---
title: "Skio vs Recharge: Recharge Now Owns Skio"
slug: "skio-vs-recharge"
url: "https://joy.so/blog/skio-vs-recharge/"
kind: "post"
author: "Thomas Nguyen"
author_url: "https://joy.so/author/thomas/"
published_at: "2026-10-10T06:00:00.000+00:00"
updated_at: "2026-10-12T04:30:27.000+00:00"
description: "The listing reads a Recharge Company. Skio is $599 a month plus 1% and 20 cents; Recharge Starter wins below 2,700 subscribers."
category: "Shopify apps"
tags: ["Shopify apps", "Comparison", "Paid membership"]
reading_time: 12
feature_image: "https://cdn-web.joy.so/cdn/image/2026/10/th-skio-vs-recharge-b6c031.webp"
---

# Skio vs Recharge: Recharge Now Owns Skio

Skio sells one plan at $599 a month plus a 1% and 20¢ transaction fee, and its Shopify App Store listing is titled "[Skio, a Recharge Company](https://apps.shopify.com/skio)" as read on 8 October 2026. Recharge announced the acquisition on its own blog in April 2026, so the platform ambitious brands were told they graduate \*to\* and the platform they graduate \*from\* now belong to the same vendor.

Here is the verdict the comparison tables have not caught up with. [Recharge](https://apps.shopify.com/subscription-payments) Starter at $99 plus 1.49% plus 19¢ is the cheaper of the two below roughly 2,700 subscribers. Skio wins above that. And Recharge Plus at $499 plus 1.34% is never the cheapest option of the three at a $40 average subscription value, which is the single most useful number to carry into a sales call.

## Key takeaways

- [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio)'s listing name was changed to "Skio, a Recharge Company" and Recharge published the acquisition on getrecharge.com in April 2026, stating that "nothing is changing today" for merchants on either platform.
- Skio charges $599 a month billed monthly, or $499 a month billed annually, plus 1% and 20¢ on orders involving a subscription. There is one published tier and an unpriced Enterprise tier above it.
- At a $40 average monthly subscription value, Recharge Starter costs $492 at 500 subscribers against Skio's $899. At 5,000 subscribers the order reverses: Skio $3,599, Recharge Starter $4,029.
- Recharge Plus is dominated on cost. It only beats Recharge Starter above roughly $266,000 a month in subscription revenue, and Skio is cheaper than Plus above roughly 790 subscribers at $40 each.
- Skio's App Store panel renders a single plan card and links out to its own pricing page, so a merchant pricing Skio from the listing alone never sees the annual rate or the Enterprise tier.
- Neither skio.com nor getrecharge.com publishes a migration path, a sunset date or a combined price list. The only published commitment is operational continuity.

## The listing name is the news

Vendor ownership is the one input a feature table cannot absorb, and it changed here. The Shopify App Store listing for [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio) reads "Skio, a Recharge Company" with the developer field still showing Skio, read on 8 October 2026. Recharge's own announcement, [Recharge welcomes Skio to build the future of subscription commerce](https://getrecharge.com/blog/recharge-welcomes-skio-to-build-the-future-of-subscription-commerce/), published on getrecharge.com in April 2026, states that together the two platforms "power more than 20,000 brands and process over $20B in GMV, annually".

That release is also the only published statement about what happens next: "For merchants on both platforms, nothing is changing today. Both Recharge and Skio will continue to operate as they have, and your existing team remains your point of contact."

Read that precisely. It is a commitment about today, not about the roadmap. Nothing on either domain publishes a merged price list, a migration tool, a deprecation date or a statement that both products will continue to be sold separately. Skio's own pricing page does not mention Recharge at all, and skio.com still sells Skio as the platform you move to when you outgrow your current one.

So the honest framing for a buyer is narrow and useful: two products, one owner, two separate price books, and no published answer on what the second one is for.

## What the two actually cost

Every rating, review count and price below was read from each app's live Shopify App Store listing on 8 October 2026, and each app name links to its listing so you can check it in one click. [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio)'s own [pricing page](https://skio.com/pricing) and Recharge's own [pricing page](https://getrecharge.com/pricing/) were read the same day, because both listings carry a "See all pricing options" link and both hide something behind it.

| Platform | Plan | Monthly | Transaction fee |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Recharge | 25-50 | $25 | none for your first 50 subscribers |
| Recharge | Starter | $99 | 1.49% + 19¢ |
| Recharge | Plus | $499 | 1.34% + 19¢ |
| Recharge | Custom | not published | volume-based rates |
| Skio | Scale | $599, or $499 billed annually | 1% + 20¢ |
| Skio | Enterprise | not published | not published |

Two asymmetries matter here, and they run in opposite directions.

