For a store doing $5,000 a month in subscription revenue, Seal Subscriptions costs $5.95 a month and Recharge costs $192.50. Both are well-reviewed apps. The difference is almost entirely the transaction fee, which is the number roundups leave out of the comparison table. If you are under roughly 100 active subscriptions, pick on the flat-fee side: Seal, Recurpay, Propel or Appstle. If you are running a large subscription business that needs bundle building, retention flows and a CSM, Recharge and Loop charge a percentage because they are selling you something more than billing.
The best Shopify subscription apps in 2026, priced with the transaction fees put back in
Eight apps, every price and fee read off the live Shopify App Store listing on 23 October 2026, then run through the same worked example so the totals are comparable.
Subscription apps are priced in two different currencies and most comparisons only show you one of them. There is a monthly fee, which everyone lists, and there is a cut of every recurring charge, which gets a footnote. The second one is usually the bigger number. A 2% fee on $5,000 of monthly subscription revenue is $100 a month — four times the sticker price of the plan it is attached to, and it grows precisely as your subscription business succeeds.
So this page prices every app the same way: take a store doing $5,000 a month in subscription revenue across about 100 subscriber orders, put each app on the plan that actually covers that volume, and add the fee. That is an arbitrary store, but it is arbitrary in the same way for all eight apps, which is what makes the column comparable.
What each app costs at $5,000/month in subscription revenue
Monthly plan price plus the published transaction fee on $5,000, across roughly 100 subscriber orders.
| App | Plan at this volume | Transaction fee | Total per month | Install |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seal Subscriptions | SUPERSALE $5.95/mo (up to 100 subscriptions) | 0% | $5.95 | See listing → |
| Recurpay | Launch $9/mo (unlimited subscriptions) | 0% | $9.00 | See listing → |
| Propel Subscriptions | Growth $9/mo | 0% | $9.00 | See listing → |
| Appstle Subscriptions | STARTER $10/mo (covers up to $5,000/mo) | 0% | $10.00 | See listing → |
| Bold Subscriptions our partner | Launch $24.99/mo | 2% | $124.99 | See Bold → |
| Loop Subscriptions | Starter $99/mo | 1.0% | $149.00 | See listing → |
| Recharge | Starter $99/mo | 1.49% + 19¢ | $192.50 | See listing → |
| Awtomic | Growth $299/mo | 1% | $349.00 | See listing → |
Two caveats before you read too much into the bottom rows. Recharge’s and Loop’s percentages buy things the flat-fee apps do not offer — bundle builders, retention and cancellation flows, dedicated support — so at large volume the fee is a real trade rather than a tax. And the flat-fee apps meter on subscription count rather than revenue, so a store with 400 cheap subscriptions moves up Seal’s tiers faster than this example suggests. Check your own numbers against the plan caps, not against this row.
Where each app wins and loses
The short version of the five apps most stores actually choose between.
Appstle Subscriptions
Pros
- 9,075 reviews at 5.0, by far the deepest record here
- No transaction fee on any tier
- Built for Shopify badge; migration help even on the free plan
Cons
- Tiers cap on monthly subscription revenue, so a good month can bump you a plan
- Broad feature set means a longer setup than the simpler apps
Seal Subscriptions
Pros
- Cheapest credible option: $5.95/mo to 100 subscriptions, 0% fee
- Real free tier rather than a trial, also at 0%
- 4.9 from 3,148 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge
Cons
- Tiers meter on subscription count, which bites if you have many small subscriptions
- Little in the way of retention or winback tooling
Recurpay
Pros
- Flat $9/mo with unlimited subscriptions and 0% fee
- Growth at $19 adds tiered discounts, gifts, swaps and campaigns
- Free on development stores, so you can build before paying
Cons
- 579 reviews is a much shallower record than Appstle or Seal
- No Built for Shopify badge
Recharge
Pros
- Longest-running option, listed since 2014, 4.8 from 3,141 reviews
- Deepest agency and integration ecosystem of anything here
- $25 entry plan covers the first 50 subscribers with no fee
Cons
- Most expensive in our worked example at about $192.50/mo
- 1.49% plus 19¢ an order compounds as you grow
Bold Subscriptions (our partner)
Pros
- One vendor if you are already standardised on Bold
- Percentage drops to 1% on Grow and 0.9% on Scale
Cons
- $24.99/mo plus 2% is $124.99 at $5,000 revenue, against $10 for our top pick
- Lowest rating here: 4.0 from 381 reviews, 13% of them one star
- No Built for Shopify badge
- Three other Bold apps were removed from the App Store in October 2026
The apps, ranked
Ratings and plan prices as listed on 23 October 2026.
