Is Recurly overkill for an early-stage startup?

Usually, yes. Recurly is designed for companies with complex billing needs, dedicated billing teams, and enterprise budgets. If your subscription model is straightforward (a few plans, standard billing cycles), Recurly's complexity and cost aren't justified. StackBE or even direct Stripe integration is likely sufficient.

How much does Recurly actually cost?

Recurly doesn't publish pricing—you need to talk to sales. Generally, plans start in the hundreds per month with annual contracts. Enterprise tiers with advanced features cost more. For a startup, this can easily exceed your entire infrastructure budget. StackBE's transparent pricing is typically a fraction of Recurly's cost.

Is Recurly's dunning really that much better?

Recurly has sophisticated dunning: multiple retry strategies, backup payment methods, optimized email sequences. They claim 7-12% improvement in recovery rates. However, basic dunning (retry with emails) handles most cases. Recurly's edge is on the margin—valuable at scale, less impactful for small businesses.

Can I migrate from StackBE to Recurly later?

Yes. Your customer and subscription data can be migrated. Since both can use Stripe, payment methods remain in Stripe. The migration is work but feasible when your needs genuinely outgrow StackBE. Most startups never reach that point.

Does Recurly include customer authentication?

No. Recurly is purely billing infrastructure. You need a separate auth solution (Auth0, Clerk, etc.) and must connect customer identities between systems. StackBE includes authentication, eliminating this integration work.

StackBE vs Recurly: Right-Sized Subscription Billing

Feature	Recurly	StackBE
Subscription Management	Enterprise-grade	Standard
Dunning/Recovery	Advanced	Basic
Multiple Gateways		Stripe only
Revenue Recognition
Authentication		Magic links
Entitlements
Starting Price	Enterprise pricing	Affordable
Implementation Time	Weeks-months	Hours-days
Target Market	Enterprise	Startups/Indie
SOC 2 Certified		In progress

What is Recurly?

Recurly is an enterprise-grade subscription management platform. Founded in 2009, it's one of the original subscription billing solutions, used by companies like Sling TV, Twitch, and BarkBox.

Recurly provides:

Subscription lifecycle management

Multiple payment gateway support

Advanced dunning (revenue recovery)

Revenue recognition

Analytics and reporting

Flexible pricing models

Enterprise security (SOC 2, PCI-DSS)

It's built for companies with complex billing needs and the resources to implement them.

What is StackBE?

StackBE is a subscription backend for startups and indie developers. It combines auth, billing, and entitlements in a single, focused API.

StackBE provides:

Magic link authentication

Subscription management via Stripe Connect

Entitlements tied to plans

Usage tracking

Customer portal

Analytics dashboard

Enterprise vs Startup Focus

This comparison highlights the "right-sizing" question: do you need enterprise subscription infrastructure, or would simpler tooling let you ship faster?

Key Differences

Complexity

Recurly: Feature-rich with extensive configuration. Supports complex scenarios: multiple currencies, tax integrations, custom billing schedules, advanced analytics, revenue recognition reporting. The power comes with setup complexity.

StackBE: Focused on common SaaS patterns. Plans, subscriptions, entitlements, trials. Less to configure, faster to implement. If your needs are straightforward, you don't pay the complexity tax.

Target Customer

Recurly: Mid-market to enterprise. Companies with dedicated billing teams, complex requirements, and budget for enterprise tooling. Their customer list includes established streaming and subscription businesses.

StackBE: Startups, solo developers, small teams. Companies that need billing to work without becoming a project unto itself.

Pricing

Recurly: Custom pricing, generally starting in the hundreds per month. Enterprise contracts with annual commitments. Implementation fees for complex setups.

StackBE: Transparent, flat monthly pricing at a fraction of Recurly's cost. No sales calls required.

Dunning & Revenue Recovery

Recurly: This is Recurly's strength. Sophisticated retry logic, multiple retry schedules, email sequences, backup payment methods, and analytics on recovery rates. They claim to recover 7-12% of failed payments.

StackBE: Basic dunning with configurable grace periods and dunning email schedules. Handles common scenarios but without Recurly's advanced optimization algorithms.

Payment Gateways

Recurly: Supports many gateways: Stripe, Braintree, Adyen, PayPal, WorldPay, and more. Good for redundancy or regional requirements.

StackBE: Stripe Connect exclusively. Stripe covers most use cases, but if you need gateway diversity, Recurly offers more.

Authentication

Recurly: None. Purely billing infrastructure. You need a separate identity solution.

StackBE: Magic link authentication included. Customer identity and billing in one system.

Entitlements

Recurly: Has plan/add-on structure but no built-in entitlements system. You define products and pricing; access control is your responsibility.

StackBE: Entitlements are first-class. Define features per plan, check access via API. Billing and access control are unified.

Implementation

Recurly: Expect weeks to months for enterprise implementation. Professional services often involved. Significant configuration and testing.

StackBE: Hours to days. SDK integration, define plans, connect Stripe, ship.

When to Choose Recurly

Recurly is the right choice when:

Failed payment recovery is a major business concern

You need multiple payment gateways

Revenue recognition reporting is required

You have a billing team to manage the system

Enterprise security certifications are required

Budget isn't a primary constraint

When to Choose StackBE

StackBE is better when:

You're early-stage and need to ship fast

Your billing model is straightforward

You want auth + billing + entitlements unified

Budget matters—enterprise pricing isn't justified

You don't have dedicated billing engineers

Stripe-only is acceptable

The Dunning Question

Recurly's advanced dunning is genuinely valuable if you have significant churn from payment failures. But consider:

1. Most payment failures are recoverable with basic retry logic

2. Recurly's claimed 7-12% recovery improvement is on the marginal failures

3. If you have $100K MRR and 3% fails, that's $3K at risk. 10% recovery improvement = $300/month

4. Does that justify Recurly's pricing?

For early-stage startups, the answer is usually no. Optimize billing when billing failure is actually a problem.

The Bottom Line

Recurly is enterprise infrastructure for enterprise problems. If you're Twitch, you probably need it.

If you're a startup, indie developer, or small team, Recurly is likely overkill. StackBE handles subscriptions without the enterprise complexity and cost.

Build billing proportional to your stage. You can always upgrade later.

StackBE vs Recurly