**Recharge's listing publishes a cheaper entry point than its own website does.** The App Store panel carries a $25 plan covering your first 50 subscribers with no transaction fee. getrecharge.com/pricing starts at $99. A brand pricing Recharge from the vendor site alone pays four times more to start than it needs to.

**Skio's listing hides its cheaper rate.** The App Store panel renders one card at $599 a month. skio.com/pricing publishes the same Scale plan at $499 a month when billed annually, plus an Enterprise tier at custom pricing. Skio's annual rate is therefore identical to Recharge Plus's monthly base, which is a coincidence worth noticing when both products answer to the same owner.

### Total cost at four subscriber counts

The arithmetic below assumes $40 of subscription value per subscriber per month, one renewal order each, and no per-order fees from other apps. Change the average value and every row moves, which is exactly why a percentage fee is impossible to budget from a plan card.

| Subscribers | Monthly subscription revenue | Recharge Starter | Recharge Plus | Skio Scale |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 100 | $4,000 | **$177.60** | $571.60 | $659.00 |
| 500 | $20,000 | **$492.00** | $862.00 | $899.00 |
| 2,000 | $80,000 | **$1,671.00** | $1,951.00 | $1,799.00 |
| 5,000 | $200,000 | $4,029.00 | $4,129.00 | **$3,599.00** |

Three crossovers fall out of that, and all three are checkable with a calculator:

- **Skio overtakes Recharge Starter at roughly 2,700 subscribers**, or about $107,500 a month in subscription revenue. Below it, [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio)'s $500 base premium is never recovered by its 0.49% lower rate.
- **Skio overtakes Recharge Plus at roughly 790 subscribers**, or about $31,750 a month. Skio's base is $100 higher and its rate is 0.34% lower, so the gap closes fast.
- **Recharge Plus only overtakes Recharge Starter above roughly $266,000 a month** in subscription revenue, because the $400 monthly difference has to be recovered by a 0.15% rate saving.

Put those together and Recharge Plus is never the lowest-cost option of the three at this average subscription value. Below 790 subscribers Starter is cheaper; above 790 Skio is cheaper; and the revenue level where Plus finally beats Starter is well past the point where Skio beats both. That does not make Plus a bad purchase. It makes Plus a purchase you justify on hands-on implementation, bundles, Concierge SMS, the loyalty and referral modules and the JavaScript SDK, never on the fee schedule.

## 1. Skio, a Recharge Company — one price, built for brands already at scale

**Best for:** brands past roughly 2,700 active subscribers that are migrating off a legacy subscription platform and need the move to be uneventful. [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio) sells zero-downtime migration, passwordless login and a multi-step cancel flow builder as standard rather than as a tier, so a retention team gets the full cancellation toolkit on day one instead of after an upgrade. At 5,000 subscribers paying $40 a month, Skio costs about $430 a month less than Recharge Starter on the same book.

**Not ideal for:** anything below about 2,000 subscribers. Skio has no free plan, no entry plan and no trial-sized tier, so a brand with 200 subscribers pays $599 a month plus 1% for a platform priced around a book 10 times larger. The $500 base premium over Recharge Starter is dead weight until subscription revenue clears roughly $107,500 a month, and a brand that is still proving the subscription offer will burn a year of budget finding that out.

![Skio, a Recharge Company listing on the Shopify App Store](https://cdn-web.joy.so/cdn/image/2026/10/listing-skio-2026-10-08-bf93ba.png)

_Skio, a Recharge Company's listing, read 8 October 2026: 5.0 from 242 reviews; Scale at $599/month, 1% + 20¢ transaction fee._

Skio runs on 1,797 live Shopify stores. Its listing read 5.0 stars from 242 reviews on 8 October 2026, with 236 of those at five stars and one at one star.

