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September 9, 2024

Recurly vs Recharge vs Loop: Which subscription platform is best? Discover the best alternative to Recurly

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In this post, we discuss and give a complete breakdown of 3 popular subscription apps: Recurly, Recharge and Loop

These platforms are very renowned names in the  offer robust subscription functionalities, user-interfaces for subscription management and offer automated customer communication via email.

However, selecting the best one for your business is important to ensure you get the maximum for what you buy - through this blog, we will attempt to provide an evaluation framework of sorts - to help you make an informed decision. 

We will talk about companies - Recurly, Recharge and Loop - and see how they fare in terms of features, pricing, integrations and support etc.

Find out why Loop is the best alternative - Shopify subscriptions apps ↗️

Recurly

Recurly is a good solution for eCommerce businesses looking to streamline their subscription management processes and optimize revenue. By automating recurring billing, providing detailed analytics, and offering advanced dunning management, Recurly helps businesses reduce churn, increase customer retention, and drive growth. Recurly ensures a seamless customer experience, making it an ideal choice for businesses aiming to enhance their subscription offerings and achieve long-term success.

Features of Recurly

  1. Recurring Billing and Invoicing: Recurly automates the recurring billing process, ensuring that customers are billed correctly and on time. It supports various billing models, including fixed recurring billing, usage-based billing, and hybrid models. This flexibility allows businesses to cater to different customer needs and pricing strategies.
  2. Subscription Management: With Recurly, businesses can easily manage subscription plans, including creating, updating, and canceling subscriptions. It provides detailed insights into subscriber activity, helping businesses track metrics such as churn rate, lifetime value, and subscriber growth.
  3. Dunning Management: Recurly offers advanced dunning management tools to minimize involuntary churn. It automates the process of retrying failed payments, sending reminder emails, and updating payment information, which helps in recovering potentially lost revenue.
  4. Analytics and Reporting: Recurly provides comprehensive analytics and reporting features that give businesses a clear view of their subscription performance. It includes dashboards for monitoring key performance indicators and generating custom reports to make data-driven decisions.
  5. Integrations: Recurly integrates with a wide range of third-party applications, including CRM, accounting, and marketing automation tools. This seamless integration ensures that businesses can leverage their existing technology stack while enhancing their subscription management capabilities.
  6. Security and Compliance: Recurly prioritizes security and compliance, data encryption, and fraud prevention ensuring that customer data is protected and that businesses adhere to regulatory requirements.

Recurly Implementation and Support

Recurly offers comprehensive support and resources to help businesses. This includes detailed documentation, implementation guides, and customer support to ensure a smooth and successful integration process. Additionally, Recurly provides ongoing support to help businesses optimize their subscription management and address any issues that may arise.

You can evaluate the quality of Recurly’s support and tech from their G2 reviews. 

recurly support reviews
recurly reviews
Recurly reviews

Access G2 Recurly reviews here - Recurly Reviews

Recurly support can be categorized into 3 parts

  • Product Documentation
  • Developer Hub
  • Ticket creation
recurly support

Recurly Pricing

For subscription management, Recurly has 3 plans

  • Starter - best suited for relatively smaller / new companies
  • Professional - best suited for mid sized companies
  • Elite - best suited for large / enterprise companies

They also have a free trial for the starter plan

Recharge Subscriptions

Recharge is a popular app that has a broad set of offerings for shopify subscription management.

With Recharge, you can establish subscription choices for a wide array of products, enabling customers to tailor their delivery schedules and payment options to fit their individual requirements. Recharge also includes options for bundles and SMS functionality

Recharge features

Recharge, a leading subscription app, offers a number of features helping businesses grow their business. The features are aligned to the following goals

  • Acquire Subscribers
  • Increase AOV
  • Decrease churn
  • Increase LTV

Check out Recharge’s features page to learn more - https://getrecharge.com/features/

Recharge Subscription Pricing

Recharge provides several pricing plans. It’s important to assess your business's unique needs and scale when choosing a plan.

On Recharge’s website, three plan options are available, starting at $99. Each plan includes different features to suit various needs. Moreover, the Standard plan incurs an extra charge of 1.25% in transaction fees and $0.19 per order.

Recharge Support and Integrations

To learn more about Recharge's support, you can check their Shopify App reviews. 

Recharge offers robust support and integrates seamlessly with Shopify and various other applications like Klaviyo, Gorgias, Attentive, TapCart, and more.

Why Brands Are Migrating to Loop

Brands are increasingly switching to Loop due to its exceptional support and competitively priced plans with a comprehensive feature set. One of the key reasons for this migration is Loop's super-fast support and favorable pricing.

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Why Loop Subscriptions is a possible alternative?

