See all Blogs

Top 7 Apps for Increasing Recurring revenue on Shopify

September 12, 2024

Get a feature comparison today!

Recharge
Other subscription apps
Hang tight while our team sends over the feature comparison report!
Oops! Try again later

Every business strives to create value through its product or service that makes customers ask for it again and again. Once a business has created that value in its offerings, the next thing it requires is a mechanism to ensure these repeated purchases and subscriptions are a great way to do that. 

That’s why many prominent brands are opting to add subscription functionality to their Shopify store to enjoy the benefits of recurring revenue. There are many subscription apps on Shopify to choose from but we have collated the top 7 of them with different specialities in order:

1) Loop Subscriptions

2) Recharge Subscriptions

3) Bold Subscriptions

4) Appstle Subscriptions

5) Seal Subscriptions

6) Smartrr Subscriptions

7) Skio Subscription 

The subscription business model can be complex and involve intricacies that can hamper the bottom lines of the brands. Here is where subscription management apps come in handy and smoothen the operations by automating billing, handling customer subscriptions, and providing valuable insights thus benefiting both customers and customers.

The list includes some of the top subscription management apps and each app consists of some or the other features which function the best in one rather than the other. This makes it important for a brand to assess every app in the list and choose the one that fits their need the most: 

In this article, we have discussed each of the top 7 apps in detail from their features and pricing to their rating so that you can make the best decision:

App Pricing Free Trial Shopify Ratings
Loop Subscriptions $99/m & $399/m Yes 5/5
Bold Subscriptions $49.99/m Yes 4.3/5
Appstle Subscriptions App $10/m, $30/m & $100/m Yes 4.9/5
Recharge Subscriptions $99/m & $499/m Yes 4.5/5
Seal Subscriptions $4.95/m, $7.95/m & $19.95/m Yes 4.9/5
Smartrr Subscriptions $99/m, $299/m & $499/m Yes 4.9/5
Skio Subscriptions $599/m No 5/5
REQUEST A DEMO

1. Loop Subscriptions

best app for recurring revenue - Loop subscriptions

About- Loop Subscriptions is one of the most responsive and user-friendly apps on Shopify App Store. It has a fully customizable design structure that syncs with the demands of the DTC community on Shopify. With over 200+ widget options, a gamified subscription experience, interactive cancellation features, and a seamless migration process, Loop is among the best subscription management apps on Shopify.

Best features:

  • Highly customizable features: Loop lets you create a fully customizable subscriber journey by giving you control over the customer portal, a plethora of widget options, and unique preset bundles thus providing you with a highly customizable experience on the app. 
  • Gamified subscriber journey: Loop flows allow brands to create a unique subscriber journey and gamify their experience by rewarding them at regular intervals according to the brand’s policies which leads to increased subscriber retention.
  • Customer-centric portal: It empowers customers with a mobile-first and self-service portal that enables them to manage their subscriptions, leading to improved customer satisfaction and reduced churn.
  • Curated subscription box: Loop provides you the feature to make specific product subscriptions which allows merchants to curate customized subscription boxes for their subscribers.
  • Prompt customer support: Loop’s customer support is the best-in-class and their industry-expert support team is always available to cater to the diverse needs of their partners. 

Pricing:

Loop Subscriptions has priced its services under three brackets:

1. Free version 

2. $99/month with 1.0% + 0¢ per transaction 

3. $399/month with 0.75% + 0¢ per transaction

Reviews:

Loop Subscriptions enjoys a 5-star rating on Shopify and 328 reviews to its name which is a testament to its industry-leading services.

2. Bold Subscriptions

bold subscription- recurring revenue app

About- Bold Subscriptions perform the functionality of turning one-time orders into subscriptions very well which increases the value for every subscriber. It is one of the prominent reasons why brands on Shopify prefer this subscription management app. 

The app supports its partners to optimize the subscription model through subscription upsells, convertible subscriptions, customer portal upsells, email upsells, and much more. The merchants love this app for its smooth integration with Shopify, user-friendly interface, and for performing basic operations reliably.

