06 Shopify Subscription Apps for Businesses

According to McKinsey & Company’s projections, the e-commerce subscription market is poised to experience substantial growth, surpassing $200 billion by 2025. While their report did not specify the exact compound annual growth rate, the overall trend indicates a robust expansion of this market segment. As consumers embrace the convenience of subscriptions, Shopify businesses are leveraging subscription apps to drive recurring revenue and customer loyalty. 

You can start with a subscription app with this article as it

• Shows what subscription apps do 
• Provides subscription use requirements
• Explores 6 top Shopify subscription apps to maximize business power

What Shopify Subscription Apps Do? 

Adding the subscription feature to your Shopify store is a great way to turn your potential customers into loyal ones. In Shopify App Store, various subscription apps offer great features:

• Automate recurring billing: No more manual subscription tasks. Now, all the tasks are automatic including bill recurring, fulfilling orders, customer service, etc.
• Offer flexible subscription plans: Allow you create and manage various subscription plans with customizable options like billing frequency, pricing tiers, and product bundles.
• Customizable customer portal: Provides customers with a self-service portal to manage their subscriptions, such as updating payment information, changing plans, or pausing/canceling subscriptions.
• Automated notifications: Sends automated emails or SMS notifications to customers about upcoming payments, expiring credit cards, or other subscription-related updates.
• Additional promotion options: Supports offering trial periods and discounts to attract new subscribers and encourage long-term commitments.
• Boost customer retention: Facilitate easy subscription management, allow for effortless pausing or swapping of products, and offer loyalty rewards for long-term subscribers.
• Customer insights report: Get data via detailed reports whatever the date range is, including how customers behave, subscription and churn rates.

People typically think subscription-based model only work when a store sell digital assets, but it not. This model is definitely applicable in retail or even wholesale store, especially when you have a brick-and-mortar store.

Requirements To Use Subscription App

Once you’ve set up subscriptions, your customers can make recurring purchases on a regular schedule. However, there are some basic Shopify requirements that you need to ensure before selling any subscription production. 

To see detailed information, please go to Shopify’s guide on it. 

• Payment Gateways: Use one of these including Shopify payments, PayPal express, Authorize.net, Adyen on Shopify, and Stripe
• Subscription Setup: Complete setup in the subscription app before setting up in Shopify admin.
• Subscription Policy: Add or edit your store’s subscription policy, visible during checkout.
• Product Management: Manage subscription details on the product page and choose between subscription-only or both subscription and one-time purchase options.
• Discounts: Limit discounts to specific purchase types (including subscription, one-time, or both).
• Shipping: Define shipping methods and rates for initial and recurring subscription deliveries.

Shortlist of Shopify Subscription Apps

Shopify offers a wide range of subscription-based apps for its owners. These apps provide features such as subscription management, customer portals, and analytics to streamline the subscription process. Here is a short list of some popular Shopify subscription apps:

1. Seal Subscriptions | Shopify App Store

Seal Subscriptions – a subscription management app specifically designed for Shopify shop owners when it provides user-friendly UI/UX and effortless integrating attempts.

App Rate: 4.9 / 5.0 (1,751 reviews) 

Key Features

• Automatically manage orders, billing, and subscribers at the same time
• Flexible setting tiers, billing cycles, and product combo
• Users actively manage, pause, or swap products in subscription
• Advanced exciting features: reminders, initial email resends, global data & insights, API & webhook integration, etc

Pros

• Start freely to know whether it suits your business
• Highly rated with various satisfaction for its effectiveness
• Rich features within apps for high-experience

Cons

• Pay to unlock advanced features
• Limited reviews for this app

This app supports mostly standard functions. One of the most useful features is customer and order tag management. By applying this app, you can observe pos increase in sales conversions in a short time.

2. Subify Subscriptions App

Designed specifically for Shopify merchants, Subify Subscriptions simplifies the process of creating and managing subscription plans. Its intuitive interface allows for seamless integration with your existing store setup.

App Rate: 4.9 / 5.0 (463 reviews)

Key features

• Quickly create and manage subscription plan with no code knowing
• Provision of detailed reports on customer behavior and subscription performance
• Flexible customized subscription plan

Pros:

• Easy-to-use interface for newbie
• Various options to create and set subscription plans
• High customer-centric experience
• Valuable data and statistics provided

Cons:

• Free plan offered but advanced features require advanced plan
• Transaction is required for advanced plan

The setup was incredibly user-friendly, allowing quickly configure subscription plans for products without any technical hassle. This also makes new subscribers easy to navigate in Shopify stores.

Subscription selling models are typically workable with wholesale models. With pay-in-advanced features, merchants can confidently import products in big scale without worry about customer churn. It also increases merchants’ budget to run seasonal promotions.

3. Subscription Plus

Subscription Plus is a free and it can be access seamlessly from Shopify admin interface. This makes it a convenient option for businesses just starting with subscriptions.

App Rate: 4.9 / 5.0 (107 reviews)

Key Features

• No effort to create a subscription plan
• Effectively manage customer
• Automate recurring billing
• Basic reporting is offered

Pros

• Simple setup to save your time
• Shopify seamless integration to save your effort
• Free
• It is suitable for most subscription models (even at zero cost)

Cons

• Lack of some advanced features
• Data and insights are shallowly provided
• The customer portal isn’t offered

Subscription Plus is smart and reliable. This app allows Shopify owners to create subscription plans and manage them effortlessly with its user-friendly interface.

4. Recharge Payments Trusted Subscription App

Approved for its effective functionalities and user-friendly UI/UX, Recharge Payments allows Shopify owners to craft and manage multi-functional subscription plans.

App Rate: 4.8 / 5.0 (1,082 reviews)

Key Features

• Easily create plans, manage billing, and track subscribers’ activities
• Multi-choice to customize your subscription
• Self-service of customers is highly improved
• Detailed data analytics by subscribers’ behaviors

Pros

• Prioritize customer experience to promote loyalty and retention
• Make decisions better with data provision
• Add other tools to smooth workflow is seamlessly

Cons

• The free plan is provided but a paid plan is required
• A slight learning curve is required

Although there is a learning curve, this is a good app for businesses to create a course as it provides customers insight through data reports. Moreover, the customer supporter works his best effort to solve most of the problems during the user process. 

5. Subscription App by Recurpay

Recurpay designs a unique subscription app specifically for Shopify with a simple-to-use interface. This Recurpay subscription app stands out for its beginner-friendliness and cost-effectiveness.

App Rate: 4.9 / 5.0 (385 reviews) 

Key Features

• Easy to set up subscription plan within 5 minutes
• Multi-options for tiers setting, billing cycles setting, etc
• Good fit for international business and customer
• Self-service is enabled

Pros

• Cost-effective for low-revenue stores to use to improve their business
• Beginner-friendly interfaces fit newbies
• International appeal that fits different business models and customers

Cons

• Customer management functions are quite limited
• The free plan is good but limits some advanced features

Subscription App by Recurpay is everything you need for your online events as its beginner-friendly built-in. The only thing you need to do is create a course, then anything else will happen automatically. Sometimes, there are minor user errors but all are fixed quickly by the admin.

Conclusion

Shopify ecosystem offers a multi-selection of subscription apps, each has both pros and cons. Carefully consider your business demand and need before choosing one to go along in the long term. You can try as many as possible to find “the one” that suits your business needs.