Recharge Subscriptions alternative
More and more shops in Shopify are starting to use the subscription model, since it's proven to a be a successful method to gaining revenue and growth. Shopify, which is a leading platform for online stores, offers various subscription apps to support the business model. Among them, Recharge has been a popular choice however, alternatives often happen to be better, offering various new functionalities that Recharge does not have.
In this article we will explore an alternative to Recharge: Seal Subscriptions, a subscription app that is simpler, more flexible and better in majority of scenarios. Nowadays it is setting a standard for subscription apps in Shopify. With many positive reviews, affordable plans and excelent customer support Seal Subscriptions have exactly what you need to replace Recharge if you are using it, or if not, we will show you why Seal Subscriptions is the go-to app to start subscription business in your store.
To download Seal Subscriptions, best subscription app in Shopify, click here to go to Shopify app store!
Why is Seal Subscriptions better?
Let's first look at this quick breakdown that will quickly show you what exactly Seal has that Recharge doesn't.
| Functionality | Seal Subscriptions | Recharge |
| Transaction fees | 0% | 1.25% + 19c per transaction |
| Customization | Lots of different customization options, very flexible | Provides basic customization |
| Constantly adding new functionalities | New features are released frequently | New features are rarely released |
| Advanced cancellation flow management | Easy to manage, very simple to setup | Can be confusing to setup |
| Bundle support | Integration with Bundler, which provides many different bundles | Has bundles in app however they provide minimal functionality |
| Easy to use customer portal | Very simple to set up, can enable/disable many features | Offers basic functionalities |
| Pricing | FREE plan available, payed plans start at $4.95/month | Does not have free plan, plans start at $99/month + transaction fees |
As you can see, theres nothing but just advantages in many different aspects that Seal Subscriptions provides. Let's now look at some of the functionalities in-detail and describe them why Seal is better
Recharge Shopify Pricing is a nuisance
There is no doubt that Seal Subscriptions has way better pricing plans, not only in Recharge example but also for other subscription apps in Shopify. The 0% transaction fee on ALL subscriptions is a crazy deal and you can't even imagine how much money that saves you in the long-term. Speaking of plans, Seal has affordable and flexible plans which will make investing into them make it worth it. On the other hand, ReCharge has only 3 expensive plans and does not provide a free plan.
To see a more detailed pricing plans and a cost comparison of just how much you are saving with Seal, refer to other article about Seal Subscriptions vs Recharge here.
Seal Subscriptions rules are very simple to setup
When you would like to start making subscriptions in your store, the first step is to figure it out exactly how you can do something like that and what functionalities when creating subscription rules does an app give you. Flexiblity is important. You might already have an idea of what kind of subscription service would you like to offer to your customers, so it's very important that an app gives you as many functions as possible with a clear and user-friendly interface. All of that, of course, is possible with Seal Subscriptions. And if you are not sure what exactly is a subscription rule, subscription rule is basically defined by you where you setup different selling plans that customers can pick from. Then you pick all products in your store that you wish the rule will apply to and add as many selling plans as you want.
These are some of the things you can do when creating a subscription rule:
- Selecting all products in your store or specific products in your store,
- Making prepaid selling plans,
- Selecting a delivery interval,
- Setting up requirements,
- Setting up discounts,
- Option to enable automatic discount modifications.
Customizable notifications & emails
Sending notable emails and various notifications to customers is important. Most customers probably don't want to keep checking their subscriptions on the website on the customer portal to constantly get reminded. Seal Subscriptions excels in this feature and you can completely customize and enable/disable all the different emails that get send to the customer when they perform certain actions or to just get reminded about the upcoming billing or something like that.
Different notifications include:
- Customer notifications: where you can set up mails like billing failed e-mail, reminder about recurring invoice e-mail, new subscription e-mail, reminder about the upcoming billing, resume and cancel confirmations, and more.,
- Admin notifications: where you can set up mails that can be send to you, such as a mail when a new subscription is created by the customer, when the subscription payment fails, when customer modifies products, when customers resumes or cancels their subscription and more.
You can even setup your own email domain which means that the app will send emails from your custom domain instead.
This gives you a big breath of fresh air, since you will not have to worry about checking the dashboard every few hours and will simply just receive the notifications for the things that you find important!
Seal Subscription customization features give you more than you can imagine!