Best features:

  • Maximizers: Bold has introduced its maximizer feature which is an AI-powered smart offer tool that keeps the goal of upselling at the forefront with the help of the tool the app determines the highest-converting products and offers them to the customers to increase revenue at every point of subscriber’s journey. 
  • Multiple payment models: Bold offers the facility to its partners to offer prepaid or ongoing pay-as-you-go subscriptions which offer payment flexibility to the customers and create a predictable revenue stream for ecommerce brands.
  • Powerful APIs and Developer tools: It provides companies with powerful APIs and dev tools that allow brands to work their subscription service the way they want like adding functionality to order to SMS or smart devices.
  • Subscriber churn prevention mechanism: Bold offers its partners efficient cancellation flows and a dunning management system to prevent subscriber churn and retain their customers.
  • Free Migration: Enjoy a smooth switch and a free trial as Bold moves from another subscription app at no cost, you get 3 months free to experience the difference.

Pricing

Bold Subscriptions sells its subscription management services only under one category known as Core- Unlimited for which it charges $49.99/month +1% of orders only containing subscription products

Reviews

Bold Subscriptions has got a rating of 4.3 with around 387 reviews to its name on Shopify.

3. Appstle Subscriptions App

appstle - increase recurring revenue

Appstle Subscriptions is a top-rated subscription app known for rich and seamless subscriptions and subscription box experience. Some of the top qualities of the app are its powerful recurring orders, smooth payment experiences, efficient subscription management tools, interactive portal, and easy checkout. 

The app provides full autonomy to merchants to set their subscription frequency, discount offers as per their company policies and also assists them in inventory management, tracking revenue and performance through their features.

Best Features

  • Diverse subscription options: Appstle provides various subscription options for the merchants to choose from such as Curated subscriptions, Replenishment subscriptions, Access subscriptions, subscription boxes, and many more. 
  • Custom subscription boxes: They also provide their merchants with the facility of custom subscription boxes and mystery boxes to achieve high shopper engagement.
  • Loyalty perks: It provides a mechanism for its merchants to retain its subscribers by offering them tiered discounts, custom shipping, gifts, and other loyalty rewards.
  • Seamless Customer Portal: Another prominent reason behind Appstle’s popularity is its feature-rich customer portal consisting of features such as one-click login and quick link actions.
  • Effective retention tools: The app is equipped with effective tools such as a dunning system along with upsells, bundling, and bulk automation to maximize ROI.

Pricing

The pricing structure of Appstle is unique and diversified. It gives you limited free services until your revenue reaches $500 per month after which it provides you services under three price brackets which are $10, $30, and $100 per month respectively.

Reviews

Appstle has got an exceptional rating of 4.9 on Shopify with over 3,500 reviews to its name which proves its credibility in the market.

4. Recharge Subscriptions

increase recurring revenue - recharge

About- Recharge Subscriptions is among the top subscription management apps on Shopify with some of the top subscription brands using its services. Its easy-to-use functionality and dynamic subscriber experience make it one of the top subscription apps. Its simple customer portal and customizable services allow businesses to run their subscription businesses smoothly and provide them with personalized solutions to everyday subscription business problems.  

Best features

  • Simplified Customer Portal: Its simplified customer portal helps maintain brand consistency mainly because of its no-code customization feature.
  • Customer retention tools: Recharge understands the importance of customer retention in a subscription business and that’s why it equips businesses with tools enabling them to understand why their customers churn and prevent them from churning. 
  • Bundles- This feature of Recharge allows businesses to curate product bundles or let them customize their bundles according to their customers.
  • Customer-centric API- It’s important for businesses to provide their customers a personalised experience and Rechage’s robust and flexible API allows businesses to do so.
  • Single checkout- The checkout experience of users should be simple and prompt which becomes possible with Recharge’s single checkout feature irrespective of the quantity of the contents of the cart.

Pricing

Recharge Subscriptions offers its services in two different pricing categories-

1. Standard- $99/month with 1.25% with 19c per transaction

2. Pro- $499/month with 1% with 19c per transaction

It offers varied features and services under its different plans which you can check at their website. 

Reviews

Recharge Subscriptions has got a rating of 4.5 on the Shopify app with over 1800 reviews to its name.

5. Seal Subscriptions App

seal subscriptions for recurring revenue

About- Seal Subscriptions is a stand-out name in the subscription management business. It is a Made in Europe app which is the best for businesses looking for a user-friendly app equipped with enough features to ensure a recurring revenue stream. The configuration provided by the app is super easy and it gives merchants full autonomy to assert control over their subscribers, discounts, products, and subscriber churn rate.  The app has a great support team and the right features to support your subscription business.

