Recurly: billing software platform

Recurly publishes a floor rather than a rate card. Checked 16 October 2026, Starter is $249 per month plus 0.9% of billing volume, with the first $40K of monthly billings included, and the plan above it is published only as as low as <1% of volume, billed annually. Budget the percentage before the fee.

Rajat GuptaEditorial LeadReviewed 16 October 2026Pricing checked 16 October 2026 against the Recurly pricing page

Recurly in brief

Recurly publishes a floor rather than a rate card.

Price: $249 per month + 0.9% of billing volume (Starter) · Monthly fee plus a percentage of billing volume
Best for: Subscription businesses fighting failed payments and involuntary churn
Watch out for: You give up a price ceiling.

The short answer

Buy Recurly if what your business runs on is invoiced subscription volume rather than seat count, and you want an entry plan you can start on a monthly basis. Starter at $249 per month plus 0.9% of billing volume is the self-serve route, and the first $40K of billings each month carries no percentage, so a business whose volume is small now and growing fast pays mostly the flat fee at the start.

Skip it if you need to know the price before you talk to sales. The plan above Starter is published only as as low as <1% of billing volume, which is a floor and not a quote, and the Subscriptions and Commerce products listed beside the plans carry no figure at all. Skip it too if a percentage of revenue is unacceptable to your finance team, because every published Recurly plan is tied to billing volume rather than to users or invoices.

Where Recurly fits

Recurly fits a subscription business that bills a lot of customers for relatively small amounts and loses real money to failed payments. The product's own emphasis is decline management: recovering payments that fail at the card and reducing involuntary churn, which is the kind of problem that scales with customer count rather than with finance headcount. The pricing follows the same logic. Both published plans are priced on billing volume, so the number to model is what you invoice through Recurly each month, and your seat count is beside the point.

The commercial shape is unusual enough to drive the fit decision on its own. Starter is a monthly price at $249 per month plus 0.9% of billing volume, with the first $40K of billings each month included at no charge. Everything above it, including All-Access and both add-on modules, is described as billed annually. So the step up from Starter is not only a price change, it is a move from month-to-month to an annual contract, and that is the question to settle before you get attached to a feature list.

Recurly is modular, and the modules carry their own starting prices rather than appearing as plan features. Engage starts at $1,600 per month, priced on prompt volume and capability needs, and RevRec, the revenue recognition module, starts at $850 per month, priced on billing volume. Both are billed annually. If your reason for replacing a billing system is that revenue recognition is done in a spreadsheet, RevRec is a separate line item and should be priced as one from the first conversation rather than discovered during implementation.

There is a packaged route for Shopify merchants: All-Access for Shopify is listed at the same published basis as All-Access, as low as <1% of billing volume, billed annually. That is useful signal about who Recurly is chasing, and it is also the clearest example of how little the published basis tells you, since the Shopify package and the general platform plan share one floor and no rate.

Where this review has to stop short is evidence. recurly.com served a reCAPTCHA bot challenge to both automated pulls on 16 October 2026, including a retry with full browser headers, so the pricing page could not be read directly. The figures above come from a fetch of the same URL on the same date that attributed each one to a named plan in the page's visible text, and they are recorded as published on that basis. Confirm each of them in a browser before you put any of it in a budget paper.

Recurly pricing

Recurly publishes part of its pricing and quotes the rest, which puts it ahead of most enterprise billing vendors and well behind a full rate card. As of 16 October 2026 the entry plan, Starter, is $249 per month plus 0.9% of billing volume, with the first $40K of billings each month included at no charge. All-Access, the plan above it, carries no rate: it is published as as low as <1% of billing volume, billed annually. Two modules carry starting prices, and two products on the same page carry no price at all.

What Recurly publishes

Starter: $249 per month + 0.9% of billing volume (Monthly, plus a percentage of billing volume)Subscription billing and recurring payments. The first $40K of billings each month is included at no charge, and the percentage applies above that. This is the self-serve entry point and the only published plan with a monthly price.
All-Access: As low as <1% of billing volume (Billed annually, as a percentage of billing volume)Full platform access, priced on billing volume rather than seats, on an annual commitment. The published figure is a floor rather than a rate, so the actual percentage comes out of a sales conversation.
All-Access for Shopify: As low as <1% of billing volume (Billed annually, as a percentage of billing volume)The same published basis as All-Access, packaged for Shopify merchants.
Engage: As low as $1,600 per month (Billed annually)Sold alongside a Recurly billing plan and priced on your prompt volume and capability needs, so the starting figure is a floor rather than a quote.
RevRec: As low as $850 per month (Billed annually)Revenue recognition, priced on your billing volume. A separate product line rather than a feature of the billing plans.

Figures as attributed to named plans on the Recurly pricing page and checked on 16 October 2026. One caveat belongs with them: recurly.com returned a reCAPTCHA bot challenge to both automated pulls that day, so the page could not be read directly and each figure should be confirmed in a browser. Subscriptions and Commerce appear as products on the same page with no price attached.

Only the Starter line is a price you can model on your own. Four things move everything else.

