Skio vs ReCharge (2026): Pricing, Features & the Merger

Skio fits fast-growing Shopify brands that want one all-inclusive plan, passwordless SMS login and hands-on support. ReCharge fits brands that want a cheaper entry plan, the widest app ecosystem and built-in loyalty on its Plus tier. Since ReCharge acquired Skio in April 2026, both apps now belong to the same company.

That last point changes how you should read any Skio vs ReCharge (or ReCharge vs Skio) comparison. You are no longer choosing between two rivals. You are choosing between two products from one owner, which plan to merge their roadmaps over the next year. Below we compare pricing (checked on both live pricing pages on 7 October 2026), features, the customer portal, failed-payment recovery and migration, then explain who should pick which.

Skio vs ReCharge at a glance

Did ReCharge acquire Skio?

Yes. ReCharge announced it acquired Skio in April 2026. ReCharge's own announcement says that together the two platforms power more than 20,000 brands and process over $20 billion in GMV a year. Trade press, including Shopifreaks and WebProNews, reported the deal at about $105 million in cash. ReCharge did not state a price in its own post.

For merchants, the official line is that nothing changes today. ReCharge says both platforms "will continue to operate as they have" and that your existing team stays your point of contact. Skio's post to its merchants says the two teams will spend roughly the next 12 months combining "the best of both", and that nothing changes operationally until they have something better to show you.

What that means in practice:

• Neither app is going away tomorrow. Your subscriptions keep billing.
• Expect product overlap to shrink over the next year. One portal, one dunning engine and one analytics stack are the likely end state, but neither company has published which pieces survive.
• Pricing has not changed yet. Skio is still sold as one plan with a flat fee structure, ReCharge as tiers. Watch for changes when contracts renew.
• If you signed with Skio because it was the alternative to ReCharge, that reason is gone. If independence from the market leader matters to you, see the /skio-alternative and /recharge-alternative pages.

Skio vs ReCharge pricing

Both companies publish prices. Here is what each live pricing page said on 7 October 2026.

• ReCharge Starter: $99/mo plus 1.49% + 19¢ per transaction. Includes the product page widget, customer portal, upsells, cancellation prevention, failed payment recovery, and analytics with industry benchmarks.
• ReCharge Plus: $499/mo plus 1.34% + 19¢ per transaction, with lower rates at volume. Adds hands-on implementation, migration support, bundles and tiered discounts, Concierge SMS (3¢ per US/Canada message), rewards, referrals, and the JavaScript SDK and Storefront API.
• ReCharge Custom: volume-based rates, custom implementations and dedicated priority technical support. ReCharge also lists a $25/mo entry rate for eligible new merchants with 50 or fewer lifetime subscription customers.
• Skio Scale: $499/mo billed annually or $599/mo billed monthly, plus 1% + 20¢ on orders involving a subscription. Skio says every feature is included: analytics, payment recovery campaigns, Journeys automation, SMS, cancel flow builder, bulk operations, API access and migration support.
• Skio Enterprise: custom pricing, adding a dedicated success manager, custom development and volume pricing.

What you actually pay at 1,000 subscription orders a month

Sticker prices hide the real cost, because the percentage fee grows with your revenue. Take a store with 1,000 subscription orders a month at a $50 average order value, which is $50,000 in monthly subscription revenue:

At this volume ReCharge Starter is the cheapest of the four, and Skio beats ReCharge Plus. The per-order fee (19¢ or 20¢) hurts most for brands with a low order value: on a $20 order it adds about one percentage point on top of the headline rate. For a deeper look at how ReCharge fees add up, read /blog/recharge-pricing.

Skio vs ReCharge features

Both apps cover the basics every subscription brand needs: subscribe-and-save widgets, skip, swap, pause, frequency changes, cancel flows with retention offers, upsells and analytics. The differences are in how the products are packaged and where each one goes deeper.

• Packaging: Skio puts everything on one plan. ReCharge holds back bundles, loyalty, referrals, SMS and its SDK until Plus at $499/mo.
• Loyalty: ReCharge Plus includes rewards and a referral program. Skio is focused on subscriptions and leaves loyalty to other apps.
• SMS: Skio lets subscribers skip, swap or update by text as part of the plan. ReCharge offers Concierge SMS on Plus and charges per message.
• Automation: Skio sells Journeys for lifecycle automation. ReCharge leans on its integrations, with Klaviyo the most common pairing.
• Analytics: ReCharge includes industry benchmarks drawn from its large merchant base. Skio offers its own analytics suite with segmentation. Both plan to combine their data after the merger.
• Ecosystem: ReCharge has the longer list of integration partners and agencies that know it. Skio says over 200 apps are in its directory. If you rely on a niche tool, check both lists before you choose.

