9 Best Shopify Subscription Apps: Maximize Your Sales Potential
Updated June 28, 2023.
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E-commerce subscription businesses sell their products on a regular, recurring basis. This equates to reliable, consistent revenue for the company, as well as strong customer relationships and increased customer lifetime value (CLV). It's therefore not surprising that this market is growing rapidly. In 2019, the market was worth $16.5 billion, but by 2023, it's expected to more than double this figure—at an astonishing $38 billion!
But merchants often face challenges when implementing a subscription-based model, like high competition, trouble generating momentum, and managing the logistics and administrative tasks involved. Fortunately, subscription apps can go a long way in streamlining and automating many of these tedious tasks. To help you find the best app for your needs, we've put together our choices of the top nine subscription apps to unlock your sales potential.
Our Top Picks for the Best Shopify Subscription Apps
- Appstle Subscriptions – Best Overall
- Seal Subscriptions & Loyalty – Best Range of Features
- Recharge Subscriptions – Best for Automated Workflows
- PayWhirl Subscription Payments – Best for Checkout & Payments
- Propel Subscriptions – Best for Loyalty Rewards
- Recurpay: Subscriptions App – Best for Customizable Widgets
- RecurrinGO! Subscriptions – Best for Subscription Analytics
- Yotpo Subscriptions – Best Customer Portal
- Loop Subscriptions – Best for Subscription Bundles
1. Best Overall
KeepShoppers Score: 9.9
Key Features
- Various subscription widgets
- 1-click customer portal login
- Bulk automations
- Growth-focused analytics
Appstle Subscriptions takes the top spot on our list of subscription apps for Shopify—and with good reason. It boasts a range of powerful tools to help you generate conversions, including build-a-box, free trial, tiered discounts, and more. Plus, the app allows you to present a feature-rich customer portal with one-click login and quick action links, enhancing the customer experience while maximizing ROI.
Why We Liked It
We love that Appstle Subscriptions serves as an all-in-one tool for building and managing custom subscription plans. With this app, you get everything from email templates and bulk automations to dunning management and analytics, making it easy to drive conversions and growth.
Pros
- Free plan
- 0% transaction fees
- Customizable build-a-box
- Loyalty features
- 24/7 customer support
Cons
- Somewhat complex interface
» Take your conversions up a notch with these great conversion rate optimization apps
2. Best Range of Features
KeepShoppers Score: 9.7
Key Features
- Multi-language subscriptions
- Auto-charge & recurring invoices
- Magic links for quick access
- Custom email domains
If you're looking for a Shopify subscription app with diverse features, look no further than Seal Subscriptions. This app gives you full control over your products, discounts, subscriptions, churn rate, and cancellations. It also boasts loyalty features like tiered discounts and custom shipping, plus it makes it easy to access subscriptions with magic links.
Why We Liked It
Seal Subscriptions provides a wide selection of valuable features to drive signups and recurring revenue. Features range from page translations, payment calendars, and savings badges to prepaid subscription options and advanced product swaps. Additionally, it has an excellent support team renowned for its responsiveness and expertise, ensuring users get the best experience.
Pros
- Free plan
- 0% transaction fees
- Multiple loyalty features
- Extensive third-party integrations
- Great statistics & insights
Cons
- Customer portal isn't highly customizable
3. Best for Automated Workflows
KeepShoppers Score: 9.5
Key Features
- Powerful workflows & automations
- Recurring billing engine
- Build-a-box bundles
- Unified checkout
Recharge Subscriptions brings a host of business-growing features to the table, extensive customization options, and many seamless third-party integrations. One of our favorites is the recharge bundles feature, which lets you combine multiple products into curated boxes or give customers the option to create their own bundles, adding value for both one-time and subscription customers.
Why We Liked It
Are you tired of manual subscription management? Say hello to Recharge Subscriptions! Above all else, we were impressed by the app's automated workflows. Effortlessly add automatic discounts or free trials, and update all future orders with a single setup. You can choose to create a fully customized workflow or use one of their many premade templates. The app even provides operational analytics to track the performance of your workflows.
