Stripe Billing charges 0.7% of billing volume with no base fee, while Recurly Starter costs $249 a month plus 0.9% of volume above a $40,000 allowance. The formulas cross twice: Stripe is cheaper below about $35,571 a month, Recurly wins from there to $55,500, and Stripe takes over again above that.
The two formulas, side by side
Strip away the marketing and each platform charges for its billing layer with one formula:
Stripe Billing (pay as you go): 0.7% × B, where B is your monthly billing volume. No base fee, no free allowance, no commitment. There are also published annual tiers — for example $620 a month up to $100,000 in monthly volume and $1,500 a month up to $250,000 — but the pay-as-you-go rate is the one most companies actually start on.
Recurly Starter: $249 + 0.9% × max(0, B − $40,000). The first $40,000 of monthly billings carries no percentage charge at all; above that threshold, the 0.9% applies to the excess.
All figures below are based on published list prices and exclude processing — the credit-card and gateway fees you pay separately.
Where the crossover lands
Because Recurly's percentage only kicks in above $40,000, there are two regimes to solve.
Regime 1: below $40,000 a month. Recurly costs a flat $249. Stripe costs 0.7% of volume, which at $40,000 equals $280. So within this band, Stripe is cheaper from zero up to $35,571 (where 0.7% × $35,571 ≈ $249), and Recurly is cheaper from $35,571 up to $40,000.
Regime 2: above $40,000 a month. Set the formulas equal:
0.007 × B = 249 + 0.009 × (B − 40,000)
0.007 × B = 249 + 0.009 × B − 360
0.007 × B = 0.009 × B − 111
111 = 0.002 × B
B = $55,500
So the single crossover point is $55,500 a month in billing volume. Below it, Recurly Starter is the cheaper billing layer; above it, Stripe Billing is. The margin within Recurly's winning band is modest — a few dollars to a few dozen dollars a month — which means the decision inside that band should really be about features, not the invoice line.
If you are on Stripe's $620-a-month annual tier up to $100,000 in volume, Stripe beats Recurly's Starter all the way down to roughly $34,000 a month — but you are also committing to a year.
The worked cost table
Here is the head-to-head at representative monthly volumes, billing-layer cost only, based on published list prices and excluding processing:
| Monthly billing volume | Stripe Billing (0.7%) | Recurly Starter | Cheaper billing layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $70 | $249 | Stripe by $179 |
| $20,000 | $140 | $249 | Stripe by $109 |
| $30,000 | $210 | $249 | Stripe by $39 |
| $40,000 | $280 | $249 | Recurly by $31 |
| $50,000 | $350 | $339 | Recurly by $11 |
| $55,500 | $389 | $389 | Tie |
| $75,000 | $525 | $564 | Stripe by $39 |
| $100,000 | $700 ($620 on annual tier) | $789 | Stripe by $89–$169 |
| $250,000 | $1,750 ($1,500 on annual tier) | $2,139 | Stripe by $389–$639 |
| $500,000 | $3,500 ($2,950 on annual tier) | $4,389 | Stripe by $889–$1,439 |
A few observations jump out. First, Recurly's winning band is narrow — roughly $35,500 to $55,500 — and the savings inside it are small. Second, the gap widens quickly above $100,000 a month, where Recurly's 0.9% on nearly all volume compounds against Stripe's lower percentage. Third, the parenthetical annual-tier numbers show why a raw formula comparison understates Stripe's advantage for committed buyers: at $100,000 a month, the annual tier drops Stripe's billing-layer cost to $620, a full $169 under Recurly Starter.
For a fuller map of how volume-based percentages behave, see our explainer on how billing-volume pricing works.
The $40,000 allowance band
The $40,000 free allowance is the single most misunderstood part of Recurly's pricing. It recurs every month — it is not a trial cap — and it changes who Recurly Starter is for.
If your business bills under $40,000 a month, Recurly Starter is effectively a flat $249-a-month product. That is a strange price point in the billing market: it is far more than Stripe's percentage would cost you at those volumes, and roughly equal to what several fixed-price competitors charge. It only makes sense if you specifically need Recurly's strengths — aggressive failed-payment recovery, consumer-subscription tooling like gift subscriptions and box-model features, or gateway independence — badly enough to pay a flat premium for them.
Between $35,500 and $55,500, the allowance does its real work: it shrinks the billable base so much that Recurly's higher percentage rate barely registers. At $50,000 a month you are paying 0.9% on just $10,000 of volume. This is the band where "Recurly is cheaper" is technically true but practically close to a rounding error — an $11-a-month difference should never decide a billing migration. Compare recovery performance and feature fit instead; our breakdown of Chargebee vs Recurly walks through the same crossover logic against a different percentage-priced rival.
Above $55,500, the allowance fades into the background. At $250,000 a month it shelters just 16% of your volume, and you are paying the higher percentage on the other 84%.
What changes at scale and annual tiers
The table above assumes pay-as-you-go pricing on both sides. In practice, three things complicate the picture as volume grows.
Stripe's annual tiers. Published tiers run $620 a month up to $100,000 in monthly volume, $1,500 up to $250,000, $2,950 up to $500,000, and $5,750 up to $1 million, each a one-year contract paid monthly. These consistently undercut pay-as-you-go and widen Stripe's advantage over Recurly Starter at every volume above roughly $34,000 a month.
