A Recurly alternative
with flat pricing and explained charges.
Recurly earned its reputation on subscription management and payment recovery. Teams usually compare alternatives when the monthly fee plus a percentage of billing volume grows faster than their plan list, or when usage based pricing needs more than metered add ons. yRecurring covers the same core with flat pricing, built in usage and token billing, and every charge explained.
Side by side
Both platforms handle subscriptions, invoicing, dunning, and gateway flexibility. The comparison comes down to pricing structure, how far usage based models go, and how much of the machinery you can see when a number needs explaining.
| Recurly | yRecurring | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid plan | Starter: $249/mo plus 0.9% of billing volume above the first $40,000/mo | Launch: $39/mo flat, up to $10,000/mo billed |
| Higher tiers | All Access requires a $1M billing volume minimum, percentage negotiated down with volume | Grow $99/mo and Scale $299/mo, published, no minimums |
| Payment recovery | Strong dunning and involuntary churn tooling | Retry schedules on every plan; smart timing and card expiry alerts from Grow; a decision trace on every retry |
| Usage and token billing | Usage based billing on every plan | Eight combinable models on every plan; token and credit billing for AI products |
| Why is this amount X? | Invoice totals and line items | Every amount explained: formula, inputs, each step |
| Migration | CSV imports | AI assisted import from your Recurly export, dry run first |
Competitor pricing is taken from their public pricing page, checked 24 September 2026. If something here is out of date, tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
Where Recurly is the better fit
- You bill well past the $1M All Access minimum and can negotiate volume rates that beat flat pricing.
- Involuntary churn recovery is your single biggest problem and you want the vendor best known for it.
- You want a Shopify specific edition from the billing vendor itself.
Where yRecurring differs
Published flat pricing at every size
No percentage on your included volume, no negotiated minimums to reach the good features. The price list on our pricing page is the price.
Recovery you can audit
Dunning campaigns record why each retry happened and what the outcome was. When a customer asks why their card was charged on a Thursday, the timeline answers.
Usage and AI billing on every plan
Token prices, prepaid credits, and metered charges are not an upsell tier; the Launch plan runs the same engine.
Migration without the spreadsheet weekend
The AI import assistant reads your Recurly export, maps plans and add ons to prices, flags anything inconsistent, and shows a dry run before a single record is written.
Questions teams ask
How to switch from Recurly →Can I bring my Recurly data with me?
Yes. Export your customers, subscriptions, and invoices from Recurly as CSV and use the AI assisted import: it maps the columns, cleans up messy values, shows you a dry run of exactly what will be created, and only writes after you confirm. Historical records never trigger emails to your customers.
Does yRecurring charge a percentage of my revenue?
Plans are flat: $39, $99, or $299 per month, banded by how much you bill through the platform. If you grow past your band mid month, the overage is capped at the next tier's price, so the most a growth month can cost you is the plan you would upgrade to anyway. Your effective rate falls as you grow. Above the Scale band, pricing is custom.
How does payment recovery compare?
yRecurring ships retry schedules, smart timing, card expiry alerts before renewals fail, recovery pages your customers can pay on, and a full decision trace per retry. Retry schedules and recovery pages are on every plan; smart timing and card expiry alerts come with Grow.
Is yRecurring a merchant of record?
No. Your customers pay through your own payment gateway accounts (Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, GoCardless, and more), so the money and the gateway relationship stay yours. yRecurring is the billing engine: subscriptions, invoices, recovery, and reporting.