Billing volume, which is the lever on every plan. Starter charges 0.9% of billing volume on top of its monthly fee, with the first $40K of billings each month included, and All-Access is quoted as a percentage of billing volume rather than as a flat fee. Take last quarter's invoiced total through Recurly's scope, not your ARR and not your seat count, and run it through both halves of the Starter price before you compare it with a flat-fee competitor.
Where the All-Access percentage actually lands. As low as <1% of billing volume is a floor, and a floor tells you only what the best-case customer pays. Ask for the percentage at your volume, in writing, with the volume bands that produce it and a note of what the percentage covers. Without that, the two published plans cannot be compared against each other, let alone against anything else.
Which modules you need. Engage and RevRec are priced as their own products and both are described as billed annually, from $1,600 per month and $850 per month respectively. Engage's driver is prompt volume and capability needs, which is not a metric most finance teams forecast, so ask what counts as a prompt and where the bands sit. RevRec's driver is billing volume again, which means a growing business pays more for revenue recognition for the same accounting work.
The billing cycle, because it changes the commitment rather than only the price. Starter is published as a monthly price; All-Access, All-Access for Shopify, Engage and RevRec are all described as billed annually. If you want to start monthly and move up later, confirm whether Starter is the only monthly option and what it costs to change plans mid-term.

What costs extra

Engage: as low as $1,600 per month, billed annually, based on your prompt volume and capability needs.
RevRec: as low as $850 per month, billed annually, based on your billing volume.
All-Access for Shopify is listed at the same published basis as All-Access: as low as <1% of billing volume, billed annually.
Subscriptions and Commerce appear as products on the pricing page with no price attached, so treat each as a quoted line until Recurly tells you otherwise.

Implementation and commercial terms

These rows are what could be confirmed as of 16 October 2026. Anything absent here was not published, and the page itself could not be read directly, so get each commercial term in writing.

Published price: Partial. Starter and two module starting prices only
Billing basis: Billing volume on every plan, with a monthly fee on Starter
Volume allowance: First $40K of billings each month included on Starter
Commitment: Starter is monthly. All-Access, Engage and RevRec are billed annually
Implementation fee: None published for any plan
Free trial: None published. Starter is the self-serve entry at a monthly price
Page status: recurly.com served a bot challenge to both pulls on 16 October 2026

Budget Recurly as a flat fee plus a share of revenue, and build the model before the demo rather than after it. For Starter that is arithmetic you can do today: the monthly fee, then 0.9% on whatever you invoice above the first $40K each month. For All-Access there is no arithmetic to do until sales gives you a percentage, and the honest way to run that conversation is to ask for the rate at three volumes: today's, next year's plan, and the downside case. A percentage-of-revenue contract is the one commercial shape where growing faster than planned costs you more for the same software, so the renewal terms and the volume bands matter as much as the headline. Then add any module you need as its own annual line.

Source: the Recurly pricing page, checked 16 October 2026. Confirm current prices with the vendor before you budget.

What Recurly gives up

You give up a price ceiling. Both published plans are a share of billing volume, so the software bill rises with revenue whether or not Recurly is doing more work. On Starter the exposure is legible, at 0.9% above the first $40K of monthly billings, and on All-Access it is not legible at all until you have a quote. Teams that budget software as a fixed cost per year should know this is a variable line, and should ask for a cap or a band structure rather than assuming one exists.

You give up monthly flexibility as soon as you outgrow the entry plan. Starter is the only published plan with a monthly price. All-Access, All-Access for Shopify, Engage and RevRec are described as billed annually, so the upgrade path runs through a term contract. That is normal in this category, but here the step is easy to miss because the entry plan looks self-serve, and the move up arrives as a commitment rather than as a bigger invoice.

You give up a single platform price. Revenue recognition is a product with its own starting price, from $850 per month, and Engage is another, from $1,600 per month. Both carry their own driver, so the total is assembled from separate lines with separate growth curves. If your business case for replacing a billing system rests on retiring a revenue recognition spreadsheet, price RevRec in from the start, because the billing plan on its own will not do that job.

You give up the ability to verify the figures yourself today. recurly.com returned a reCAPTCHA bot challenge to both automated pulls on 16 October 2026, including one with full browser headers. The numbers here were attributed to named plans by a fetch of the pricing page on the same date, and that is the strongest evidence available, but it is weaker than a page a buyer can read and screenshot. Open the live page before you quote any of these figures to a finance committee, and treat older figures you find on third-party sites as stale.

You give up a trial. No free trial is published for any plan, and Starter is the self-serve entry point at a monthly price rather than a free period. In practice that means your evaluation is a demo plus a paid pilot on the entry plan, which is cheaper than an enterprise proof of concept and more expensive than a sandbox. Scope the pilot so that the thing you most need to prove, usually the migration of existing subscriptions and the handling of failed payments, happens inside the first billing cycle.

