Key takeaways
- Stay AI’s own case figures show Lifeboost with a 29.6% save rate but a 24.2% MRR save rate, so saved subscribers bring back less revenue than the count suggests.
- Stay AI lists $299 a month plus 1% and 19 cents on an annual contract, or $499 a month with no contract, checked 13 November 2026.
- On Stay AI, a French supplement brand’s order 2 retention went from 64% to 78% and its cancel flow save rate from 12.5% to 19.8%.
Stay AI sells itself on AI. Cancel surveys that pick their own offers. Retries timed by a model. Winbacks sent when the model says the subscriber is ready.
The AI is real. It still works inside rules somebody has to set, and on most accounts nobody did.
A food brand on Stay AI with about 2,000 subscribers showed me their setup in September. Punch cards on, a nice portal, and a cancel flow saving under 10% of the people who reached it.
RetainUP works with DTC subscription brands doing $1 to 10M a year. We have worked with 80+ subscription brands on Recharge, Skio, Stay AI and Loop. This is what we set up on Stay AI, what the platform does well, and what it leaves to you.
So this is also a review, written from inside live stores rather than from the sales deck. Pricing, setup and the cancel survey were checked against Stay AI's own pages on 13 November 2026.
Stay AI review: the short verdict
Stay AI is a strong pick for a $1M to $10M brand that will sign a yearly contract and has someone to own the rules. It has the lowest list fee of the big apps from about $1M a year, real AI on retries, offer tests and winback timing, and a migration with no implementation charge. It still leaves you the offer, the reasons, the words, and the check on whether a save paid.
| Area | What you get |
|---|---|
| Price | $299 a month on an annual contract or $499 with none, plus 1% + 19¢. No implementation charge |
| Setup | Six steps. The Subscribe and Save block needs an Online Store 2.0 theme |
| Cancel flow | Save offers before the reasons, one or several offers per reason, an A/B step with DecisionEngine |
| Failed payments | Smart Dunning picks retry timing per subscriber, behind one toggle |
| Klaviyo | Metrics still named "Retextion". Winback Ready fires only with WinbackEngine on |
| Migration | Up to 2 weeks, contracts cloned on migration day |
| Owner | Independent. Recharge has owned Skio since April 2026 |
| Best for | Brands with a retention owner and enough cancels for the AI to learn from |
On the Shopify App Store it rates 4.9 from 148 reviews, checked 13 November 2026, and Shopify's review summary mentions moves from Recharge, Bold, Loop and Skio.
Stay AI pricing in 2026
Stay AI has one public plan at two prices. On its pricing page, checked 13 November 2026, Standard is $299 a month on an annual contract or $499 a month with no contract, plus 1% and 19 cents a transaction. High Growth is a custom price. The Shopify App Store shows the $299 plan with a 30-day free trial.
| Plan | Monthly | Per transaction | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard, annual | $299 | 1% + 19¢ | Annual contract |
| Standard, no contract | $499 | 1% + 19¢ (listed next to the annual price) | Month to month |
| High Growth | Custom | By quote | Flat-rate tiers |
Stay's page lists no implementation charge, no setup fee and no support fee, and an account manager on every plan.
| Stay AI Standard, yearly | $250K a year | $1M a year | $3M a year | $10M a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual contract | $7,038 | $17,388 | $44,988 | $141,588 |
| No contract | $9,438 | $19,788 | $47,388 | $143,988 |
That is at a $50 average order, with Shopify's payment fees on top. At $1M a year the contract comes to about $17,400, against about $20,800 on Recharge Starter and $22,500 on Skio. The full side by side is in Stay AI vs Recharge vs Skio. The free subscription LTV calculator shows what one more order per subscriber is worth, which is a bigger number than the gap between any two apps.
Stay AI setup: six steps to go live
Stay AI setup is six steps in its onboarding guide: install, selling plan groups, the Subscribe and Save block, account extensions, portal branding, then the retention tools.
- Selling plan groups. Under Subscription Setup, Selling Plans. Pick Standard, Calendar, Prepaid or Prepaid Calendar, then add products, frequencies and discounts.