Pros
- Clean, easy-to-use interface
- Payment processing
- Customizable customer portal
- Quick & friendly support
Cons
- No free plan
- Charges fees on every transaction
4. Best for Checkout & Payments
KeepShoppers Score: 9.6
Key Features
- Latest checkout methods
- Flexible customer features
- 10+ email templates
- Powerful subscription analytics
PayWhirl simplifies subscription management by enabling quick integration with existing products or services. Its drag-and-drop interface makes setup a breeze, while advanced features like APIs and webhooks offer flexibility. With discount capabilities, customizable notifications, and multiple payment options, PayWhirl significantly enhances the customer experience.
Why We Liked It
We were highly impressed by PayWhirl's conversion-focused features. The app boasts seamless payment integration with Shopify checkout and offers the latest checkout methods. Customers can also save their payment details for future payments and easily manage their accounts through the user-friendly customer portal. For these reasons, PayWhirl is #1 in providing customers with the best checkout and payment process.
Pros
- Free plan
- Unlimited subscriptions & orders
- Pre-built templates
- Automatic shipping calculation updates
Cons
- Transaction fee after $5,000
- No product swaps
5. Best for Loyalty Rewards
KeepShoppers Score: 9.4
Key Features
- Deeper discounts
- Automated billing
- Fixed payment dates
- Advanced email notifications
Propel Subscriptions is designed to help Shopify merchants increase retention and grow revenue. It offers a beautiful, mobile-optimized subscription widget along with a powerful customer portal and automatic billing. Plus, you can customize the widget's style and color to match your theme and reflect your brand identity perfectly.
Why We Liked It
Propel Subscriptions helps you build long-term customer relationships by creating special discount offers. With the app, it's easy to monitor customers' subscription history to identify your most valuable customers. You can then entice loyal subscribers with exclusive discounts and even sweeten the deal with free shipping, all aimed at motivating them to maintain an active subscription.
Pros
- Simple & quick setup
- Customizable & professional email templates
- Detailed analytics dashboard
- Integration with Shopify checkout
Cons
- Transaction fee on free plan
- No 24/7 support
» If rewarding loyal customers is a priority, check out these top-rated loyalty apps
6. Best for Customizable Widgets
KeepShoppers Score: 9.5
Key Features
- Intuitive admin panel
- Multiple widget layouts
- Tiered discount bot
- In-depth data & analytics
Recurpay is a Shopify subscription app for businesses of all sizes. With this tool, you can easily configure prepaid or ongoing subscriptions on your store. Recurpay automatically syncs the latest item price from store to subscription orders, plus it supports multicurrency payments and refills without the need to reorder.
Why We Liked It
A standout feature of the app is its customizable product widgets that you can tailor to your store's branding. There are also plenty of pre-built layouts to choose from if you want to get started immediately. Additionally, its widget translation and currency conversion features make it a versatile choice, functioning as a translation app or currency converter app when necessary.
Pros
- Flexible subscription plan options
- Robust customer portal
- Widget translation
- Multichannel customer notifications
Cons
- Free plan is limited
7. Best for Subscription Analytics
KeepShoppers Score: 9.7
Key Features
- In-depth analytics
- Flexible subscription rules
- Cancellation & dunning management
- Customizable email notification templates
RecurrinGO! is a Shopify app that allows you to create flexible subscription rules. You can give discounts, set different delivery frequencies, and even leave notes for customers. The app is fully integrated with Shopify checkout and includes features like dunning management to help reduce churn.
Why We Liked It
As we reviewed RecurrinGO!, one aspect that truly impressed us was its unmatched analytics capability. Unlike other Shopify subscription apps that only analyze completed subscriptions, RecurrinGO! provides in-depth insights derived from subscription rules and customer subscriptions. This feature allows you to optimize your workflows, streamline operations, and make data-driven decisions with confidence.
Pros
- Fully customizable widgets
- Unlimited subscriptions
- Supports 4 languages
- 24/7 support
Cons
- 3% transaction fee on free plan
- No multicurrency option
» Explore more ways to analyze store data with these leading analytics apps
8. Best Customer Portal
KeepShoppers Score: 9.6
Key Features
- Intuitive customer portal
- Subscription widget customization
- Automated SMS updates
- Multiple subscription options
Here is another valuable app from the giants in e-commerce app development: Yotpo. Yotpo Subscriptions offers customers a user-friendly portal where they can add to, change, or cancel their subscriptions with a few clicks. And for the merchant, the app can be set up in under 10 minutes, creating and managing irresistible product catalogs is a breeze, and tedious manual tasks like customer notifications are automated.
