So. Some news.
If you've spent any time inside a DTC subscription business in the last few years, you'll know the question that comes up more often than almost any other. Recharge or Skio? Which is better? Which should we move to?
This week, that question got a lot simpler.
On 30 April, Recharge announced it has acquired Skio for $105 million. Both platforms are now under one roof. And both teams are staying. We've been Recharge Premier Partners long enough to have made the trip to Charge X. We were also the first agency to launch Skio Loyalty. We've worked with the Skio team since 2021. So this is one of those bits of industry news that landed personally on our desk — and one we wanted to write about properly.
Here's how we're reading it.
What's actually happened
Recharge has been the long-standing home of subscriptions on Shopify. Thousands of DTC brands, a mature platform, deep integrations.
Skio is the newer name in the space — built fast, built smart, and known for the cleanest subscriber portal in the category. The team launched out of Y Combinator in 2020, grew the business to $32 million in ARR, and processed around $4 billion a year in subscription payments. They did all of that with no sales team, no advertising spend, and no marketing function — just a really good product, really good support, and a community of merchants who told other merchants about it.
The two companies now sit together. Combined, they power more than 20,000 brands and process over $20 billion in subscription GMV a year.
And here's the part we'd really like every operator to read carefully: nothing is changing today for merchants on either platform. Both Recharge and Skio have been clear about this. Your account is your account. Your contract is your contract. Your team is your team. The people you've been speaking to on either side remain your points of contact. There is no forced migration. There is no scramble.
It's a calm, well-handled announcement. Which, frankly, is the most important thing it could have been.
Why we're feeling positive about this
We've sat on both sides of this deal for years. We've built and grown subscription programmes across both platforms. We know how Recharge operates from the inside, and we know how Skio operates from the inside. So we don't say this lightly — we think this is genuinely good news for DTC subscription brands.
Three reasons.
The first is that the two platforms have been pulling in the same direction for a while. Recharge has the scale, the integrations, and the data depth. Skio has the product velocity, the UX, and the merchant intimacy. The combined company gets to bring both into one offering, instead of merchants having to choose between them. As Skio's CEO Aidan Thibodeaux put it: "SaaS has stopped being about building cool features. It's about building what merchants need before they need it." That's a vision worth being inside.
The second is that more data means better tools. Combining the two largest subscription datasets on Shopify means the combined company can actually tell you how your checkout revenue is trending against the market, how your retention compares to the fastest-growing brands in your category, and where the specific gaps are in your subscriber experience. That kind of benchmarking just hasn't existed at this scale before, and it's the thing every operator we work with has been asking for.
The third is the framing. Recharge's CEO Oisin O'Connor said it cleanly in the announcement: "Both companies had a path forward independently. We chose a bigger one." This wasn't a defensive deal. Both businesses were doing well. It's a coming-together, not a rescue. That matters for the culture of what gets built next.
What this means if you're a Skio merchant
Carry on. Genuinely.
Your portal is your portal. Your billing is your billing. Skio is continuing to operate as Skio. The team you've been working with is still the team you'll be working with. The cancel flows, the passwordless login, the design choices that made you choose Skio in the first place — all still there.
When the combined roadmap is announced over the coming months, you'll see what changes from there. Until then, the only thing worth doing is what you'd be doing anyway: looking after your subscribers properly.
What this means if you're a Recharge merchant
Probably more upside, actually.
Recharge has just absorbed one of the most product-led subscription teams on Shopify. The features and design thinking that made Skio attractive to a generation of newer DTC brands are now part of the combined roadmap. You stay on the platform you already know, and you get the benefit of Skio's product investment over time.
For brands who've been quietly wondering whether to migrate to Skio for the UX, the question is now a much easier one. You don't need to.
What this means if you're choosing a platform right now
Honestly, it gets simpler. The Recharge vs Skio decision used to be a real fork in the road. Now both products are under one roof. You can pick whichever side feels right for your brand — the more enterprise-shaped path through Recharge, or the more UX-led path through Skio — knowing they're being built together.