- Subscribe and Save block. Add it to the product template. It works on Online Store 2.0 themes only. Older themes need Stay's manual setup guide.
- Account extensions. In the theme editor, Checkout and Account Extensions, Apps: pick Stay Navigation or Extended Functionality.
- Then the retention tools. Cancellation survey, Smart Dunning, WinbackEngine and punch cards each start on their defaults. The seven levers below are where we set them.
Moving in from another app? Stay's pricing page says there is no implementation charge and the move takes up to 2 weeks, from a kickoff call with an onboarding manager to the post-migration call, with contracts cloned on migration day. Stay has no public migration doc, so ask for the plan in writing. Our subscription app migration checklist covers the rest.
What Stay AI does, and what it leaves to you
Stay AI runs the billing, times the retries, tests offers and times the winback. It leaves you the offer, the reasons and the offers behind each one, every email, and the check on whether a save paid.
Stay AI handles the billing and the AI tests. The offer, portal and flows still need building. The Subscription LTV Maximizer™ does that new setup or migration in 30 days, for $5,000.
What a Stay AI retention specialist sets up
A Stay AI retention specialist sets up the same seven levers as on any subscription app: the offer, the cancel flow, pause and skip, dunning, the portal, bundles and gifts, and the Klaviyo events. On Stay AI most of them have an engine name. RetentionEngine, Smart Dunning, ExperienceEngine, WinbackEngine.
1. The offer
On Stay AI, set the offer under Subscription Setup, then Selling Plans: three frequencies, with the one that matches how fast the product gets used preselected. If a bag lasts six weeks and the default ships every four, the subscriber has a stack in the cupboard by order 3 and "too much product" becomes the top cancel reason.
Then the discount. If the first order is 30% off and the second is 10% off, the second charge reads as a price rise. That is the charge people cancel on.
2. The cancel flow, in RetentionEngine
RetentionEngine is Stay AI’s cancel survey and save offers. You can set rules by cancel reason, lifetime value, product or plan, and location. Or you can let the AI choose an offer for each subscriber and keep testing.
In the current admin it sits under Optimization, Cancellation Surveys. A pre-survey screen can show save offers before any reason is asked. Each reason can carry one offer or several: change frequency, delay, swap, a discount code, a gift, an address change or a link. An A/B step splits traffic 50/50, or hands it to DecisionEngine to favour the offer that keeps more people. Global Immediate Cancel lets chosen subscribers, for example by shipping location, skip the survey. Stay's setup guide has the details.
We set the rules by hand first.
Four weeks of rules tells you which reasons are big and which offers work. Then we turn the AI on, only for reasons with enough volume, and only inside discount caps we set. An AI with no cap learns fast that 40% off saves people. It is right. It is also expensive.
The reasons matter more than the offers. Price is rarely the real reason, which I wrote about in subscription exit surveys. Split "I no longer use it" into never started, found something else, told to stop, and life changed. Each one needs a different answer.
Then read the save rate the right way. Stay AI’s own case figures, published in a RetentionEngine guide on Ecommerce Fastlane (archived copy, the original page has been removed), show two numbers for each brand.
Lifeboost saved 29.6% of subscribers but 24.2% of the revenue that tried to leave. OLIPOP saved 23.7% of subscribers and 14.7% of the revenue. The guide doesn’t define either number. My reading: saves often come with a discount, and the cheaper subscriber is the one who stays. So we track both, plus the orders paid 60 days after the save.
3. Pause and skip
Skip and reschedule go at the top of the portal and in the upcoming order email, before anyone opens the cancel survey. Pause goes last, and only with a return date. A pause with no end date is a cancel that still counts as active.
4. Dunning, in Smart Dunning
Smart Dunning uses AI to time retries from the decline data. One toggle turns it on. There are five settings around it worth checking.
Two of them catch brands out. "Cancel Dunned Subscriptions" ends a subscription when retries run out. We turn it off and pause instead, so a new card brings the subscriber back without a new checkout. And per Churn Buster’s Stay AI docs, an updated card is charged on the next scheduled retry, not right away. Tell the subscriber when the charge will run, or they update the card and think it failed again.