Best features:

  • Diverse subscription options with native integration: Seal provides you the opportunity to sell classic and prepaid subscriptions along with subscription boxes and more to customers. Also, you can use Shopify’s checkout process and billing system to provide a great experience to your customers and manage orders better within your admin panel.
  • Loyalty benefits and perks: It assists merchants in rewarding their customers for their loyalty and consistency by offering them loyalty rewards, thoughtful gifts, flexible product swaps, and exclusive discounts to keep customers coming back for more.
  • Customer-centric customer portal: The user-friendly customer-centric customer portal of Seal Subscriptions allows customers to manage their subscriptions themselves by adding, removing items and rescheduling billing. 
  • Customized service experience: The merchants can customize the API and webhooks provided by Seal according to their needs and policies and enhance their brand identity with a personalized touch.
  • European Tech support: Their European support team is here to assist you with any questions or problems.

Pricing

Their pricing structure is divided into 4 parts with free installation for up to 150 subscribers and their paid services are bracketed under:

1. $4.95/month

2. $7.95/month

3. $19.95/month

Reviews

Seal Subscriptions boasts an impressive rating of 4.9 with over 1700 reviews to their name on Shopify.

6. Smartrr Subscriptions

smartrr for increasing recurring revenue

About- Smartrr is a very good alternative for those companies who focus on building strong customer relationships over subscriptions and strive for loyal customers. It empowers the merchants to reward their customers for their loyalty in a better manner through their services. The brands associated with Smartrr have over the years seen reasonable growth in annual subscription revenue and higher subscription retention on average. 

Best features

  • Multiple subscription choices: Smartrr provides merchants with diverse subscription models to choose from such as Subscribe & Save, Build-a-box, Sequential, and Prepaid. This feature by Smartrr helps brands set up different subscription options to fulfill varied customer preferences. 
  • Customer-centric tools: Smartrr focuses on increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CTV) by providing tools such as a customer portal, loyalty, and member-only benefits which are specifically designed to increase customer retention and Average Order Value (AOV).
  • Cross-platform software: Smartrr offers an optimized cross-platform customer account platform to their partners which works well both on mobile and app so that merchants can easily manage their subscriptions.
  • Smooth onboarding process: Smartrr has a well-functional app and a highly responsive backend team which provides a smooth onboarding experience to its partners.
  • Modern Analytics: Smartrr provides merchants with advanced analytics on the performance of their subscription business which allows them to make well-informed decisions for the future.

Pricing

Smartrr Subscriptions provides its services under three different segments which are:

1. Launch- $99/month

2. Grow- $299/month

3. Excel- $499/month

Reviews

Smartrr Subscriptions boasts an impressive rating of 4.8 and has 47 reviews to its name on the Shopify app.

7. Skio Subscriptions

skio - increase recurring revenue

About- Skio Subscriptions is one of the most prominent apps in the Shopify App Store and is best suited for those brands who are looking for an app with a well-supported platform with advanced data analytics. The app has the innate ability to streamline the subscription management process for the brands and assist them in providing a decent customer experience. In terms of performance and reliability, this app is among many brand’s favorites. 

Best Features

  • Industry-driven team: The team at Skio consists of industry experts individuals from Shopify, Recharge, Klaviyo, Google, Amazon, & Facebook which ensures that the services provided are the best in the industry and solutions are to the point.
  • Easy migration and checkout: The onboarding team at Skio ensures that the migration of customers to Skio is seamless and smooth and there is native Shopify Checkout integration.
  • Hassle-free customer experience: The customers get the flexibility of passwordless login which ensures a smooth experience for them and reduces customer tickets.
  • On-point data analytics: Skip’s modern data analytics software provides real-time revenue data to brands which enables them to assess their performance better and make data-driven growth decisions
  • Proactive cancellation flows: By proactively identifying and addressing customer concerns during the cancellation process, conditional cancel flows help businesses retain valuable subscribers.

Pricing

Skio Subscriptions offers its services at a single price of $599/month or $5,988/year.

Reviews

Skio Subscriptions have garnered an exceptional 5-star rating on Shopify and more than 200 businesses have reviewed them.

Bottom Line

These are some of the best subscription management apps available on Shopify and integrating one of them could take your subscription business to newer heights. However, it is important to understand that some apps suit your needs better than others, that’s why it’s important to evaluate your needs and then choose the app that meets your needs accordingly. To make it easier for you we have compared three of the best apps on Shopify- Recharge vs Bold vs Loop so that you can make an informed decision about what suits you the best.

TRY FOR FREE
Share article link
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.