Recurly Review 2026
What the Starter fee and the 0.9% volume charge add up to at two billing volumes, when All-Access takes over, and how Chargebee, Stripe Billing, Maxio and Zuora price the same company.
Recurly is worth it in 2026 for a subscription business billing roughly five to six figures a month that wants dunning, 20+ payment gateways and global billing without an enterprise contract. Starter costs $249 a month plus 0.9% of billing volume, with the first slice of each month's billings included, verified on Recurly's pricing page on October 17, 2026.
A company billing $100K a month pays $789 a month on Starter, or $9,468 a year, by our arithmetic. Chargebee Flow prices the same company at $749 a month and Stripe Billing's pay-as-you-go rate at $700, so Recurly is not the cheapest at that volume.
All-Access, the plan Recurly marks most popular, costs under 1% of billing volume on an annual contract with a $1M billing volume minimum, and it is where the AI agents, multiple dunning campaigns, ACH and multicurrency sit.
The catch is that payment processing is separate on every plan, revenue recognition is a second product from $850 a month, and Starter's single dunning campaign is thin for a business whose churn is mostly failed payments.
Key factsBest for: Subscription businesses between the Starter allowance and…
- Subscription billing with a flat fee plus a volume percentage, gateway choice on the entry plan and churn tools that deepen on All-Access.
- Included volume: First $40K of billings each month
- All-Access: Under 1% of volume, $1M annual minimum
- Free trial: 90 days on Starter
- Alternatives covered: Chargebee, Stripe Billing, Maxio, Zuora
Pros
- Starter includes a monthly billing allowance in the flat fee and a 90-day free trial, the longest trial among the five vendors here.
- 20+ payment gateways and 10+ payment methods on the entry plan, so the processor stays put and its fees are negotiated separately.
- All-Access adds intelligent churn prevention, multiple dunning campaigns, gateway orchestration, ACH, multicurrency and SSO in one contract.
Cons
- At six figures of monthly billing Starter costs $789, above Chargebee Flow at $749, Stripe Billing at $700 and Maxio Grow at $599 for the same volume.
- Revenue recognition is a separate product on an annual contract, not part of any subscription plan.
- Starter carries one dunning campaign and static churn tools, and the AI agents and insights sit on All-Access only.
Buy Starter when the business bills under the six-figure monthly mark, runs one dunning sequence, and wants a 90-day trial before committing. Move to All-Access once annual billings pass the plan's minimum, because that is where the intelligent churn tools and the gateway orchestration live.
Do not buy Recurly for the revenue schedule alone, because RevRec is a separate product priced on volume, and a controller who only needs ASC 606 schedules has cheaper routes.
Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 89 subscription billing tools as of October 17, 2026, and Recurly is the most cross-shopped of them, listed as an alternative to 60 other tools in its subscription billing ranking.
Open the profiles for Recurly and Chargebee to compare them beyond this page.
What is Recurly?
Recurly is a subscription management and recurring billing platform. It sits between the product and the payment gateway: it holds the plans, runs the renewals, retries failed cards, issues invoices and pushes the results to the ledger and the CRM.
Recurly says it serves 100M+ users in 180+ countries, supports 140+ currencies and recovers more than a billion dollars in customer revenue a year through its retention tools.
It is not a payment processor and not a general ledger. Payments run through one of 20+ gateways on Starter, with orchestration across several gateways on All-Access, and the accounting entries land in whichever ERP the integration feeds.
The NetSuite review covers the ledger most Recurly customers of size post to.
The product line has five parts. Recurly Subscriptions is the core. Recurly Commerce is a native Shopify app sold as All-Access for Shopify. Recurly Engage adds in-app retention prompts, Recurly RevRec adds revenue recognition, and Compass AI is an assistant that surfaces insights and configures the platform.
The subscription plans on the pricing page are Starter, All-Access and All-Access for Shopify.
How Recurly works
A Starter account starts with plans, a gateway and a checkout. Recurly's page lists 10+ payment methods and 20+ gateways on the entry plan, so a company can keep its existing processor rather than move to a bundled one. Billing volume is what Recurly meters: the monthly allowance carries no percentage fee, and billings above it are charged at 0.9%.
