of users in 2024. They are not well known as Recharge or Appstle, but they are regarded as one of the best Shopify subscription apps by users who tested them out. Recurpay has a unique pricing based on subscription revenue.
Recurpay is pretty unique not only because of pricing but also because of the features that are available for all tiers of users. That means you can use almost all the options they have even with their Free plan, which will be charged as you grow. This type of service makes Recurpay almost risk-free, and therefore suitable for both small and large businesses.
Recurpay is completely free until you get $100 in subscription revenue for a month. After you get more, paid plans start at $9 per month.
Free
Grow ($9 per month)
Grow ($29 per month)
Grow ($79 per month)
Recurpay is probably the best option for small businesses because you won’t pay anything until you start racking up revenue from your subscriptions. What stood out to me when I was using this app is how kind and reasonable their customer service is. Their professionals will even go that far to include some custom options especially for you on request, if that is possible!
Propel Subscriptions have been around for almost three years and they are targeting merchants that are not willing to pay hundreds of dollars for this type of service. Therefore, they will lack many options you can find on premium Shopify subscription apps, but they are giving good value for the price paid.
As we already mentioned, Propel targets mainly small and medium businesses. They are offering a free plan, which is suitable for customers who are just starting their journey on Shopify. Interestingly, they don’t offer free trials for their paid plans.
They are offering a Free plan, until you reach $500 per month in subscription revenue, and very affordable Growth and Enterprise plans.
Free plan
Growth plan ($9 per month)
Enterprise plan ($19 per month)
Propel is a nice app for users with basic needs. Their affordability makes them an excellent option for Shopify merchants who don’t want to pay too much for Shopify apps, but because of that, Propel is not on the level of subscription apps that offer premium service. Still a good option for small and medium businesses.
Casa subscriptions is three years old, and they haven’t built a huge customer base, but the ones that found them are very happy and sticking with Casa for a long time. That makes Casa subscriptions one of the best Shopify subscription apps in our book.
Casa subscriptions is free and it doesn’t have as many features as some other apps that you would have to pay more than $100 monthly, so it makes sense that the majority of their customers are small store owners.
They are offering only a Free plan and advertise themselves like that, but there are some features you can pay for if you want to upgrade. You would have to contact them for additional info.
Casa subscriptions is great if you want to test this type of software, given it is a free Shopify app, but the lack of options and reliability makes it good only for testing in my opinion. If you are an owner of an enterprise business, you should seek other options.
PayWhirl has been around for about four years, but they haven’t managed to reach the number of users as some of their younger competitors. They are offering a free plan, free trials for their paid plans, and classic subscription options you can find on other Shopify subscription apps. In customer’s eyes, they are probably not special enough to spark their interest, but the ones who actually purchased this app are mostly satisfied with it.
Since they are offering a free plan, PayWhirl is naturally a magnet for small businesses, or the ones that are just getting started on Shopify. Their pricing plans are suitable for medium businesses too, but it seems that the most expensive plan is lacking some features for enterprise merchants.
PayWhirl is offering a Free to install plan and a 14-day free trial for each of the paid plans.
Free plan
Pro plan ($9 per month)
Traction plan ($29 per month)
Scale plan ($149 per month)
PayWhirl is not among the best Shopify subscription apps. They don’t have any standout features and their Scale plan is simply not worth the price gap. Having priority support and a dedicated account manager is always nice, but it is not worth $120 per month, especially if we compare them with the premium features of some of their competitors. It is still a nice option though, with good customer support, and a Free plan suitable for small businesses.
Yotpo is one of the most popular Shopify apps, but not in this department. Their SMS and email marketing app is trusted by thousands of users, and their subscription app is not on that level. However, customers who are using their other apps can try this one as well, because they are used to the Yotpo interface and customer service.
Yotpo subscriptions is trying to target all businesses with their pricing strategy, but new merchants and small businesses will benefit the most from their offer.
Yotpo is free to install, and continues to be free until you exceed $500 in monthly subscription sales. After that, they are taking 1% per additional sales.
Yotpo subscriptions is clearly not the focus of this developer, since they have much more successful product to work on. This app is fine for testing out subscriptions and a starter pack for customers who don’t want to pay too much money, but for enterprise businesses, it simply lacks features and it is not stable enough to be an all-in-one solution for subscriptions.
Recharge subscriptions is one of the most popular Shopify subscription apps. It is one of the oldest ones as well since it was launched in 2014. It is user-friendly and it was always recommended as an all-in-one solution for subscription payments. However, in recent years, their rating is constantly dropping.
Recharge subscriptions app is mostly catered towards enterprise clients since its price can be a bit steep for newly registered users. However, with a free trial available, even smaller merchants can test the tool and decide if is it worth paying a full subscription.
Two paid plans are available, with a 30-day free trial for Standard.
Standard plan ($99 per month)
Pro plan ($499 per month)
As one of the veterans in the market, it is clear that Recharge subscriptions had to work hard to stay competitive. For the past ten years, they managed to be consistent and continue being one of the best subscription apps for Shopify. The fact Recharge gives you everything you need for this type of service is the main reason why they stay relevant.On the other hand, the lack of a free plan and the inability to test the Pro plan with a free trial makes Recharge subscriptions unaffordable for merchants who are just getting started on Shopify. By working with Shopify clients, we earned lots of experience with this app as well and didn’t have any issues. However, there are reports about their support being sometimes slow, so you have to be aware of that if you decide to work with them.
Bold subscriptions have been one of the biggest competitors of Recharge subscriptions several years ago, but they are also falling behind recently. With their Maximizer system, they are offering somewhat different packages compared to many other apps in this department, and they are also more affordable than many. That’s probably their biggest selling point.
Bold subscriptions market themselves as an app that will maximize revenue at each point of the customer’s journey, by upselling them from the get-go. With their pricing system, Bold targets fast-scaling businesses, and ambitious newcomers in the world of Shopify.
They are offering only one, Core plan, with a 30-day free trial.
Core-Unlimited plan ($49.99 per month)
Bold subscriptions is a relatively affordable solution for small and medium e-commerce businesses. They have a unique system that focuses on each step of your customer’s journey, which makes them a bit too specific for some merchants. We tested Bold, and they are not on the level of Recharge, but they are a decent option to try out, especially for new businesses. Their 30-day free trial will give you enough time to test it out, with all the features available. There are reports of newer versions working worse than older ones, which is something you should have in mind. Nevertheless, Bold is still among Shopify subscription apps worth testing.
Shopify subscriptions is a free subscription app provided by Shopify. The fact it is free makes it a great starting point for venturing into subscription tactics, but otherwise, it has very limited options compared to many other apps listed in this review.
As one of the few free Shopify subscription apps, this app is catered towards small businesses and the ones that are just starting out with Shopify. Of course, even enterprise businesses can use this app, but it probably won’t be enough to cover all their needs.
Shopify subscriptions is completely free, there are no paid plans available.
As a free app, Shopify Subscriptions is good for testing, but a serious business needs much more than this. We wouldn’t recommend this app to any enterprise business, because it is not very reliable and lacks sufficient options for merchants with a large customer base.
In this guide, I covered all the best Shopify subscription apps I could find. Every app was tested, and there are options for everyone here. Although I ranked them from one to twelve in my opinion, that doesn’t mean you should automatically go with option number one. Testing several apps from this list, and then choosing the one that suits your needs the most, is the way to go.
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