The arithmetic
What Shopify subscription apps actually cost at your revenue
Every subscription app publishes a monthly fee. Most also take a percentage of what you process, and that is the number that decides what you pay. Here is the same sum run at four revenue levels.
Checked 29 September 2026
Published pricing
| App | Monthly | Percentage | Per transaction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recharge Starter | $99 | 1.49% | 19c |
| Recharge Plus | $499 | 1.34% | 19c |
| Skio Scale | $499 annual, $599 monthly | 1% | 20c |
| Bold Launch | $24.99 | 2% | none listed |
| Bold Grow | $49.99 | 1% | none listed |
| Bold Scale | $74.99 | 0.9% | none listed |
| Appstle Business Premium | $100 | 0% | none |
US dollars, checked 29 September 2026 on each vendor's own pricing page. Appstle's tiers are capped by monthly revenue: free to $500, $10 to $5,000, $30 to $15,000, $100 to $100,000. Skio's page still showed independent pricing after Recharge acquired the company in April 2026, so treat it as subject to change.
What that comes to per month
| Monthly subscription revenue | Recharge Starter | Skio Scale | Bold Scale | Appstle Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $248 | $599 | $165 | $100 |
| $25,000 | $472 | $749 | $300 | $100 |
| $50,000 | $844 | $999 | $525 | $100 |
| $100,000 | $1,589 | $1,499 | $975 | quote |
Monthly fee plus the percentage, ignoring per transaction fees, which add 19c or 20c per order on top for Recharge and Skio. Skio is shown at its annual rate of $499; paying monthly adds $100 to every figure in that column. Appstle's published tiers stop at $100,000 of monthly revenue.
What the table is actually showing
The percentage is the whole story. At $10,000 a month the gap between the cheapest and dearest option here is about $500. At $100,000 it is a similar multiple but the absolute numbers are an order of magnitude larger, and none of that money buys you anything extra. You are paying more for the identical software because you sold more.
That is the part worth sitting with. A percentage fee is not priced against the cost of serving you, because the cost of running your subscriptions does not change when your average order value goes up. It is priced against what you can afford.
Where Appstle fits, since the table flatters it
Appstle charges no percentage on paid plans, which is real and is why it looks the way it does above. The catch is the revenue caps. The $100 tier covers you to $100,000 of monthly revenue and above that you are into a quote. It also has close to nine thousand reviews at five stars, so this is not a warning about quality.
If you are under the cap and the app does what you need, it is difficult to argue with on price. The arithmetic below only starts to matter when you have outgrown it, or when what you need is something no settings page offers.
When you should not do this
Under about $10,000 a month of subscription revenue, a build does not pay back quickly enough to be the right call, and Appstle's lower tiers or the free plan will serve you better. The percentage only becomes the problem once there is enough revenue for a small percentage to be real money.
The other case is if your subscriptions are genuinely simple. Same product, same interval, no delivery windows, no cut offs. Off the shelf apps are good at that, and paying to rebuild it buys you nothing.
Run it on your numbers
Send me your monthly subscription revenue, your order count and what you are on now. You get the comparison back in writing, including when staying put is the right answer.