**What it actually does**

- A multi-step cancel flow builder, which is the feature that separates subscription platforms from subscription widgets. Cancellation is a funnel, and Skio treats it as one.
- Build-a-Box in both static and dynamic form, plus automated lifecycle journeys, on the single published plan rather than gated upward.
- Passwordless login and quick actions, so a subscriber can skip or swap from an email link without a password reset. Every unanswered password reset is a cancellation waiting to happen.
- Zero-downtime migration, named on the plan card. For a brand moving off an incumbent mid-cycle, that line is the product.
- The listing carries the Built for Shopify badge and names integrations with Klaviyo, Postscript, Gorgias, Yotpo, Inveterate and Triple Whale.

**What to check before you commit**

Start with the panel itself. Skio's App Store pricing panel renders one plan card and then links out, so it is not a complete view of the ladder. skio.com/pricing adds the annual rate of $499 a month and an Enterprise tier with no published price. If you are buying Skio, price it from the vendor page and ask what Enterprise changes about the 1% rate, because that is the only lever on the bill.

Then read the fee definition rather than the fee. Skio's own pricing page scopes the charge to "orders involving a subscription", which means a mixed cart containing one subscription line is a billable subscription order. Model the fee against subscription orders, not subscription revenue, if your catalogue mixes one-time and recurring items.

Last, weigh the review base against the install base. 242 reviews is a thin public record for a platform at this price, and the most recent reviews are the ones worth reading, because the question a buyer now has is about post-acquisition support rather than about the product as it shipped.

## 2. Recharge — the incumbent, and now Skio's owner

**Best for:** brands that want the cheapest credible way to start and the broadest upgrade path in the category. Recharge's $25 plan covers the first 50 subscribers with no transaction fee at all, which is the lowest serious entry price of any paid subscription platform on the App Store, and Starter at $99 plus 1.49% stays cheaper than [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio) until roughly 2,700 subscribers. For a brand testing whether subscriptions work at all, that is a 60-day question answered for $25.

**Not ideal for:** brands that have already decided Plus is the tier they need. Recharge Plus costs $400 a month more than Starter and only recovers it above roughly $266,000 a month in subscription revenue, and Skio undercuts Plus on total cost from about 790 subscribers upward. If the reason for Plus is implementation support or the loyalty and referral modules, buy it for those. If the reason is the 1.34% rate, the arithmetic does not support the decision.

![Skio, a Recharge Company listing on the Shopify App Store](https://cdn-web.joy.so/cdn/image/2026/10/listing-skio-2026-10-08-bf93ba.png)

_Skio, a Recharge Company's listing, read 8 October 2026: 5.0 from 242 reviews; Scale at $599/month, 1% + 20¢ transaction fee._

Recharge runs on 52,220 live Shopify stores. Its listing read 4.8 stars from 3,129 reviews on 8 October 2026, and 148 of those reviews sit at one star, which is 4.7% of the total and the highest one-star share of the two platforms here.

**What it actually does**

- Smart cancellation prevention and failed payment recovery on Starter, the two mechanics that move churn rather than report it.
- Analytics with industry benchmarks, which no other platform in this pairing publishes. Knowing churn is 6% matters less than knowing whether 6% is good for your category.
- Upsell and cross-sell inside the subscription flow, so an existing subscriber is a merchandising surface rather than a fixed monthly line.
- Plus adds customisable bundles, tiered discounts, Concierge SMS, a loyalty rewards module, a referral module and the JavaScript SDK with Storefront API access.
- A 60-day free trial, long enough to measure a second billing cycle rather than guess at it.

**What to check before you commit**

Recharge's App Store panel shows three plans and links out, and the vendor page adds a fourth: a Custom tier at volume-based rates with no published figure. Ask for the rate card in writing before signing anything described as custom, because the only published lever is the percentage and 0.15% on $300,000 a month is $450.

Check whether the loyalty and referral modules on Plus actually replace a dedicated loyalty platform for your programme. They sit on a $499 plan alongside subscription billing, and a bundled module is usually scoped to the subscriber base rather than the whole customer file. If you want points earned on both one-time and recurring orders, read [how loyalty points behave on bundles and subscriptions](https://joy.so/blog/loyalty-points-on-bundles-and-subscriptions/) before assuming the bundle covers it.

Finally, note what the listing warns about directly: external charges may be billed separately from your Shopify invoice. Percentage fees on a separate invoice are the easiest line in a D2C P&L to lose track of.

## What to do if you are already on Skio

Nothing urgent, and that is a finding rather than reassurance. Recharge's announcement commits to operational continuity and names your existing team as your point of contact, and [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio) has kept shipping under its own brand. There is no published migration requirement and no sunset date.