Customer portal and passwordless login

This is where Skio built its name. Subscribers log in to the Skio portal with a 4-digit code sent by SMS or email. There is no password to remember and no reset flow, which removes a common source of "how do I log in?" tickets. The portal can be styled without a developer.

ReCharge also uses passwordless access, but by email. Customers receive a magic link in their subscription emails, and ReCharge adds a Manage subscriptions link to the Shopify account login page so customers can request a fresh link. According to ReCharge's help center, the token in those links expires after 24 hours. Brands that want a fully custom portal can build one on ReCharge's APIs, which is a reason larger teams with developers pick ReCharge.

In short: Skio's login is faster for shoppers who live on their phones. ReCharge gives more room to build your own experience if you have developers.

Dunning and failed payments

Failed payments are the quiet leak in every subscription business. Recurly's research puts involuntary churn at roughly 20 to 40% of all subscription churn, and ReCharge's own platform data shows about 7% of recurring charges fail on the first try. Recurly also finds that about 90% of recovered payments come back within the first 10 days, so the first retries matter most.

Both apps include automatic retries and reminder emails. ReCharge lists Failed Payment Recovery on every plan, including Starter. Skio includes payment recovery campaigns on Scale. Neither publishes a recovery rate you can compare like for like, so ask each sales team for recovery figures from brands in your category and price range.

Questions worth asking either vendor: How many retries, and on which days? Can you change the schedule? Are reminder emails branded and editable? What happens to an order that fails because a product is out of stock? For a full checklist, see /shopify-dunning-management.

Migrating between Skio and ReCharge

Both apps offer migration help: Skio includes it on Scale, and ReCharge includes end-to-end migration support on Plus. Before the merger, most migrations in this pair went from ReCharge to Skio. Now that one company owns both, it is unclear whether those switches will still be treated as winning a customer, so ask how the move will be supported and priced.

If you are thinking about moving at all, the merger is a natural moment to review. A few rules apply whichever app you move to:

1. Confirm where saved cards live. If they are stored in Shopify, customers do not need to re-enter them. If any are held by an older processor, plan that step first.
2. Agree on one switch-over date so no subscriber is charged twice or skipped.
3. Check that next billing dates, prices and discounts carry over exactly before turning billing on.
4. Tell customers how the new portal login works before their next order.

With a 12-month roadmap merge ahead, some brands will wait to see what the combined product looks like. Others would rather move once, now, than adapt twice.

A third option: SubzWallet

SubzWallet is an independent Shopify subscription app built on Shopify's native subscription contracts, so saved cards stay in Shopify. It is aimed at brands that care most about revenue recovery. Failed renewals are retried on a schedule with branded reminder emails. Orders that fail because a product is out of stock are kept as owed and retried when stock returns. An alert center lists failed and at-risk subscriptions with the products involved.

Every paid plan includes a dedicated developer and account manager for your shop. Migration is free on every plan, including Free: import a CSV yourself, or have the team do it. Billing switches on an agreed date so nobody is charged twice. Pricing: Free for up to 50 active subscriptions, Launch $99/mo + 1%, Growth $299/mo + 0.7%, Scale $499/mo + 0.6%, with no per-order flat fee. At the 1,000-order example above, Launch comes to $599/mo.

To be fair about the gaps: SubzWallet does not offer SMS subscription management or public API access today, and it has a smaller review history than either Skio or ReCharge. For a wider comparison, see /best-shopify-subscription-app.

Skio or ReCharge: which should you choose?

• Choose ReCharge Starter if you want the lowest cost from a major provider and do not need SMS, bundles or loyalty yet.
• Choose ReCharge Plus if you want subscriptions, rewards and referrals from one vendor and have developers who will use the SDK and APIs.
• Choose Skio if your customers shop on mobile, you want passwordless SMS login and text-based subscription edits, and you prefer one plan with everything included.
• Look beyond both if staying independent of the merged company, a dedicated developer, or free migration matters more to you than brand size.

Whichever you pick, sign a contract you can leave. The next 12 months will reshape both products, and you want room to react to the combined roadmap.