Dunning is the feature that separates the two plans. Starter includes one dunning campaign and static churn-prevention tools. All-Access adds intelligent churn prevention, multiple dunning campaigns, payments orchestration across gateways, custom reporting and automated exports, ACH, multicurrency and single sign-on.
A business whose cancellations are mostly involuntary should price All-Access first, because one retry sequence on Starter is the floor, not the product Recurly sells on.
Revenue recognition is a separate line. RevRec starts at $850 a month on an annual contract, priced on billing volume, and covers contract modifications, SSP automation, rules-driven allocations, multi-GAAP and an audit trail. Engage starts higher, on an annual contract priced on prompt volume.
A controller comparing those modules with standalone tools should read best revenue recognition software and best AR automation software before bundling.
Recurly key features
Recurly pricing
Prices on Recurly's pricing page, read October 17, 2026: Starter is $249 a month plus 0.9% of billing volume, with the first $40K of billings included each month, and carries a 90-day free trial.
All-Access and All-Access for Shopify cost as low as under 1% of billing volume on an annual contract, with a $1M billing volume minimum on All-Access. RevRec starts at $850 a month and Engage at $1,600 a month, both on annual contracts and priced on volume. Payment processing fees are not on the page and sit with the gateway.
Two scenarios show the volume fee at work. A company billing exactly the allowance pays the flat fee only, $2,988 a year. A company billing $100K a month pays the flat fee plus 0.9% of the $60K above the allowance, $789 a month or $9,468 a year.
At that annual run rate the company clears the All-Access minimum, where the price is under 1% of volume, so under $12,000 a year, and the quote decides whether it beats Starter.
The alternatives, all read the same day, price the six-figure-a-month company as follows. Chargebee Flow offers $0 plus 0.80% of monthly invoicing volume or $99 plus 0.65%, with a breakeven at $66K, so the second option costs $749 a month at that volume.
Stripe Billing charges 0.7% of billing volume pay as you go, $700 at that volume, or $620 a month on a one-year contract for the same monthly volume with 0.67% above it. Maxio Grow is $599 a month up to the same volume, with Scale quoted above that. Zuora publishes no price.
At the Starter allowance the order changes: Chargebee's no-fee option costs $320, Stripe's pay-as-you-go rate $280, Recurly its flat fee and Maxio $599. Our best billing software ranking sets the same vendors against the wider field.
| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Recurly Starter | $249/mo plus 0.9% of billing volume | First $40K of billings a month included; 1 dunning campaign, 20+ gateways; 90-day trial |
| Recurly All-Access | Under 1% of billing volume, billed annually | $1M billing volume minimum; AI agents, multiple dunning campaigns, orchestration, ACH, multicurrency, SSO |
| Recurly All-Access for Shopify | Under 1% of billing volume, billed annually | Native Shopify app; bundles, subscribe and save, prepaid and gift subscriptions, cancel-save flows |
| Recurly RevRec | From $850/mo, billed annually | Priced on billing volume; contract modifications, SSP automation, multi-GAAP, audit trail |
| Recurly Engage | From $1,600/mo, billed annually | Priced on prompt volume; churn model, personalized offers, cancel-save and upsell prompts |
| Chargebee Flow | $0 plus 0.80%, or $99 plus 0.65% of monthly invoicing volume | Breakeven at $66K a month; usage events included, pricing tables, 40+ gateways |
| Chargebee Enterprise | Custom | Multi-entity management, account hierarchy, contract terms, on-demand discounting |
| Stripe Billing pay as you go | 0.7% of billing volume | No recurring fee; metered on Billing volume processed on and off Stripe |
| Stripe Billing monthly tiers | $620 to $5,750/mo, 1-year contract | Volume caps from six figures to a million dollars a month, 0.67% above the cap |
| Maxio Grow | $599/mo | Up to the Grow volume band in monthly billings; standard revenue recognition and A/R included |
| Maxio Scale | Custom | Above the Grow volume band; advanced revenue recognition, metering, multi-entity |
| Zuora | Custom | Catalog, CPQ, billing, usage rating and revenue recognition, quoted per company |
Recurly pros and cons
What we like
- Starter includes a monthly billing allowance in the flat fee and a 90-day free trial, the longest trial among the five vendors here.