How Recurly compares

Billing platforms split on what they charge for rather than on features, and the split is sharp: a percentage of what you bill, a flat monthly fee, or a cut of each checkout. Recurly and Chargebee both publish a monthly fee plus a percentage. Maxio publishes a flat monthly price for one volume band. Paddle charges per transaction as a merchant of record. Every figure below comes from that vendor's own pricing page, checked on 16 October 2026, and nothing is carried between them.

Tool	Best for	Price	Where it breaks
Recurly	Subscription businesses focused on failed payments and involuntary churn	$249/month + 0.9% of billings (Starter)	The plan above Starter is a floor, not a rate, and is billed annually
Chargebee	Teams wanting a choice between a free base fee and a lower percentage	$0 + 0.80% or $99 + 0.65% of invoicing volume	Everything above the entry plan, including RevRec and CPQ, is quote-only
Maxio	B2B SaaS finance teams who want one flat monthly figure	$599/month up to $100k in monthly billings	Above that band the plan is quoted, and the modules carry no published price
Paddle	Software sellers who want a merchant of record to own tax and payments	5% plus 50 cents per checkout transaction	The rate covers payments and tax too, so it is not comparable line for line

What to test in a Recurly demo

No free trial is published, so the evaluation is a demo followed, if it goes well, by a paid pilot on Starter at $249 per month plus 0.9% of billings. That makes the commercial questions as important as the product ones, and it makes the order matter: settle the percentage before you spend a month configuring plans.

Open with the All-Access percentage and refuse to move on from a floor. Ask for the rate at your current billing volume and at your planned volume in twelve months, with the bands written down, and ask what the percentage includes. As low as <1% of billing volume is the published position and it is not a quote. Until you have the actual figure, you cannot compare All-Access with Starter, let alone with a flat-fee platform.
Model Starter honestly on your own numbers. Take your real monthly invoiced volume, subtract the first $40K that is included each month, apply 0.9% to the rest and add the $249. Do it for your best and worst months, not the average, because percentage pricing hurts most in the month you most want to celebrate.
Make the demo prove decline management on your own failure pattern. Failed payments and involuntary churn are the problem Recurly leads with, so bring your own decline data: how many payments fail, at what point in the dunning cycle they recover, and how many customers you lose without them ever choosing to leave. Ask to see the retry and recovery configuration applied to that pattern rather than to a sample account.
Price the modules as separate lines in the same conversation. Engage starts at $1,600 per month and RevRec at $850 per month, both billed annually. Ask what moves each one, specifically what counts as a prompt for Engage, and ask what the billing plan does for revenue recognition without RevRec. A platform quote with the modules folded in is impossible to compare against anything.
Test the migration before you sign, not after. Ask to import a sample of your existing subscriptions, including the awkward ones: mid-cycle changes, discounts, trials in progress, and anyone on a legacy price. Then confirm what happens to those records if you leave. Migration quality is the single biggest cost of changing billing platforms and it is the one thing no price card shows.

Frequently asked questions about Recurly

How much does Recurly charge?

As of 16 October 2026 Recurly publishes Starter at $249 per month plus 0.9% of billing volume, with the first $40K of monthly billings included at no charge. All-Access is published only as as low as <1% of billing volume, billed annually, so its real rate comes from a sales conversation.

Does Recurly charge a percentage of revenue?

Yes. Both published plans are tied to billing volume. Starter adds 0.9% of billings to its monthly fee once you pass the first $40K each month, and All-Access is quoted as a percentage described as as low as <1% of billing volume. Seat count does not drive the price.

What do Recurly's revenue recognition and engagement modules cost?

Recurly publishes starting prices only. RevRec starts at $850 per month billed annually, priced on your billing volume, and Engage starts at $1,600 per month billed annually, priced on prompt volume and capability needs. Both are separate products rather than features of the billing plans.

Is Recurly billed monthly or annually?

Starter is published as a monthly price. All-Access, All-Access for Shopify, Engage and RevRec are all described as billed annually, so moving up from the entry plan means signing an annual contract. Confirm what it costs to change plans mid-term before you commit to one.

Does Recurly have a free trial?

No free trial is published as of 16 October 2026. Starter is the self-serve entry point at a monthly price rather than a free period, so a realistic evaluation is a demo followed by a paid pilot on Starter, scoped so your migration happens inside the first billing cycle.

Is Recurly a legitimate billing platform?

Yes. Recurly is a cloud subscription billing platform, sold in plans and modules including Subscriptions, Commerce, Engage and RevRec. One practical note: recurly.com served a reCAPTCHA bot challenge to automated requests on 16 October 2026, so confirm any figure you find in a browser rather than trusting a third-party page.

Who are Recurly's main competitors?

In billing software the usual shortlist alongside Recurly is Chargebee, Maxio, Zuora, Stripe Billing and Paddle. They differ most in what they charge for: a percentage of billings, a flat monthly fee, a per-transaction cut as merchant of record, or a quote with nothing published at all.

What should I ask Recurly before signing a contract?

Three things, in writing. The actual All-Access percentage at your volume with the bands that produce it, since the published figure is a floor. Each module as its own annual line. And the terms on data export and record retention if you leave, which the pricing page does not cover.