Recurly acquires Prive and Redfast, marking a significant step in its mission to deliver the most comprehensive subscription management platform on the market. These acquisitions enhance Recurly’s offering with powerful tools for real-time subscriber engagement and advanced commerce automation.

Following these acquisitions, Recurly is now the only subscription platform that handles payments, billing, real-time engagement, analytics, and ecommerce subscription management all in one place. This positions Recurly to serve as a true end-to-end solution for subscription businesses.

The move underscores Recurly’s strategic focus on helping merchants drive recurring revenue, optimize the subscriber lifecycle, and compete more effectively across both digital and physical commerce channels.

Key Takeaways

• By acquiring Shopify‑focused Prive (now Recurly Commerce) and real‑time engagement tool Redfast (rebranded Recurly Engage), Recurly becomes the first platform to fully integrate payments, billing, analytics, ecommerce, and subscriber engagement, all under one roof.
• With Prive’s Shopify‑native technology, Recurly now supports automated workflows, pricing intelligence, and checkout optimization for physical‑product subscription brands. This positions them in a market projected to grow to $1 trillion by 2028.
• Redfast adds predictive churn models and in‑product prompts, enabling brands to intervene at critical moments for upgrades or renewals. Engaged subscribers typically spend 67% more than newer users.
• The acquisitions build on Recurly’s recent SubSummit award (Best Subscription Management Platform 2025) and its AI‑powered Recurly Compass. According to Recurly CEO Joe Rohrlich, subscription businesses today must go beyond billing; they need to manage every stage of the subscriber lifecycle, deliver personalized experiences, and stay adaptable.

Recurly Acquires Prive and Redfast – Expands Platform to Support Full Subscriber Lifecycle

The subscription model has shifted the way businesses think about revenue and how customers expect to pay for services. Instead of a one-time purchase, companies now build ongoing relationships with subscribers, and that predictability can be a game-changer. Juniper Research reports that the subscription market was around $593 billion in 2024 and is on track to nearly hit $1 trillion – $996 billion – by 2028, a jump of roughly 68% in four years. Another forecast puts the total at $599 billion by 2026, thanks to booming demand for everything from streaming video and digital music to meal kits and curated product boxes.

To put it in perspective, video services make up about $60 billion of that, music subscriptions another $41 billion, and those physical goods boxes pull in roughly $102 billion. Those numbers underscore why any company looking to tap into recurring revenue needs billing, analytics, and engagement tools that keep pace with customer expectations.

Recurly’s journey began in September 2009 when Dan Burkhart, Tim Van Loan, and Isaac Hall set up shop in a San Francisco apartment. Their goal was simple: build a better way to manage payments for subscriptions. Over the years, they’ve attracted investors like Accel-KKR, Polaris Partners, and Fidelity, and grown into a platform used by more than 2,000 brands around the world. You’ve probably interacted with it if you’ve signed up for Sling TV, BarkBox, Twitch, Paramount+, FabFitFun, or Sprout Social. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with additional offices in San Francisco, Broomfield, Colorado, Medellín, Colombia, and London, Recurly combines a local touch with global scale, processing billions of dollars in recurring revenue every year.

On May 7, 2025 – right after being honored as “Best Subscription Management Platform” at SubSummit 2025 – Recurly revealed plans to acquire two fast-moving startups: Prive, a Shopify-first subscription commerce solution, and Redfast, a real-time engagement and personalization service. The idea was to fill gaps in its offering so customers don’t have to stitch together separate tools for payments, billing, analytics, ecommerce, and subscriber engagement.

Joe Rohrlich put it like this: subscription companies today can’t stop at billing, they have to cover every stage of the subscriber lifecycle, act on data as it arrives, and give people both flexibility and personalized experiences throughout. Bringing Redfast and Prive into the mix makes Recurly the first platform to unite payments, billing, analytics, ecommerce, and subscriber engagement in one place. That lets customers pick the exact tools they need and see results right away.

Prive’s technology now forms the core of what Recurly calls Recurly Commerce, extending its reach into physical goods subscriptions – a space Juniper Research expects will top $1 trillion worldwide by 2028. Brands built on Shopify can automate recurring orders, run pricing experiments, and optimize revenue without tearing down their existing storefronts. Companies like Public Goods, Coterie, GEM, and Kudos, which already relied on Prive, will gain direct access to Recurly’s robust billing engine and analytics suite.