Shopify's own native subscriptions still exist for the simplest replenishment use cases. But for any DTC brand with ambition, the choice is clearer than it's been in years.
A small footnote we found interesting
Skio's founder Kennan Frost has already started something new — an AI-native advertising platform for DTC brands called Icon, backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. We mention it because founders who feel good about how their company has landed tend to move quickly on to their next thing. That's what's happening here. It's a quiet but real endorsement of the deal.
We'll be watching Icon closely too, by the way. The same person who built the cleanest subscription product on Shopify is now pointing his attention at the next layer of the DTC stack. Worth knowing.
What we're saying to our subscription clients this week
A few short things. There's no need to do anything urgent. The platforms are operating as normal and will be for a long while. Anyone telling you to migrate this month is selling something.
Use the calm to look at your subscriber experience properly. The portal, the cancel flow, the swap and skip logic, the messaging around replenishment — these are the things that move retention regardless of which platform you're on. The brands that come out of the next twelve months strongest will be the ones who've used this window to tidy their own house, not the ones who've panicked about platform choice.
Treat retention as a strategic function, not a project. The deal itself is a giant arrow pointing at this. Recharge and Skio combining their data is, in the end, about helping subscription brands keep more of the customers they already have. That's the work. It always was.
And finally — the honest bit
We've worked with both Recharge and Skio for a long time. We've seen Sauce Shop's gross sales grow by 154% after a Skio migration. We've watched Citizens of Soil go from £20k to £150k+ MRR in 9 months on Recharge without leaning on discounting. We launched Skio Loyalty for Bold Bean Co last year. We've worked with Origin Coffee on a +95.9% YoY subscription revenue lift wihth recharge. The two platforms have each been part of some of our proudest client work.
Seeing them join up feels right. It feels like the natural next step for a category that's been growing fast and deserves more, not fewer, brilliant people working on it.
We're optimistic. And we'll be here, as ever, to help our DTC subscription clients make the most of whatever the combined platform builds next.
Frequently Asked Questions
What has happened with Recharge and Skio?
Recharge announced on 30 April 2026 that it has acquired Skio for $105 million in cash. The two companies are now joining forces to build the future of subscription commerce on Shopify. Together they power more than 20,000 brands and process over $20 billion a year in subscription GMV.
Will anything change for Skio merchants after the Recharge acquisition?
Not in the short term. Both Recharge and Skio have publicly confirmed that all existing accounts, billing, contracts, integrations and support continue exactly as they did before. The teams on both sides remain the same points of contact for merchants. A combined product roadmap will be announced in the coming months.
Is the Recharge acquisition of Skio good news for DTC brands?
We think it is. Both platforms have been pulling in the same direction, and combining Skio's product velocity and UX strength with Recharge's scale and data depth means DTC subscription brands get a stronger combined offering over time. The deal has been framed by both companies as a coming-together rather than a defensive move.
Should I migrate from Skio to Recharge after the acquisition?
No, not now. Both platforms continue to operate independently. There is no forced migration. The right thing to do in the coming months is to focus on optimising your subscriber experience — your portal, cancel flow, skip and swap logic, replenishment messaging — and wait for the combined roadmap to be announced before making any platform changes.
How big was Skio when Recharge acquired it?
Skio reached approximately $32 million in annual recurring revenue and processed around $4 billion a year in subscription payments at the time of the acquisition. Notably, the company built this scale with no sales team, no advertising spend, and no marketing function — relying on product quality and word of mouth within the Shopify merchant community.
Will Skio Loyalty continue after the Recharge acquisition?
Skio Loyalty is expected to continue operating as part of the Skio product. The native loyalty layer was one of Skio's most differentiated features at the time of the acquisition. Where it sits in the combined roadmap will be confirmed when Recharge and Skio share more in the coming months.
Who is Kennan Frost and what is he doing now?
Kennan Frost is the founder of Skio. He has already launched a new company called Icon, an AI-native advertising platform for DTC brands, backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. The fact that he has moved on to a new venture quickly is a quiet endorsement of how Skio has landed at Recharge.