- 20+ payment gateways and 10+ payment methods on the entry plan, so the processor stays put and its fees are negotiated separately.
- All-Access adds intelligent churn prevention, multiple dunning campaigns, gateway orchestration, ACH, multicurrency and SSO in one contract.
What could be better
- At six figures of monthly billing Starter costs $789, above Chargebee Flow at $749, Stripe Billing at $700 and Maxio Grow at $599 for the same volume.
- Revenue recognition is a separate product on an annual contract, not part of any subscription plan.
- Starter carries one dunning campaign and static churn tools, and the AI agents and insights sit on All-Access only.
Who Recurly is for
Recurly fits a subscription business, SaaS or consumer, that bills between the Starter allowance and the All-Access minimum, wants to keep its own gateway, and treats failed-payment recovery as a revenue line. It also fits a Shopify brand that wants bundles, prepaid plans and cancel-save flows in a native app.
Starter is the honest default below the six-figure monthly mark, where the flat fee plus the 0.9% stays within a few hundred dollars of Chargebee and Stripe. All-Access is the honest default once annual billings pass the minimum and the business needs multiple dunning campaigns, ACH, multicurrency and gateway orchestration.
Skip it when the whole stack already runs on Stripe and the plan catalog is simple. Stripe Billing's pay-as-you-go rate undercuts Starter above the allowance, and the Chargebee alternatives page lays out the other mid-market options.
A company whose main need is ASC 606 schedules rather than billing should also look at the Zuora review and the revenue recognition ranking before paying for RevRec on top of a subscription plan.
An early-stage team deciding its first billing tool should read the finance stack for Series A guide, and a team that invoices B2B customers by hand can start with free accounts receivable software until recurring volume justifies a platform.
Sales tax on those subscriptions is a separate job, covered in the Anrok review.
Best Recurly alternatives
If Recurly is not the right fit, these are the closest options.
| Tool | Best for | Starts at | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recurly | Subscription businesses between the Starter allowance and the All-Access minimum that keep their own gateway and want dunning built in. | Starter $249/mo plus 0.9% of billing volume, first $40K included | Visit → |
| Chargebee | SaaS companies that want usage billing, a price book and a self-serve portal with no fixed fee at low volume. | Flow $0 plus 0.80% of monthly invoicing volume, or $99 plus 0.65% | Visit → |
| Stripe Billing | Companies already processing on Stripe that want recurring billing without a second vendor or a fixed fee. | 0.7% of billing volume pay as you go | Visit → |
| Maxio | B2B SaaS finance teams that want billing, A/R and standard revenue recognition in one subscription. | Grow $599/mo up to $100K in monthly billings | Visit → |
| Zuora | Enterprises with complex catalogs, multiple entities and a dedicated billing operations team. | Publishes no price | Visit → |
The bottom line
Recurly earns the subscription when the business bills between the Starter allowance and the All-Access minimum, wants to keep its own gateway, and expects dunning to pay for the platform.
Price Starter at the flat fee plus 0.9% above the allowance, and get the All-Access quote once annual billings cross the minimum, because the intelligent churn tools are the reason to stay.
Choose Chargebee for a no-fixed-fee start with usage billing, Stripe Billing when everything already runs on Stripe, Maxio when revenue recognition should be in the plan, and Zuora when the catalog is enterprise-complex.
How we compared: prices and plan terms come from the pricing pages of Recurly, Chargebee, Stripe Billing, Maxio and Zuora, all read on October 17, 2026, and the two volume scenarios are our arithmetic on those list prices, excluding payment processing fees.
The verdict rests on the vendors' published terms and the Toolradar count of 89 subscription billing tools from October 17, 2026. Cite this: CFOpresso, "Recurly Review 2026", October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
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Sources
Prices and plan details come from each vendor's own pricing page, re-checked by the Toolradar pricing tracker.
- Recurly pricingchecked Sep 2026
- Chargebee pricingchecked Sep 2026
- Stripe Billing pricingchecked Sep 2026
- Maxio pricingchecked Sep 2026
Some offers on this page may be paid placements or contain affiliate links.
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