Recharge vs Skio in 2026: two subscription apps, one owner, two price models

Recharge announced on 30 April 2026 that it had acquired Skio. Skio's listing now reads "Skio, a Recharge Company". Skio's blog says both platforms will be kept. The teams plan to work out how to combine them over about 12 months. Recharge says nothing changes for merchants today. The press release gave no price.

For a store choosing today, that means a lower risk of either app vanishing soon. It also means the roadmap is open. Ask either vendor what happens to your plan after the combining work.

Side by side

What each fee is charged on

Recharge charges its percentage on gross processing. That includes shipping, taxes and refunded orders. It covers one-time and recurring orders alike. So the real rate on your net revenue is higher than 1.49%. Recharge's help centre shows a lower Starter rate than its pricing page. We use the pricing page and listing, which agree.

Skio charges 1% plus 20¢ on orders involving a subscription. Its pages do not define that phrase further. Ask Skio whether a one-time add-on to a subscription order counts.

A worked example at four volumes

This table is plain arithmetic on the published rates. It assumes $50 orders and the same fee base for both. Real bills will differ, mostly because Recharge's base includes tax and shipping.

At these rates the two cross near $106,000 a month. Skio billed yearly lowers its fee to $499. That moves the crossing to about $85,000. Recharge Plus has the same $499 fee as yearly Skio. Plus charges 1.34% against Skio's 1%, but adds hands-on implementation.

Features that differ

Recharge has a built-in customer portal and cancellation prevention flows. A flow can offer a discount, a delay, a swap, a skip or a free gift. Once a flow is live you cannot edit it, only duplicate it. Bundles and the Bundles API need the Plus or Custom plan.

Skio lists a no-code customer portal and multi-step cancel flows on its one plan. It also lists build-a-box bundles, payment recovery and SkioSMS for one- and two-way texts. Skio's page title says all features are included.

Moving between them

Skio's help docs describe migration as a copy. Cancelled subscriptions are not moved. Skio does not store card details. It maps the tokens your payment processor already holds. It cannot move tokens from one processor to another. Stores on Shopify Payments skip the token wizard.

Where Idukki fits (ours)

We make Idukki. It shows customer photos and video on the store, tagged to the cart. It sits beside either subscription app. For the full set of jobs, read the best Shopify apps to increase conversion.