Loop's platform is built based on direct feedback from the DTC community, ensuring it meets the specific needs of modern businesses. Key features include:

🎨 Fully customizable bundles and portal

💳 Integrated smart dunning management solution

🎁 Loop Flows to automate and personalize subscriber experiences

🌊 Best-in-class cancellation flows

Loop's pricing is designed to be flexible and suitable for brands of all sizes. They charge a lower transaction fee of 0.75% of the total subscription value, with no additional charges.

Livingood Daily, migrated from Recharge, cut churn from 10% to 2% after switching to Loop Subscriptions. How did they do this?

  • Executed a gamified subscriber journey offering the right rewards at the right points
  • Implemented exit Surveys and Analysis of Cancellation Reasons
  • Experimented with different ways of engaging with subscribers
Loop reviews

Detailed Comparison: Features, Pricing, Support, Reviews

Loop Features and Functionality

Loop Subscriptions is highly regarded among Shopify store owners for its recurring billing and subscription management capabilities - it has secured an average rating of 5 out of 300+ reviews.

Key functionalities include:

  • Subscription Widgets: Allows brands to offer subscriptions directly on their product pages.
  • Subscriber Retention: Offers discounts and trials to maintain subscriber loyalty.

Loop Pricing

Loop offers a competitive pricing structure, charging only 0.75% transaction fees with no extra charges, making it a cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes.

Loop has 2 plans - Growth and Enterprise. Loop’s Growth Plan starts from 99 USD.

Loop pricing

Loop Support and Integrations

For information on Loop's support, refer to their Shopify App reviews. Loop integrates smoothly with other Shopify apps and services, including popular payment gateways, shipping and fulfilment solutions, and CRM tools like Klaviyo, Attentive, Zapier, and more.

Loop's Competitive Edge Over Recurly and Recharge

Loop Subscriptions’ USP lies in the following 

👾 Strong In-built gamification

🎨 Fully customizable bundles and customer portal

💳 Integrated smart dunning management solution

🎁 Automated and personalized subscriber journeys with Loop Flows

🌊 Superior cancellation flows

Check how Lilac St. saw a 72.7% increase in subscriptions revenue within just 11 months of implementing Loop's bundle setup - Read here

Comparing Recharge, Recurly, and Loop for Your Shopify Store

Both Recharge and Recurly are reputable subscription platforms with unique strengths. However, Loop offers enhanced flexibility, customization, and integration capabilities, making it a preferred choice for many brands. Recharge’s app can be found on the shopify app store. Recurly app isn’t available on shopify app store - you can try out its free trial here - https://app.recurly.com/signup

Brands have transitioned from Recharge and Recurly to Loop due to its comprehensive features, seamless integrations, better customization options, lower transaction fees, and outstanding customer support. Book a meeting with our team here - https://www.loopwork.co/book-a-demo

Why Choose Loop Over Recharge and Recurly?

Loop Subscriptions excels in delivering exceptional value and efficiency. By switching from Recharge Payments and Recurly to Loop, brands can save nearly 40% in subscription app costs due to Loop's lower transaction fees.

Recharge vs. Recurly vs. Loop Comparison Table

Recharge Recurly Loop
Shopify App Reviews (effective 20 June 2024) 1767* NA* 306*
No-code bundle builder
Advanced Cancellations Analytics
Includes bar trends of the last 6 months of cancellation reasons, Average orders before cancellation
Add A Free Merch (Product) On 5th (Any) Order
Gamify customer portal by adding a banner - “X orders away from free merch”. Increases LTV

Not possible without a developer

Not possible without a developer
Gifts for subscriber segments in exit survey [No coding required]
Fully customizable subscription widget with 200+ design options and Condition Based Bulk Actions

Last updated on 1st Feb, 2024*

Index
✅Feature available
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Could not find data. Please check the respective companies' websites for more information.

PS: Recurly has a dedicated page on their analytics platform, you can check it out here:  https://docs.recurly.com/docs/recurly-analytics-overview

Key Advantages of Loop Subscriptions:

  • Automated Subscriber Journey: Loop Flows gamify the subscriber journey, enhancing customer satisfaction and boosting retention rates.
  • Modern UI & Interface: Loop offers an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy for businesses to manage and scale their subscription programs.
  • Cost Reduction: Brands save around 40% in subscription app costs with Loop's lower transaction fees.

By choosing Loop Subscriptions, businesses can optimize their subscription models and unlock numerous benefits that foster growth and success in the competitive eCommerce landscape.

If you aim to streamline your subscription management process and enhance customer experience, consider Loop Subscriptions.

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Written by
Emma Johnson
Head of Marketing

Emma Johnson is celebrated for her strategic brilliance and innovative flair. By seamlessly blending creativity with data-driven insights, she has propelled Loop’s brand to new heights, establishing it as a formidable force in the Shopify Subscriptions space.