Why We Liked It
Yopto Subscriptions won us over with its customer portal. The passwordless login feature offers unparalleled convenience for customers, enabling them to effortlessly access the subscription. Moreover, customers can conveniently edit payment methods, adjust schedules, and skip next delivery date, all through one user-friendly dashboard.
Pros
- No monthly fees
- Easy installation & onboarding
- Automatic integration with Shopify themes & checkout
- 24/7 live chat support
Cons
- Lacks bundling feature
- No product swaps
9. Best for Subscription Bundles
KeepShoppers Score: 9.8
Key Features
- No-code subscription bundling
- Mobile-first customer portal
- Subscription retention tools
Loop Subscriptions was created with expert input from DTC brands and offers a customizable, user-friendly subscription management solution. Its subscription widget is designed to convert browsers into subscribers without impacting your product page speed. The app also has an excellent stack of subscription retention tools, including exit surveys that allow you to embed TikTok and Instagram videos for brand recall.
Why We Liked It
Loop Subscriptions comes with features that take the hassle out of subscription bundling to ensure you're maximizing AOV. With this app, you can create product bundles without developer assistance, which go live in under an hour. What's more, customers have full control over their bundles through an easy-to-use customer portal that offers plenty of flexible subscription options.
Pros
- Free plan with no transaction fees
- Intuitive workflow builder
- Mobile-optimized widgets
- Product recommendation engine
Cons
- Support is occasionally slow
» While you're upselling with bundles, check out our best picks of upsell and cross-sell apps
Subscribe to Success With Recurring Revenue
Subscription apps are a useful tool to help launch, manage, and monitor a subscription service, as long as you know how to choose the best app. When weighing up your choices, consider your business's unique circumstances, like your needs, goals, number of subscribers, and budget.
Equipped with the right tools, following a subscription-based model can be highly advantageous. Where shoppers enjoy added value, convenience, and a personalized experience, merchants gain a recurring source of revenue, improved customer loyalty, and opportunities for more sales. It's a clear win-win for you and your customers.
» Drive more sales through subscriptions & some of these top-rated sales-boosting apps
KeepShoppers Methodology
When we recommend apps for your store, we first evaluate each option using a specific set of criteria, including:
- Ease of Use: This encompasses developer friendliness, how easy the setup is, and the quality and timeliness of customer support.
- Features: We factor in the range of features and the extent of the features' usefulness in running a subscription service. We also consider the degree to which the elements can be customized.
- Integrations: We look at how many third-party integrations are available and the extent of their benefits to the user.
- Pricing: We're looking for apps that are great value for money, and we consider whether there are free plans, features, and add-ons available and if the monthly fee is worth it.
- Customer Reviews: For a more holistic and objective evaluation, we weigh in dozens of customer reviews to see how stores in different countries and different sectors rate the app.
We also consider the time and resources required to make the best use of the app—more feature-rich solutions are usually more complex and require a greater time investment to learn. All of these traits are aggregated into the KeepShoppers Score you can see in each app description.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to use an app to run a subscription service on Shopify?
Shopify offers subscription functionality natively through the Shopify Payments platform. But while an app isn't a necessity, we recommend trying one. Subscription apps automate many time-consuming manual tasks and offer customers a better overall shopping experience. Many of these apps are reasonably priced and won't slow down your store speed, so you have little to lose, especially if you start with a free trial.
What type of Shopify product works well with a subscription model?
There are multiple types of subscription businesses that have great success. Here are a few categories: consumables like meal kits, toiletries, and cleaning supplies; curated kits or boxes in niche markets; personalized products; limited edition products; and membership services like online courses and content subscriptions.
Can I offer different subscription plans with a Shopify subscription app?
Yes. Many apps will give you the opportunity to customize your subscription plans to your liking. For example, you can offer plans based on tiers of service, product variations, access levels, or special perks. You can also offer different payment options.