Appstle Subscriptions
Appstle is the one we would install on a store that has no strong reason to do otherwise. It holds 5.0 stars across 9,075 reviews — 98% of them five star, and more review volume than every other app on this page combined — with the Built for Shopify badge. Pricing meters on subscription revenue rather than taking a cut of it: free up to $500 a month, $10 up to $5,000, $30 up to $15,000, $100 up to $100,000, with no transaction fee at any tier. You get pay-as-you-go and prepaid subscriptions, a customer portal, build-a-box, loyalty and migration help. The honest caveat is that an app this broad has a lot of surface area, and the settings take an afternoon rather than ten minutes.
What you get
- 5.0 from 9,075 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge, the deepest record in the category
- No transaction fee on any plan; tiers are capped by monthly subscription revenue
- Free up to $500/mo, $10 up to $5,000, $30 up to $15,000, $100 up to $100,000
- Pay-as-you-go and prepaid plans, build-a-box, customer portal, hands-on migration
- Not an affiliate partner of ours — this link earns us nothing
Seal Subscriptions
Seal is the cheapest option here that we would still trust with recurring revenue, and the gap is not small: $5.95 a month for up to 100 subscriptions against Recharge’s $192.50 at the same volume. It has 4.9 stars from 3,148 reviews and the Built for Shopify badge, and the free tier is a genuine free tier with a 0% transaction fee rather than a trial. Tiers step by subscription count: $5.95 to 100, $9.95 to 250, $24.95 to 500. You get auto-charging or recurring invoices, multi-language translations and subscription rules at the product level. What you do not get is the retention tooling that the percentage-fee apps build their case on, so if winback flows are your plan, look further down.
What you get
- 4.9 from 3,148 reviews, Built for Shopify, listed since March 2020
- Genuinely free tier with a 0% transaction fee, not a trial
- Paid tiers meter by subscription count: $5.95 to 100, $9.95 to 250, $24.95 to 500
- Auto-charging mode or recurring invoices, multi-language, product-level rules
- Not an affiliate partner of ours — this link earns us nothing
Recurpay Subscriptions
Recurpay is the pick if your subscription count is high but your average order value is low, because its plans are flat rather than metered: $9 a month on Launch for unlimited subscriptions with a 0% transaction fee, $19 on Growth which adds tiered discounts, gifts, swaps and email campaigns. That is the structure Seal’s per-subscription tiers eventually punish. It holds 5.0 from 579 reviews with 97% five star, which is a good record but a much shallower one than Appstle or Seal, and it has no Built for Shopify badge. Free on development stores, so you can build the whole flow before paying anything.
What you get
- 5.0 from 579 reviews; listed since November 2021
- Flat pricing with unlimited subscriptions — $9 Launch, $19 Growth
- 0% transaction fee on every plan, no hidden charges
- Growth adds tiered discounts, gifts and swaps, plus email campaigns
- Not an affiliate partner of ours — this link earns us nothing
Loop Subscriptions
Loop is built for subscription businesses rather than stores that happen to sell a subscription, and the pricing says so: $99 a month plus 1% once you pass 50 active subscriptions. What the percentage buys is the retention layer — custom bundle building, gamified subscriber journeys, one-click checkout links, cancellation flows designed to save the subscriber rather than just process the churn. At 5.0 from 789 reviews it is well regarded. The maths only works if that tooling measurably lifts retention, because at $5,000 a month you are paying $149 against Appstle’s $10. Below roughly $20,000 a month in subscription revenue, we would want evidence before signing up for it.
What you get
- 5.0 from 789 reviews; Free Forever plan covers 50 active subscriptions
- Starter $99/mo + 1.0% per transaction; Pro $399/mo + 0.75% with a dedicated CSM
- Bundle building, gamified subscriber journeys and cancellation-save flows
- Costs $149/mo at $5,000 subscription revenue against Appstle’s $10
- Not an affiliate partner of ours — this link earns us nothing
Recharge Subscriptions
Recharge has been on the App Store since October 2014 and is the name most merchants have heard first, with 4.8 stars from 3,141 reviews. It runs very large subscription programmes and the ecosystem around it — agencies, integrations, migration tooling — is deeper than anything else here, which is a real asset if you have a development partner. It is also the most expensive option in our worked example at $192.50 a month, because 1.49% plus 19¢ an order compounds quickly. The $25 entry plan is worth knowing about: it covers your first 50 subscribers with no transaction fee, which makes it a sane place to start before the Starter plan kicks in.