Recurly All-Access. Recurly's higher tier is quoted as "under 1% of billing volume," billed annually, with a $1 million billing-volume minimum. It adds the features that many buyers actually want from Recurly — multiple dunning campaigns, AI-driven retry timing, churn prevention, multicurrency — but there is no published middle rung between Starter and All-Access. Between roughly $55,500 a month and $1 million a month, Recurly has a gap in its ladder: the math says switch to Stripe, and the product structure agrees, because Starter's recovery tooling is deliberately limited to one dunning campaign.
Stripe's usage-billing footnote. If your product is usage-based, note that Stripe routes serious metered billing through Metronome, which it acquired in January 2026 — a separate product conversation rather than part of the 0.7% rate. Recurly includes usage-based billing in its platform. That can flip the decision for metered products even when the headline math favors Stripe; see our guide to how usage-based billing works.
The layer-vs-processor distinction
There is one more structural fact the formulas hide: Stripe and Recurly do not sit at the same layer of the stack.
Stripe is a payment processor with billing built into it. The 0.7% billing fee sits on top of Stripe processing — 2.9% plus $0.30 for domestic cards in the US — but it is one vendor and one bill.
Recurly is a billing platform that sits on top of payment processors, including Stripe itself. It does not move money; it connects to 20-plus gateways. Recurly's platform fee is additive to your processing fees, not instead of them. If you run Recurly on top of Stripe, you pay Recurly's $249-plus-percentage and Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 for the actual money movement.
In practice this often cancels out of the comparison — if Stripe is the gateway underneath either way, processing is identical on both sides and only the billing-layer cost differs. But it matters the moment you are not on Stripe processing: comparing Recurly's 0.9% against Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 as if they were alternatives is comparing the wrong things. One is a billing fee; the other is a processing fee. Our guide to choosing an automated billing system explains how to keep the two layers separate in your evaluation.
Which one should you pick
Within Recurly's narrow winning band of $35,500–$55,500 a month, pick on features, not on the $11–$31 monthly difference. The questions that actually decide this: is involuntary churn a meaningful share of your lost revenue (Recurly's recovery reputation is strongest at consumer scale, though its best tooling is tier-gated — see our dunning explainer); do you need multi-gateway routing or freedom from Stripe lock-in; do you need consumer-subscription features like gifts and box models; and can you afford a heavier implementation for a $30-a-month saving?
Above $55,500 a month — and especially above $100,000 — the math points clearly at Stripe unless one of the feature bullets above is decisive. And if you are evaluating billing platforms more broadly, our Stripe Billing review and Recurly review go deeper on each product.
- Stripe Billing charges 0.7% of billing volume with no base fee; Recurly Starter charges $249 a month plus 0.9% of volume above a recurring $40,000 monthly allowance.
- The formulas cross at $55,500 a month: Recurly Starter is cheaper between roughly $35,500 and $55,500; Stripe is cheaper everywhere else.
- Inside Recurly's winning band the savings are $11–$31 a month — decide on features and recovery tooling, not on the invoice line.
- Above $100,000 a month Stripe's published annual tiers ($620, $1,500, $2,950, $5,750) widen its advantage considerably.
- Recurly's fee is additive to gateway processing fees; Stripe bundles billing and processing in one stack. Compare billing layer to billing layer.
- For usage-heavy or consumer-subscription products, feature fit can outweigh the math in either direction.
FAQs
Is Recurly cheaper than Stripe Billing?
It depends entirely on your monthly billing volume. Recurly Starter is cheaper between about $35,500 and $55,500 a month in billing volume because of its $40,000 free allowance. Below and above that band, Stripe Billing's 0.7% rate costs less. These figures are billing-layer cost only, based on published list prices, and exclude processing fees.
What is the exact crossover point between Stripe Billing and Recurly Starter?
Solving 0.007 × B = 249 + 0.009 × (B − 40,000) gives B = $55,500 a month in billing volume. At that volume both platforms cost $389 a month for the billing layer. Above $55,500, Stripe pulls ahead and the gap widens with scale.
Does Recurly's $40,000 allowance renew every month?
Yes. The first $40,000 of monthly billings carries no percentage charge on the Starter plan, and the allowance recurs monthly — it is not a one-time trial cap. Recurly also offers a 90-day free trial on Starter, which is separate from the allowance.
Do these prices include credit-card processing?
No. Stripe's 0.7% is a billing-layer fee on top of Stripe processing (2.9% + $0.30 for US domestic cards), and Recurly's platform fee sits on top of whatever gateway you connect — Recurly does not process payments itself. Always model billing-layer cost and processing cost separately.
What happens above $1 million a month in billing volume?
Both vendors move to quoted pricing at that scale — Stripe custom, Recurly All-Access quoted as under 1% billed annually with a $1M minimum. Neither publishes exact numbers there, so expect a sales conversation on both sides.
Conclusion
The Stripe Billing vs Recurly question has a cleaner answer than most comparisons admit: the formulas cross at $55,500 a month in billing volume, Recurly Starter wins a narrow band just below it, and Stripe wins everywhere else — with annual tiers widening its lead at scale. But the $11-to-$31 monthly difference inside Recurly's band is not a reason to migrate billing systems. Recovery tooling, gateway independence, consumer-subscription features, and implementation cost are the real decision factors; use the crossover math to keep the cost conversation honest, then decide on everything else. As always, confirm the current numbers on each vendor's pricing page before you budget — published prices change.
—
Sources: pricing figures verified against the vendors' published pages; crossover analysis cross-checked with Baremetrics' Stripe vs. Recurly comparison (September 2026). All figures are billing-layer cost only, based on published list prices, and exclude processing.