What changes is your negotiating position, and it changes in two ways. Your renewal is now priced by a vendor that also sells a $99 plan with a higher percentage, so the question "what does the 1% buy me that 1.49% does not" has a single answer-holder. And your contingency plan shrank by one option, because the obvious alternative platform to Skio is the company that owns Skio.

Three questions are worth putting in writing at your next renewal:

- Will the Scale plan's 1% and 20¢ rate be honoured for the full term, and what notice applies to a change.
- Is there a committed support model for Skio independent of Recharge's, and who owns the escalation path.
- If a merged product ships, what is the migration mechanism and who pays for the implementation.

None of those have published answers today. Asking them before renewal is cheaper than asking them after.

## How to choose between them in 2026

Four questions decide this, and only one of them is about features:

**How many active subscribers do you have right now.** Under 50, take Recharge's $25 plan and prove the offer. Between 50 and 2,700, Recharge Starter is cheaper than [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio) on every subscriber count we modelled. Above 2,700, Skio is cheaper and the gap widens.

**What is your average monthly subscription value.** Every crossover in this article moves with it. High-value subscriptions make percentage fees expensive fast, so a brand at $120 per subscriber per month hits Skio's advantage at roughly 900 subscribers instead of 2,700.

**Are you buying implementation or buying software.** Recharge Plus and Skio Enterprise both sell hands-on help. That is a services purchase, and it should be priced and scoped like one.

**Does one vendor owning both platforms change your risk tolerance.** If your answer is yes, the shortlist has to include a platform outside this pair. The [full subscription app comparison](https://joy.so/blog/best-shopify-subscriptions-apps/) prices Seal, Appstle, Loop and Shopify Subscriptions on the same basis, and four of those charge 0% per transaction.

## Price the book you have, not the one you want

One vendor now owns both sides of this comparison, and the only numbers that moved are the ones you can calculate yourself. Recharge Starter wins the first 2,700 subscribers, [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio) wins the ones after that, and Recharge Plus has to earn its $400 premium on implementation rather than on rate. Run your own subscriber count and average subscription value through the four-row table above before any demo, because a sales conversation that starts from your arithmetic ends somewhere different from one that starts from theirs.

Subscription revenue is only half of retention. The other half is what makes a one-time buyer come back without a recurring charge, and that is a loyalty decision rather than a billing one. See [what loyalty programs cost at each order volume](https://joy.so/blog/loyalty-program-cost/) and [the retention benchmarks worth measuring against](https://joy.so/blog/customer-retention-benchmarks/) before you decide which lever to pull first.

## Frequently asked questions

**Is Skio still an independent company?** No. Recharge announced on getrecharge.com in April 2026 that [Skio](https://apps.shopify.com/skio) had joined the company, and the Shopify App Store listing now reads "Skio, a Recharge Company" as of 8 October 2026. Both products are still sold under their own brands with separate price books.

**How much does Skio cost per month?** $599 a month on the Scale plan billed monthly, or $499 a month billed annually, plus a 1% and 20¢ transaction fee on orders involving a subscription. Skio's own pricing page also lists an Enterprise tier at custom pricing with no published figure.

**Is Skio cheaper than Recharge?** Above roughly 2,700 subscribers at $40 each, yes. Below that, Recharge Starter at $99 plus 1.49% plus 19¢ costs less, and Recharge's $25 plan covering the first 50 subscribers with no transaction fee is cheaper than anything Skio sells.

**What happens to my Skio account now that Recharge owns it?** Recharge's announcement states that nothing is changing today, that both platforms continue to operate as before, and that your existing team remains your point of contact. Neither company has published a migration path, a merged price list or a sunset date, so get your rate and your support model confirmed in writing at renewal.

**Does Recharge charge a transaction fee on every order?** On subscription transactions, yes: 1.49% plus 19¢ on Starter and 1.34% plus 19¢ on Plus. The $25 plan carries no transaction fee for your first 50 subscribers. Recharge's listing also notes that external charges may be billed separately from your Shopify invoice.

**Which plan should a brand with 1,000 subscribers pick?** Recharge Starter. At $40 per subscriber per month that book costs about $885 a month on Starter against $1,199 on Skio and $1,225 on Recharge Plus. Skio only becomes the cheaper option above roughly 2,700 subscribers.