5. The portal
Stay’s portal builder is no-code, with a product carousel, in-portal banners and add-ons. Brands design it once at launch and never open it again.
One banner with one job, changed every month. Skip and reschedule on top. Punch card progress in view. Two or three small add-ons in the carousel, not the whole range. Cancel stays visible, because hiding it fills your support inbox and your chargebacks.
6. Bundles and gifts
Stay AI has punch cards, free gifts, swappable bundles and ExperienceEngine, which tests gifts, discounts and upsells against each other. Many brands save the first reward for order 6 or 10. By then most of the people it was meant for have gone.
We put gifts at orders 2 and 3 and tell people before the order ships. In our order 2 free gift test, the group told a gift was coming converted 85% more on order 2 than the group told nothing. No discount, no price change.
7. Klaviyo events
Stay AI passes subscription metrics to Klaviyo, sends cancel reasons from RetentionEngine, and fires a "Winback Ready" event from WinbackEngine. Each one gets a flow.
WinbackEngine solves the timing. The message is still yours. A winback that answers the cancel reason beats a generic code, and winback comes last for a reason: every lever above it is cheaper.
Search Klaviyo for the Retextion names, not Stay. Stay's Klaviyo article says the metrics will be renamed later and gives no date. Winback Ready fires only once WinbackEngine is set up under Optimization.
One trap. Klaviyo's own help says its unique coupon codes work only on one-time orders, not subscription orders. Put renewal discounts in Stay, and keep Klaviyo codes for one-time offers.
Stay AI’s own retention features, and where they fall short
Stay AI covers the retention tools and adds AI on top, but leaves you the rules, the words, and the check on whether a save turned into money.
- More offers, no advice on which. Stay’s current survey can show several offers per reason, which ends the old one-offer-per-screen limit. Which offers, in what order and at what discount is still yours. Stay’s own playbook says to start with one or two reasons.
- Save rate. The save is counted when the subscriber doesn’t cancel today, whatever they pay next. I explain what to read instead in 7 subscription numbers that lie.
- The AI needs volume. On a reason with 30 cancels a month, the AI has little to learn from. Rules work better there.
- It needs an owner. Ecommerce Fastlane’s review lists a steep learning curve and says it works best with a dedicated retention owner. One Shopify review says customer success went quiet after onboarding.
- Price. The Shopify listing shows $299 a month plus 1% and 19¢ per transaction, with a 30-day trial. The pricing page ties $299 to an annual contract and lists $499 without one.
Stay AI retention setup checklist
The Stay AI retention setup checklist is ten steps, in the order we run them on a 30-day build.
- Pull 12 months of cancellations by reason and by order number.
- Set frequencies to match how fast people use the product, with one preselected.
- Check that the subscription discount still holds after order 1.
- Rewrite the upcoming order email as a product email with skip and swap links.
- Build RetentionEngine with your own rules per reason and sub-reason.
- Put skip and reschedule at the top of the portal and the upcoming order email.
- Turn on Smart Dunning and decide what happens after the last retry.
- Add gifts at orders 2 and 3, then a punch card after.
- Reorder the portal and set one banner with one job.
- Map Stay AI events to Klaviyo flows, and read orders after each save every month.
If you want to know which of these your program is missing, the free subscription audit scores it on 8 dimensions and 48 checkpoints.
RetainUP results
RetainUP's public results from client work show that the lever matters more than the app. A cancel flow on Skio that moved from 14.8% to 24.8% did it with the same traffic and no new discount.
On Stay AI itself, a French supplement brand’s order 2 retention went from 64% to 78%, and its cancel flow save rate from 12.5% to 19.8%, with a save offer matched to each cancel reason.
If you want this built on your Stay AI account, that is the Subscription LTV Maximizer: 30 days, done for you, including copy and design, for $5,000.
Stay AI or Skio for retention?
