Can Shopify actually do subscriptions natively now, or do I still need Recharge/Skio/Loop?
Short answer
Shopify Subscriptions, Shopify's own app, runs replenishment natively for $0: weekly, monthly or yearly renewals with discounts that customers pause, skip or cancel (Shopify App Store, October 2026). Bundles don't work with it (Shopify Help Center), so curated boxes need a paid platform. Recharge, Skio and Loop earn fees on retention depth: gifting, prepaid cycles, failed-payment recovery.
- Shopify Subscriptions price
- FreeRenews weekly, monthly or yearly with discounts; customers pause, skip or cancel. Off Shopify Payments, Shopify's third-party transaction fees still apply (October 2026).Sources: Shopify App Store (Shopify Subscriptions); Shopify Help Center (Shopify Subscriptions app eligibility considerations)
- Native-only hard stop
- BundlesShopify: "Bundles aren't compatible with the Shopify Subscriptions app." Draft orders block every app: "Subscriptions can't be used with draft orders", and Recharge lists them as incompatible (October 2026).Sources: Shopify Help Center (Shopify Subscriptions app eligibility considerations, Considerations and payment gateways for subscription products); Recharge (Shopify Checkout Integration feature compatibility)
- Paid platform fees
- $99 to $599 a month + 0.75% to 1.49%Recharge $99 + 1.49% + 19¢ or $499 + 1.34% + 19¢; Skio $599 + 1% + 20¢; Loop $99 + 1.0% or $399 + 0.75%. Recharge and Loop have entry plans to 50 subscribers (October 2026).Sources: Recharge (Subscription pricing plans for every stage of growth, Recharge Subscriptions App on the Shopify App Store); Skio (Skio, a Recharge Company on the Shopify App Store); Loop Solutions Inc (Loop Subscriptions App on the Shopify App Store)
- Native subscription analytics
- Four metrics, no cohort viewSubscription revenue and new, active and canceled subscriptions, compared with the previous 7, 30 or 90 days; no churn-rate view is listed (October 2026).Source: Shopify Help Center (Shopify Subscriptions analytics overview)
Deploi’s call
Shopify can run subscriptions natively now for fixed-cadence replenishment, so start on the free Shopify Subscriptions app and buy Recharge, Skio or Loop only for retention depth. The subscription platform question is a retention question wearing a checkout costume. We scored Recharge-versus-native BUY for retention depth. We still tell most mid-market teams to start native, because the thing they usually want fixed is the product-page selector, which no platform fee improves.
WaitStart on Shopify Subscriptions when
- Your program is fixed-cadence replenishment on standard products, which Shopify's free app renews weekly, monthly or yearly (Shopify App Store, October 2026).
- Nothing on your roadmap needs bundles, the one documented hard stop a paid platform lifts; draft orders block subscriptions on Recharge too (Shopify Help Center, Recharge, October 2026).
- Nobody on the team owns churn weekly, so retention tooling would be a purchase without an owner.
BuyBuy Recharge, Skio or Loop when
- Gifting, prepaid cycles or cancellation-save flows decide retention; Recharge's $99 Starter plan includes all three (Recharge pricing, October 2026).
- Bundles or curated boxes are on the roadmap, because Shopify Subscriptions supports neither.
- A named owner needs cohort and churn reporting beyond the native app's four metrics (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
- Subscriptions stay under roughly 30% of revenue; past that share, Deploi's product subscriptions record scores a custom portal BUILD (Deploi Build vs. Buy, October 2026).
Basis: Should You Build or Buy Product Subscriptions on Shopify?, our Build vs. Buy decision record, scored DEPENDS.
What are the three ways to run subscriptions on Shopify?
