Recharge Subscriptions App

Once I got ReCharge setup, I had all kinds of issues with the backend - the subscription management tool that customers use. It was some really strange behavior that made the manager un-usable for my customers. And I tried to get help on this, but they just said "yeah, that must be a problem with your theme." I used the "Motion" paid theme from Shopify, with very little customization. I'm surprised their app would have issues with what seems like a fairly standard shopify theme. To be fair, I did not really try to follow up and get their help in solving these issues.

So, rather than try to figure it all out. I was already annoyed with some other aspects of this tool, I'm going to try out the bold subscription app.

There were several aspects that I was like: "really?" One example is that the customer get's an email with a link to setup manage their subscription - an ugly green button, and the link is completely broken, it just takes them to my homepage!! Support said: "Oh, this is because you don't have accounts setup on shopify" - who has accounts setup on shopify!? There was no warning of this ugly button or it's error. I guess that's what testing is for - but this just doesn't seem like an enterprise level solution with little issues like that.

To their credit, support was pretty quick an answering some questions, but others when they said they would get back to me, they still haven't.

Furthermore! As I'm trying to delete the app, I'm finding code left-over in my theme that wasn't deleted when I deleted the app. THIS IS SO ANNOYING!!! Apps should be required to fully delete the code they add! To be fair, lots of apps do this, I think. And, thankfully, at least in this instance, the put their name in a comment before and after - which might be more than some other apps do.

Update: I contacted support about uninstall and they did send me a link to some docs on how to uninstall, but it was not at all extensive or helpful in finding the fixes in the code I had to change. I just downloaded the theme and opened the folder in Sublime (free text editor) and was able to search the folder to easily remove about 12 sections of code left by ReCharge. Again, to be fair, many other apps may have this issue. Still it's very annoying.

App has a ton of issues with almost zero support or "above and beyond" support (only support is "we cant help but here is a list of developers you can pay OR the immediate defensive response of "this isnt our fault")

Unilateral changes made that we, as a client, are then forced to edit code to comply or pay developers to keep up. The backend dashboard has been updated looks wise but still lacks a handful of common sense, small edits to make life easier for our support team in account management.

EDIT: The only truly positive experience we've had is with Nick from eshopgenius. His development work is valued and extremely beneficial.

After a lot of back and forth, we finally have the app running and it seems to be working pretty well. My biggest complaint is support is EXTREMELY slow to respond at times, which can be frustrating in ecommerce. All my questions and issues were handled and handled correctly, just wish there was a little more ease of access to support, vie chat or anything.

Thank you to Matt J who was able to help us same day! Gives us lots of peace of mind knowing we can reach out and right away hear back. Thank you!

Account login functionality for the consumer (front end) can be faulty. The analytics are good, but could be enhanced.

They switched me over to a paid account without me asking for it. Now they no longer have a free account. 1% + .10 so now my credit card charge rate is extra high once you add this onto what credit cards/paypal is charging. Thank you for working with me and removing charges that were not mine.

There were a lot of underlying issues that were not clarify up-front. We had to contact support back and forth for help (some even took 3-4 days to respond which affected our store performance).

The support was very helpful. The support team's response quickly provided responses and solutions to my question.

I wish I could get fixes to dev issues. I still have to request from CS to get orders manually processed, I used to have permission but it changed somehow and now I don't. I asked to get permission and was not able to because it is under an email my team doesn't have access to. ReCharge could not edit permission for me.

Our subscription business was previously with Bold. We transitioned to Recharge last year, largely based on the aesthetics of their customer portal - it looks slicker and we thought it would make for a better customer experience. Unfortunately, the back-end of Recharge has been a disaster for us. Our subscribers have been unable to update their payment method since DEC 27, 2021. It is now FEB 21, 2022. That's nearly two months since we've alerted Recharge to this issue, and unfortunately the problem still persists. We receive daily emails from our subscribers (who WANT to continue) but they're unable to update to their new credit card - and they have no choice but to let the subscription expire. I continue to follow up with Recharge every other day or so, and am told that they're "working on it." They've offered up a few workarounds, none of which worked. Needless to say, it's been a pain managing irritated customers (loss of time), and it has resulted in a loss in our subscription revenue (loss of money). But more importantly, it has been a such a poor experience for our most loyal, long-term, avid users. The last two months of listening to our subscribers' frustration, and watching our subscriptions decline has left us feeling unsupported and powerless, since there's still no fix. Below is just one of the endless customer emails we've received. This experience has been everything you want to avoid as a business owner - it's embarrassing and a poor reflection on everything we've been working to build. Recharge might look better, but Bold actually worked. CUSTOMER EMAIL: I have tried three separate times to access the subscription page with no luck, always a "third party access" issue. My card I used to pay for the subscription is expiring and since I can't update it I suppose I will just let you figure that I am cancelling my subscription. Thanks for the great soap that I have had and good luck. ***MARCH 28TH 2022 UPDATE*** Unbelievably, this issue still persists -- THREE MONTHS LATER. I have been passed along to six or seven different support reps. There has been no correction - nor any indication that they have even been able to identify the issue. It's been a constant flow of "our team is looking into it", "we're getting close", "we need an API key" (which has been supplied three times now) then the next rep steps in and repeats all the same responses. It is absolutely crazy that it's been three months; you'd think someone at Recharge would acknowledge this absurdity of this, and simply dedicate some time & thought to correct the issue - but it's obvious our business doesn't matter to Recharge. We'll await the next email of "we're working on it...." ***One Year Later Update***: While I still cringe at how painful our transition was to Recharge, we've since had an incredibly positive experience working with their team that manages their Bundles product. ADOLFO & PAOLA specifically are WONDERFUL. Since they are worth five stars and my migration is still one star, I'll change my rating to three stars. Long story short, I would not recommend migrating over to Recharge from an existing subscription platform, but if you're starting fresh, Recharge is certainly an option.