While you might have seen some customization options in Recharge, or other subscription apps, I can assure you that none of them have as much options as Seal has. Customization in Seal gives you a freedom to completely change the looks of the subscription widget and customer portal to your liking. You can even make it so that the final result doesn't nearly looks the same as default look. That is just how much power Seal has.
Here are some of the customization options that Seal offers you:
- Auto-charging widget,
- Recurring invoices widget,
- Subscribe now button,
- Subscribe now button,
- Customer portal,
- Notifications & Emails.
In all of these options you can freely pick the colors and texts that you wish to change. If you would like to customize the widget even more, you can do that with some knowledge of CSS, where you can really make everything look completely to your likings.
Seal Subscriptions Integrations
One of very important features of all apps is that is supports other apps especially if the functionality is very similar between the two apps or if the functionality of one depends on the other. Seal does that very well. With integrations of other page-building apps such as PageFly or GemPages, you can use Seal Subscriptions even if your store is using those. And with other third party apps you can even expand the whole subscription functionality. For example, wouldn't it be great if you could offer subscriptions together with bundles, where you combine certain products together and then customers can subscribe to each product in that bundle? That is possible with Seal's integration of best bundling app in the Shopify called Bundler - Product bundles.
Seal Subscriptions is also partnered with a bunch of trustworth and popular apps accross the Shopify market. Here are some that are worth mentioning:
Inventory forecast has never been easier than with Seal Subscriptions
Inventory forecast is a very simple feature but it is definetely worth mentioning. It means that you will see and get notified about exactly how much of the specific product do you need before the subscriptions get renewed. This is very helpful, since you might have a product that a lot of customers are subscribed to and when a subscription renewal is approaching its good to know if you are running out of that product or not. If a subscription app has that feature, it means that you can be at ease and not worry and constantly check if you have enough products or not. With Seal that is very simple and you can enable it with only one click!
Inventory forecast and inventory control makes subscription management so much easier and are absolutely recommended option to turn it on. You will simply receive a notification if any product doesn't have sufficient inventory, and then for any reason you can also enable the option to skip automatic renewals if some items are out of stock.
Customer portal
Customer portal is a main page where customers interact with their subscriptions. From cancelling and pausing their subscriptions to changing quantities of their products and adding/removing products in subscriptions, anything is possible. Seal gives you a bunch of options that you can freely enable and disable for the customer portal. It is heavily customizable so you can completely change it to your liking.
Here are just some of the things that customers can do in the customer portal:
- Changing product quantities,
- Adding/removing products from subscriptions,
- Adding one-time products,
- Changing subscription intervals,
- Rescheduling upcoming payments,
- Changing their shipping and billing address,
- Pausing and cancelling subscriptions,
- Editing notes in subscriptions,
- Skipping an upcoming payment,
- Applying discount codes,
- And many more!
Customer portal can be accessed by simply logging in your store and going to subscriptions, however, Seal also allows you to enable customer portal login form in your shop. This way, your customers can access the login form by going to /a/subscriptions/login URL in your store and there they can put in their email address. Then, they will receive an email with a magic link which will allow them to access all of their subscriptions.
Easily manageable translations support
Another important function of a good subscription app is the ability to adapt the widget and customer portal to non-English speaking customers. Here comes the Seal's great translations support. In Seal you can translate basically everything in the widget and customer portal that you would like. With flexible options to pick any language and any function, translating has never been easier. Everything is broken down in sections where you can individually change every text.
Why not Recharge?
I think the obvious is clear. Pricing plans. While Recharge does deliver basic functionalities of a subscription app, Seal does that for much cheaper plus provides even more functionalities. As mentioned, Seal Subscriptions does have a FREE plan that you can use in your store and have up to 150 subscriptions. This is great to get the feel of the app and I guarantee to you that you will not be disappointed. Everything comes down to how much you can do with an app and how much you are investing into an app. All of that is where Seal simply is superior.
Conclusion
Businesses are seeking more and more for new alternatives that would provide them easy to use and powerful subscription service. By making a switch from Recharge to Seal Subscriptions, you will quickly see the difference and the growth of your store will be visible. If you would like to see exactly the whole comparison, cost calculation and functionalities of Seal Subscriptions and Recharge, refer to Seal Subscriptions vs Recharge article here.
We hope this article helps you decide for the right option!
Happy subscription management! 🛒