Alex Craciun, co-founder of Prive, pointed out that subscription billing is often inflexible, especially as customer needs continue to evolve quickly. His co-founder, Claudia Laurie, noted that with the rise of physical goods subscriptions, businesses need tools that are both adaptable and driven by data. They both expressed that joining Recurly allows them to support fast-growing brands in building more efficient, scalable subscription models.

Both founders will serve as advisors during the integration to ensure existing clients keep the hands-on support they value.

On the engagement side, Redfast has been reborn as Recurly Engage. It zeroes in on churn by spotting subscribers at risk of leaving and delivering targeted messages – whether it’s in-app prompts, emails, or special offers – at the precise moment they’re most effective. Recurly’s data shows that subscribers who receive active engagement spend about 67% more than newcomers do.

Rajeev Raman, Redfast’s CEO, pointed out that as acquisition costs climb and personalization becomes a basic expectation, subscription businesses should engage subscribers at the right moment – whether it’s suggesting an upgrade, sending a renewal reminder, or offering a targeted incentive.

Raman is joining Recurly’s leadership team to accelerate product development and make sure real-time engagement stays central to the platform.

Bringing billing, commerce automation, engagement intelligence, and analytics together on one platform delivers a single source of truth for subscriber data. You can launch a new price test in Recurly Commerce, see its effect on retention in Recurly Engage, and tweak your approach – all in a matter of minutes instead of weeks. That cuts down on fragile, expensive integrations and lets product, marketing, and finance teams move in lockstep.

Earlier in 2025, Recurly rolled out more than 50 new features, including Recurly Compass, an AI-driven growth engine that surfaces insights and predictive analytics to guide decisions on pricing, marketing and retention. With Prive and Redfast layered on, customers can now bring subscribers in, decide how to charge them, and keep them engaged for the long haul, all without leaving the Recurly environment.

Recurly’s leaders are already on the conference circuit sharing lessons learned and best practices. On May 14 at 3:30 p.m. BST, Chief Product Officer Priya Lakshminarayanan will close out SubscriptionX in London with a presentation on scaling ecommerce subscriptions. Then on May 28 at 10:00 a.m. CT, Joe Rohrlich and CMO Lina Tonk will accept the SubSummit award in Dallas and appear alongside Megan Krouse of Cinemark to talk about personalization. Finally, on June 11 at 10:20 a.m. BST, Lakshminarayanan returns to London Tech Week to discuss how predictive analytics can shape retention strategies.

For any company trying to stake its claim in a market heading toward $1 trillion a year by 2028, these moves from Recurly matter. By lowering the bar on experimentation – whether that’s new offers in Recurly Commerce or targeted messaging in Recurly Engage – teams can learn faster, iterate sooner, and, ultimately, build stronger subscriber relationships. If you’re curious how this platform could fit your business, you can request a demo at recurly.com.

About Recurly

Recurly, Inc. is a San Francisco–headquartered subscription management platform founded in 2009 by Isaac Hall and Dan Burkhart. From its origins in an apartment building, the company has scaled into a global leader, powering thousands of businesses across industries such as streaming media, SaaS, digital publishing, and consumer goods. Its developer-first, API-driven architecture underpins a comprehensive suite of solutions – covering pricing models, trial and account management, payment orchestration, recurring billing, intelligent retries and dunning, revenue recognition, and built-in analytics – augmented by AI-based insights through Recurly Compass and add-ons like Recurly Engage and Recurly Commerce.

Today, Recurly’s platform processes over $12 billion in annual payment volume, supports more than 67 million active subscribers, and recovers over $1.3 billion in revenue for its customers each year – delivering an average 16× ROI for merchants. Since launch, the company has raised more than $41 million in funding: a $1.6 million seed round in 2010; $6 million Series A in 2012; $12 million Series B in 2014; $16.5 million Series C in 2019; and growth-equity backing from Accel-KKR in 2020 to fuel ongoing product innovation and global expansion.

Conclusion

Recurly’s acquisition of Prive and Redfast marks a clear pivot from subscription billing provider to a full-service platform for recurring revenue businesses. As the subscription economy pushes toward $1 trillion in global value, companies need more than just invoicing—they need flexibility, automation, and data-driven engagement to stay competitive.

By integrating real-time analytics, personalized messaging, and physical goods commerce into its offering, Recurly eliminates the need for fragmented tools and gives teams the ability to test, adapt, and scale in one place. For businesses looking to build sustainable subscriber relationships, Recurly’s expanded platform offers the tools to keep pace with rising expectations and growing market complexity.