Stay AI and Skio both have the retention tools a $1 to 10M brand needs. Stay AI leans on AI to pick offers and retry times. Skio gives you more control on one screen. We set up both, and I wrote the Skio retention setup the same way as this one.
| Stay AI | Skio | |
|---|---|---|
| Cancel flow | Cancellation survey. Offers before the reasons, one or several per reason, A/B step with DecisionEngine | Reasons, sub-reasons, two or three offers per screen, last-chance offer |
| Dunning | Smart Dunning, AI-timed retries, out-of-stock swaps | Retry phases, smart retries, backup payments, discount on retry |
| Loyalty | Punch cards, free gifts, ExperienceEngine tests | Loyalty tiers, rewards, reward milestones |
| Winback | WinbackEngine, "Winback Ready" event to Klaviyo | Cancel reasons to Klaviyo, quick action links |
| Listed price | $299 a month on an annual contract or $499 without, + 1% + 19¢ | $599 a month + 1.25% + 20¢ (Scale plan) |
| Ownership | Stay AI | Recharge, since April 2026 |
Moving to Stay AI, or off it? Our subscription app migration checklist runs the move day by day, and the Klaviyo event map shows what each Stay AI event is called on the other apps, including the "Retextion" names Stay AI still sends. Still choosing? The best Shopify subscription app comparison puts Stay AI next to the other three.
Comparing Stay AI with the rest? Recharge vs Skio in 2026 covers the two apps Recharge now owns, Loop vs Recharge the cheapest list price, and outgrowing Appstle, Seal or Shopify Subscriptions the move up from a cheaper app.
Choosing between Stay AI and the two apps Recharge now owns? Stay AI vs Recharge vs Skio compares fees at $1M to $10M, cancel flows, failed payments and Klaviyo signals.
On Stay AI, or moving to it? The Subscription LTV Maximizer™ sets the rules, writes the emails and builds the offer, cancel survey and Klaviyo flows on Stay AI in 30 days, for $5,000.
Setting up another app? Loop Subscriptions after a migration covers the first 90 days on Loop, and the Skio cancel flow setup maps a save path for every reason.
The full Stay AI build for one brand, in French, is in the Naali case study.
FAQ
Who is a good Stay AI retention consultant for a $1 to 10M brand?
Someone who works inside Stay AI, not only in Klaviyo. RetainUP is built for $1 to 10M subscription brands, and I work every account myself.
Is RetentionEngine’s AI enough on its own?
It is good at picking between offers once it has data. It doesn’t know your margin or which reasons are real, so set the rules and caps first, and let it test after.
What is a good save rate on Stay AI?
The average cancel flow saves about 1 in 6 people who click cancel, and a strong one saves 1 in 3. On Stay AI, compare the save rate with the MRR save rate and the orders paid after the save.
Should I turn off "Cancel Dunned Subscriptions" in Stay AI?
In most programs, yes. Pause the subscription when retries run out, then run a winback. A paused subscriber with a new card comes back without a new checkout.
Do Stay AI punch cards reduce churn?
They help when the first reward comes early. Put a gift at orders 2 and 3, tell people before it ships, and show progress in the portal.
Does Stay AI work with Klaviyo?
Yes. Stay AI passes subscription metrics and cancel reasons to Klaviyo, and WinbackEngine sends a "Winback Ready" event you can use as a flow trigger.
How much does Stay AI cost?
Stay AI's pricing page lists Standard at $299 a month on an annual contract or $499 a month with no contract, plus 1% and 19 cents a transaction, checked 13 November 2026. High Growth is custom. There is no implementation charge.
Is Stay AI worth it?
For a $1M to $10M brand with someone to own the rules, usually yes. Its list fee is the lowest of the big apps from about $1M a year. The AI only helps once the offer, the reasons and the emails are set, and that part is still yours.
How long does it take to migrate to Stay AI?
Stay's pricing page says up to 2 weeks, from the kickoff call to the post-migration call, with contracts cloned on migration day and no implementation charge.
Does Stay AI work on any Shopify theme?
Stay's Subscribe and Save block works on Online Store 2.0 themes only. Older themes need Stay's manual setup guide.
One email a week on subscription retention: the numbers, the strategy, and what to fix first.
Rahi Jain
Rahi Jain is a subscription LTV specialist who helps $1M to $10M DTC brands reduce subscription churn and maximize LTV on Recharge, Skio, Stay AI and Loop.
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