A Recharge alternative that charges a flat rate.
Recharge is a capable, mature platform. It is also priced on a percentage of your revenue plus a fee on every charge. RefillKit does subscriptions, failed-payment recovery, and a self-serve portal for a flat monthly price — and moves your subscriber list over with a validation report, a dry run, and a rollback. Here is the comparison, with the numbers shown plainly, including where Recharge is the better choice.
Pricing, side by side
Their bill scales with your revenue. Ours doesn’t.
Every figure below was checked on July 10, 2026 against the Recharge listing on the Shopify App Store and its published pricing page. The worked example uses a store doing $12,500/mo in subscription GMV across 250 renewal charges.
| Plan | Monthly base | Transaction fees | Worked example* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recharge entry tier | $25 | Capped at 50 subscribers. No transaction fees on those first 50 — reported by third-party sources as applying to new merchants. | — (over the 50-subscriber cap) |
| Recharge Starter | $99 | 1.49% + $0.19 per transaction | ≈ $333/mo |
| Recharge Plus | $499 | 1.34% + $0.19 per transaction | ≈ $714/mo |
| Recharge Custom | Quoted | Enterprise pricing on 12-month terms | — |
| RefillKit Free | $0 | 0% + $0 — up to 50 active subscriptions | — (over the 50-subscription cap) |
| RefillKit Starter | $19 | 0% + $0 | $19/mo |
| RefillKit Growth | $49 | 0% + $0 | $49/mo |
| RefillKit Pro | $149 | 0% + $0 | $149/mo |
*Worked example: $12,500/mo subscription GMV across 250 renewal charges. On Recharge Starter that is $99 + $186.25 (1.49%) + $47.50 (250 × $0.19) ≈ $333/mo. Trials: Recharge 60 days, RefillKit 14 days. RefillKit annual billing is 11× monthly: $209, $539, or $1,639 a year. Pricing verified July 2026 against each app’s Shopify App Store listing and published pricing page. Run your own numbers →
Feature comparison
Where the two apps actually differ.
| Capability | Recharge | RefillKit |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing structure | Base + percentage of GMV + per-transaction fee | Flat monthly or annual price. 0% transaction fees on every plan. |
| Free tier | $25/mo entry tier, capped at 50 subscribers | $0 up to 50 active subscriptions, all features included |
| Migration in | Run with the Recharge team; process and terms depend on your plan | Self-serve CSV wizard: validation report → dry run → execute → rollback. Billing dates preserved. Free on every plan. |
| Failed-payment recovery | Retry and dunning tools included | +1 / +3 / +5 / +7 day retry ladder with card-update emails and a recovered-revenue report — on every plan, including Free |
| Customer portal | Included | Included — skip, swap, pause, cancel with save-offers, no login wall |
| Contract terms | Monthly on standard plans; Custom runs on 12-month terms | Monthly or annual. Cancel anytime; billing stops via Shopify. |
| Free trial | 60 days — longer than ours | 14 days |
| Sales process | Sales team and demos available at higher tiers | None. Install it, run the preflight check, or email us. No calls. |
How switching works
Four steps, and nothing bills until you say so.
The migration wizard is built so that at every point before activation you can stop, fix, or undo. Your customers’ next billing dates carry over exactly.
Export from Recharge
Export your active subscriptions as CSV from the Recharge admin. Keep Recharge running — you will cancel it only after cutover.
Validate
Upload the CSV. The Recharge preset maps columns and a row-by-row report flags bad dates, unknown variants, and missing customers before anything is created.
Dry run
See exactly which contracts would be created — products, prices, frequencies, and the preserved next billing date for every subscriber.
Execute, with rollback
Contracts are created paused. Activate when you are ready; roll the whole import back with one click if anything looks wrong.
Full guide: migrating from Recharge, step by step. White-glove help is free on every plan — email us your store and we run it with you.
The honest part
When Recharge is the better fit.
We would rather you pick the right tool than churn off ours in three months. Recharge is the stronger choice if any of these describe you:
- Enterprise and Shopify Plus scale. Recharge Custom exists for a reason: dedicated support contacts, contractual SLAs, and features negotiated on 12-month terms. RefillKit is a flat-priced product run by a small team.
- A deep integration ecosystem. Recharge has years of prebuilt integrations and agency familiarity. If your stack depends on several of them, switching costs more than the fee difference saves.
- Heavily customized subscription logic. If an agency has built custom flows on Recharge’s APIs, budget for rebuilding them before comparing prices.
- You want a long trial. Recharge offers 60 days to our 14. If trial length is the deciding factor, they win it.
Switching questions
What merchants ask before leaving Recharge.
Do my customers’ billing dates change?
No. The next billing date in your Recharge export is preserved on the new contract. A customer billed on the 14th keeps being billed on the 14th.
Do payment methods carry over?
Sometimes. Rows with a usable Stripe vault token migrate payment methods silently only when that Stripe account matches the one behind Shopify Payments on your store. Everyone else automatically gets a card-update email with a secure, Shopify-hosted link — sent by the same system that runs dunning. RefillKit never imports or stores raw card data.
Should I cancel Recharge before migrating?
No. Export first and keep Recharge billing as normal. Contracts are created paused in RefillKit, so nothing double-bills. Cancel Recharge after you activate and confirm the first renewals look right.
What does the migration cost?
Nothing. The wizard and white-glove help are free on every plan, including Free.
What if the import is wrong?
Roll it back. One click removes the imported contracts. Because they were created paused, no customer was charged in the meantime.
How long does switching take?
Validation and dry run take minutes once your CSV uploads. Execution is paced to stay inside Shopify’s API limits, so large lists take longer to create. You control when activation happens, so there is no forced cutover moment.
Will my customers notice the switch?
Two things can be visible: customers without a migrated payment method get a card-update email, and the manage-subscription link points at the new portal in their Shopify account. Prices, products, and billing dates stay as they were.
Run the numbers, then run the preflight.
Put your own GMV in the calculator, check your export with the free preflight, and install when the math makes sense. No sales call at any step.