Appstle℠ Subscriptions App

Appstle Subscriptions has been a reliable core for managing our recurring orders — the setup was straightforward, and features like flexible billing frequencies, discount tiers, and the customer portal (skip/pause/cancel) work smoothly. Support has also been responsive and helpful, including going out of their way to remove branding and walk us through admin notification settings.

One area for improvement: we tried using Appstle Bundles to cross-sell a subscription product only when a specific main product was purchased (one-directional), but the Funnel feature triggers from any product in the bundle rather than a specific one, so we had to switch to a different app for that use case. It would be great to see more granular trigger control in Bundles in the future.

Also, as a Japan-based store, more built-in Japanese language support would be a huge help — we had to manually translate most of the email templates ourselves.

Overall, still a solid choice for subscription management, and the support team clearly cares about merchants.

Excellent support and a wonderful experience!

The Appstle team was incredibly helpful during my setup process.
They quickly solved my onboarding issue, helped customize my store experience, and provided amazing support throughout the process.

I'm currently building a monthly Letter Club subscription business from Japan, and Appstle has already made the process much easier.

Highly recommended!

1つ1つ手で修正するのは大変でしたので、一括修正を手伝っていただけてとても助かりました。ありがとうございました。

I received a response from Adam, and it was super clear and helpful, complete with a video!

I've been using this app for about 6 months now. Customer service is available 24/7 via chat and they're always nice/helpful. I use appstle for 4 different monthly subscription options. There's a lot of customization options that I haven't needed. It's relatively easy to use, but since there's a lot you can do, it sometimes takes a while to find what you're looking for in their app. They have a mailing list export system and the option to create one time, monthly, or annual subscription options.

Overall, it's a great app but there were a few things I wish I knew before I switched over. Directly masss emailing subscribers is not possible from the app. You need to use a third party, so make sure you do the monthly math for that additional subscription. Any annual subscriber address information does not retroactively save on existing orders, so you have to manually update those for future orders to go to the right place even if the customer updated their address on their profile. You're not really able to customize the subscription management page much, which I wish was possible to add some additional info to. Until recently, there was not place to see the total active subscription count. I noticed they just added it, which has been really helpful for preparing inventory!

I was initially worried about transferring from the Native Shopify Subscription app (which sucks btw, you can't edit anything on there). Then I searched, checked reviews, asked 3 different AI and then decided upon Appstle and Thank God I did. It's such a nice convenience when you can easily edit a customers' subscription without having to cancel and asking them to reapply, which of course means they're gone. Appstle is easy to work with, the team helps with onboarding if required to transfer your existing subscriptions and they always answer, live person, to your questions and fix any issues asap.

Excellent customer service from Adam at Apostle!

I contacted Apostle as I was trying to pause a subscription and amend some pricing. I initially thought I would need to upgrade our subscription, which, as a non-profit organisation, was a concern as we have to watch every penny to ensure as much as possible goes towards supporting animal rescues.

Adam was absolutely fantastic. He took the time to help me find a solution without needing to upgrade, making the whole process simple, straightforward and stress-free.

As an added bonus, Adam also removed the branding for us completely free of charge, which was such a kind and thoughtful gesture that we genuinely appreciate.

It's refreshing to deal with someone who takes the time to understand your needs, looks for a practical solution and genuinely wants to help, rather than simply encouraging you to spend more money.

Thank you, Adam, for your excellent customer service, kindness and support. It really does make a difference to a small, purpose-led business like ours, where every penny counts and 100% of profits go towards supporting dog and cat rescues.

Highly recommended!

Appstle’s support team was patient and helpful while I set up our Kimchi Club subscription. They answered my questions about billing dates and cutoff settings, and even offered to remove the app branding at no charge. I really appreciated the personal attention and help getting everything ready!

First of all, I'd like to thank Aaron for his patience, professionalism, and excellent support. I also really appreciate Appstle's email customization features, which allow us to showcase our logo and strengthen our brand identity.

However, I have to say that the overall subscription management experience still needs significant improvement.

Compared to Apple's subscription management experience, Appstle feels unnecessarily complicated. Apple's subscription system is simple, intuitive, and seamless. Appstle, on the other hand, makes some basic operations surprisingly frustrating.

For example, although the External API now supports changing the recurring billing date and rescheduling all future payments, the default Customer Portal still lacks this functionality. As a result, I have to manually update subscriptions for affected customers one by one in the backend. This is extremely tedious and shouldn't be necessary.

I'm also frustrated by the Pause and Cancel options. Their differences and consequences aren't immediately clear to customers, and the overall experience feels unnecessarily complicated. I would much rather see a simpler, more intuitive subscription management flow instead of multiple confusing options.

My suggestions are simple:
- Allow customers to change their recurring billing date directly in the default Customer Portal.
- Make pausing and canceling subscriptions much simpler and clearer.
- Focus on improving the core user experience rather than adding unnecessary complexity.

Overall, I appreciate the great support and the thoughtful email branding features, but I genuinely hope Appstle can learn from Apple's approach to subscription management.

Good subscription management should feel effortless, not like something that requires technical support or manual intervention every time.

It's very easy to get help on either a specific question, or even just assistance on peripheral stuff (like making sure everything looks good on the customer-facing end of things.)
It's been very easy to manage subscriptions for my mail club and exclusive products by using Appstle.