What you get
- 4.8 from 3,141 reviews; the longest-running option, listed since 2014
- Entry plan $25/mo covers the first 50 subscribers with no transaction fee
- Starter $99/mo + 1.49% + 19¢ per transaction; Plus $499/mo + 1.34%
- Deepest agency and integration ecosystem of any app here
- Not an affiliate partner of ours — this link earns us nothing
Bold Subscriptions
This is the only app on this page we earn anything from, and we are ranking it last, so here is the reasoning in full. On the entry plan it charges $24.99 a month plus 2% of subscription revenue, which is both the highest base fee of the cheap options and the highest percentage of any app here — $124.99 a month in our worked example, against $10 for Appstle. Its rating is 4.0 from 381 reviews, the lowest here, and the distribution is split rather than mediocre: 72% five star against 13% one star. It does not carry the Built for Shopify badge. One more thing a reader should weigh: Bold Discounts, Bold Custom Pricing and Bold Memberships were all removed from the Shopify App Store in October 2026. Bold Subscriptions is still listed and we have no reason to think it is going anywhere, but concentration risk in a billing app is worth naming. Consider it if you are already standardised on Bold’s remaining apps and value one vendor over the price gap.
What you get
- 4.0 from 381 reviews — lowest here, with 13% one-star against 72% five-star
- Launch $24.99/mo + 2%; Grow $49.99/mo + 1%; Scale $74.99/mo + 0.9%
- $124.99/mo in our $5,000 worked example, the most expensive of the sub-$100 plans
- No Built for Shopify badge; listed since October 2020
- Three other Bold apps were removed from the App Store in October 2026
- This is our affiliate link — the only one on this page
Also worth knowing about
Propel Subscriptions (4.7 from 174 reviews) is free until your store passes $500 a month in subscription revenue, then $9 on Growth and $19 on Enterprise, all at 0% transaction fees. It is a reasonable near-twin of Recurpay with a shallower review base. Awtomic (5.0 from 36 reviews) starts at $299 a month plus 1% and targets headless and API-driven setups; unless you know you need that, you do not.
And the option that costs nothing: Shopify sells a first-party subscriptions capability through its own APIs, which some themes and agencies build against directly. If you have a developer and simple recurring needs, ask them what a native build costs before you rent one at 2% a month forever.
How to choose without reading all eight listings
- Under 100 subscriptions, watching costs: Seal at $5.95, or Appstle at $10 if you want the deeper record and the badge.
- Lots of low-value subscriptions: Recurpay — flat $9 with no cap on subscription count, where per-subscription tiers would bite.
- Subscription is the business, not a feature: Loop or Recharge. Pay the percentage for retention tooling, and measure whether it earns it.
- Already standardised on Bold: Bold Subscriptions, knowing it costs more per month than the alternatives at the same volume.
Whichever you choose, migrate on a quiet week and run a real recurring charge end to end before you move live subscribers. Billing apps hold the part of your store that customers notice immediately when it breaks, and a failed renewal is a cancelled customer rather than a support ticket.
The one we would install
Appstle: 5.0 from 9,075 reviews, Built for Shopify, no transaction fee, and $10 a month covering $5,000 of subscription revenue. We earn nothing if you install it, which is rather the point.
Frequently asked questions
Which Shopify subscription app has no transaction fee?
Appstle, Seal, Recurpay and Propel all charge 0% on every plan and meter by subscription revenue or subscription count instead. Recharge, Loop, Bold and Awtomic all take a percentage on top of the monthly fee, ranging from 0.75% to 2%. At $5,000 a month in subscription revenue that difference is worth between $37 and $100 a month.
What is the cheapest Shopify subscription app?
Seal Subscriptions, at $5.95 a month for up to 100 subscriptions with a 0% transaction fee, and it has a genuinely free tier below that. Recurpay and Propel are both $9. The cheapest option with the deepest review base is Appstle at $10 for up to $5,000 a month in subscription revenue.
Is Recharge worth the transaction fee?
It depends entirely on scale. At $5,000 a month in subscription revenue Recharge costs about $192.50 against Appstle’s $10, which is hard to justify on billing alone. What you are buying is the ecosystem: agencies that know it, integrations that already exist, and migration tooling for large subscriber bases. If you have a development partner and tens of thousands in monthly recurring revenue, that is a real argument. If you are starting out, it is not.
Why is your affiliate partner ranked last?
Because on the published numbers it belongs there. Bold Subscriptions charges $24.99 a month plus 2%, which is $124.99 at the volume we use for comparison, against $10 for the top pick. It also has the lowest rating here at 4.0 from 381 reviews, with 13% of those being one star. We would rather tell you that and keep the page worth reading than move it up and hope you do not check.
Can I switch subscription apps without losing subscribers?
Usually yes, but it is the riskiest migration in the app store because payment methods and billing schedules have to come across intact. Most of these apps offer migration help, and Appstle includes hands-on migration on every tier including free. Do it in a quiet week, run at least one real renewal through the new app before you move the rest, and keep the old app installed until you have seen a full billing cycle succeed.
Do I need an app at all for Shopify subscriptions?
Shopify exposes subscription capability through its own APIs, so a developer can build recurring billing into a theme directly. For simple recurring orders on a small catalogue, that can be cheaper than renting an app at a percentage forever. What you lose is the customer portal, the dunning logic for failed payments and the retention tooling, all of which are harder to build than they look.
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