Shopify runs subscriptions three ways: its free Subscriptions app, a paid platform such as Recharge, Skio or Loop, or a custom portal on Shopify's subscription application programming interfaces (APIs). At $20M to $500M the question usually arrives as native versus app, because the third lane is the one nobody sells you. Shopify Subscriptions costs nothing to install, though Shopify charges its third-party transaction fee on stores that haven't activated Shopify Payments (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
| Lane | What it costs (USD) | What you get | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Subscriptions, Shopify's own app | Free to install | Weekly, monthly or yearly renewals with discounts; customers pause, skip or cancel; sold online and in person | No bundles; four analytics metrics and no cohort view |
| Recharge, Skio, Loop or Smartrr | $99 to $599 a month above entry plans, plus 0.75% to 1.49% of each transaction; Recharge and Skio add 19¢ or 20¢ | Gifting, swaps, prepaid cycles, cancellation-save flows, failed-payment recovery, deeper analytics | The fee grows with the program, leaving is a migration project, and draft orders stay blocked |
| Custom portal on Shopify's subscription APIs | A build plus yearly upkeep, no per-transaction fee | Your own retention model, portal and churn data | You rebuild failed-payment recovery, card updates and retries yourself |
What does Shopify's native Subscriptions app cover today?
Shopify's native Subscriptions app covers fixed-cadence replenishment today, for free, online and in person. It renews orders weekly, monthly or yearly, with dollar, percentage, buy X get Y or fixed-amount discounts (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). A single product can carry plans with different frequencies and discounts, so weekly and monthly options on the same product need no paid app. Customers pause, skip or cancel from their account, and staff can sell subscriptions on Shopify POS (point of sale) (Shopify App Store, October 2026). Recharge's integration can't do that: its subscription products "won't work with Shopify POS" (Recharge, October 2026).
Shopify Subscriptions' reporting covers four metrics: subscription revenue and new, active and canceled subscriptions (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). The app's own hard stop is bundles, which Shopify documents as incompatible with it (Shopify Help Center, October 2026). Three other limits are Shopify's, not the app's, so they bind paid apps too. Subscriptions can't run on business-to-business (B2B) orders (Shopify Help Center) or draft orders, and some local payment methods aren't available for them (Shopify Help Center, Recharge, October 2026). So company-level recurring orders for wholesale need another route, and the limits a paid app can't lift have their own answer.
What does a Recharge, Skio or Loop fee buy?
A Recharge, Skio or Loop fee buys the subscriber portal, failed-payment recovery and retention tooling. Each one prices it as a monthly plan plus a share of every subscription transaction, so the bill grows with the program:
- Recharge: Starter is $99 a month plus 1.49% + 19¢ per transaction. Plus is $499 plus 1.34% + 19¢ and adds customizable bundles, loyalty, referrals and JavaScript software development kit (SDK) access (Recharge pricing, October 2026). A $25 plan charges no transaction fees for the first 50 subscribers (Recharge on the Shopify App Store, October 2026).
- Skio: $599 a month, or $5,988 billed yearly, plus 1% + 20¢ per transaction. Its listing now reads "Skio, a Recharge Company" (Skio on the Shopify App Store, October 2026).
- Loop Subscriptions: free to 50 active subscriptions, then $99 a month plus 1.0% or $399 plus 0.75%, with no per-order charge (Loop Subscriptions on the Shopify App Store, October 2026). Loop Solutions Inc makes it, and it is not the returns company also called Loop.
The fee does not buy the selector on the product page, which is theme work on any platform. It does not buy a better checkout either, because checkout no longer separates the subscription apps.
Which thresholds decide between native, an app and a custom portal?
Three thresholds decide between native, an app and a custom portal: bundles, an owner for churn and the recurring share of revenue. Deploi's product subscriptions record scores the question DEPENDS (Deploi Build vs. Buy, October 2026). Wait on native while the model is simple, buy for retention depth, and build the portal once subscriptions pass roughly 30% of revenue. Our Recharge versus native record scores Recharge BUY only where retention depth is the job (Deploi Build vs. Buy, October 2026).
- Does your program need bundles? Shopify Subscriptions doesn't support them, so a curated box cannot run on native at all. The box-specific shortlist starts from that fact.
- Does anyone open a churn dashboard weekly? If nobody does, retention tooling is a purchase without an owner, and Shopify Subscriptions' built-in reporting is enough.
- What share of revenue is recurring? Past roughly 30%, the per-transaction fee stops reading like software. It reads like a revenue share on your best customers, which is why the record scores a custom portal BUILD there.
When is buying a subscription platform the wrong move?
Buying a subscription platform is the wrong move when Shopify's free app already covers the model, or when nobody has priced the exit.
Deploi’s point of view
Our own position, from building on Shopify. Kept apart from the sourced facts above.
- Where we disagree
- The category argues that native is a starter tier you graduate out of. We read the 2026 consolidation differently: native is the only lane whose owner is not going to be acquired, repriced, or merged into someone else's roadmap. That is worth something on a three-year view, and it never appears in a vendor comparison.
- Our judgment on the product page
- Scope the product-page purchase options before you shop for a platform. In our judgment a platform evaluation that starts from the selector is theme work, because the selector belongs to the theme whichever billing engine sits behind it. The reason to keep a paid subscription app is the portal, the dunning and the cohort reporting.
Decision records behind this answer
When this answer changes
- Shopify Subscriptions adds bundle support, or Shopify lifts its draft-order or B2B limits on subscription products.
- Shopify adds cohort, churn-rate or cancellation-reason reporting to the Shopify Subscriptions app.
- Recharge publishes the combined Recharge and Skio roadmap, or reprices either platform.
- Recharge, Skio or Loop changes its plan fees or per-transaction rates.
- Your subscriptions approach roughly 30% of revenue, where a custom portal starts to beat both lanes.
Follow-up questions
What's inside the number
- Do we need multi-frequency subscription logic (weekly + monthly on the same product), and which app actually supports it well?
Shopify Subscriptions supports weekly and monthly on one product with no paid app: one plan takes several options, each with its own delivery frequency and discount (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
- What is Loop Subscriptions, and how is it different from Loop Returns (they are NOT the same company)?
Loop Subscriptions is Loop Solutions Inc's Shopify subscription app, free to 50 active subscriptions, then $99 a month plus 1.0% or $399 plus 0.75% per transaction (Shopify App Store, October 2026).
- What subscription features does Shopify's native Subscriptions app NOT cover that force an upgrade to Recharge or Skio?
Shopify Subscriptions forces an upgrade only for bundles, which "aren't compatible" with it (Shopify Help Center, October 2026), and for retention tools such as cancellation saves (Shopify Help Center) and prepaid or gift subscriptions (Shopify Help Center).
How it compares
- Is there a subscription app built specifically for Shopify Plus checkout (not just a bolt-on), and does that matter for conversion?
No subscription app is built specifically for Shopify Plus checkout: Shopify requires every App Store app to sell through its checkout and subscription interfaces (Shopify developer docs, October 2026).
If you're not the typical case
- Should we bundle subscriptions with our new B2B wholesale channel, and does any Shopify subscription app support company-level recurring orders?
No subscription app can sell subscriptions on Shopify's business-to-business (B2B) channel: Shopify lists Subscriptions as incompatible with B2B (Shopify Help Center, October 2026).
- What is the best Shopify app for a subscription box business specifically (vs a simple recurring-order model)?
Loop Subscriptions is the strongest Shopify app for a subscription box business: its $99 Starter plan has build-your-own and preset bundles and no per-order fee (Loop Subscriptions pricing, October 2026).
Sources
Every figure on this page traces to one of these. Official and vendor pages are checked on the date shown; Deploi records are our own published decisions.
- Shopify Help Center, Shopify Subscriptions app eligibility considerations
- Shopify App Store, Shopify Subscriptions
- Shopify Help Center, Shopify Subscriptions
- Shopify Help Center, Shopify Subscriptions analytics overview
- Recharge, Subscription pricing plans for every stage of growth
- Recharge, Recharge Subscriptions App on the Shopify App Store
- Skio, Skio, a Recharge Company on the Shopify App Store
- Loop Solutions Inc, Loop Subscriptions App on the Shopify App Store
- Smartrr, Smartrr Subscriptions App on the Shopify App Store
- Shopify Help Center, Requirements and considerations for using B2B
- Recharge, Recharge welcomes Skio to build the future of subscription commerce
- Recharge, Shopify Checkout Integration feature compatibility
- Shopify Help Center, Considerations and payment gateways for subscription products
- Deploi Build vs. Buy, Should You Build or Buy Product Subscriptions on Shopify?
- Deploi Build vs. Buy, Recharge vs. Native Shopify Subscriptions: Worth the Fees?
- Deploi Build vs. Buy, Skio vs. Shopify Subscriptions: Is the Free Native App Enough?