app comparison
A Membership-first Subi alternative, with true access management.
Subi handles subscription billing. If you’re building a full membership program with gated content, tiered perks, and engagement tracking, Zendra gives you the tools Subi doesn’t.
Why merchants switch to Zendra
Subi is a solid subscription app, but merchants building membership programs often hit its ceiling quickly.
memberships
Built for memberships, not just subscriptions
Zendra is purpose-built for membership businesses — content gating, tiered perks, and member portals are core features. Subi is primarily a subscription billing tool that doesn’t extend into membership territory.
Content gating
Native content restrictions
Restrict pages, products, and collections by membership tier without custom code. Subi allows for basic URL restrictions (if you can copy and paste every one), and selecting specific products to hide; Zendra is a complete access management system.
Member experience
A portal members actually use
Zendra’s member portal lets customers manage their tier, view perks, and engage with your program. Subi’s customer portal is focused on subscription management — skip, pause, swap — not membership engagement.
analytics
Membership intelligence
Go beyond subscription metrics. Track tier distribution, member engagement patterns, churn risk, and lifetime value across your entire membership program.
flexibility
One app for the full program
Subscriptions, memberships, and loyalty in a single app. With Subi, you’d need to piece together multiple apps to create a comparable membership experience.
growth tools
Built-in acquisition tools
Free trials, gift memberships, and referral programs help grow your member base. Subi’s growth features are subscription-focused and don’t include membership-specific acquisition tools.
Feature by feature
How the two apps compare across the features that matter for building a membership business on Shopify.
Content gating
Gate blog posts, pages, and product details to active members. Show teasers and CTAs to non-members.
Limited content restriction, and very manual / intensive setup.
Content dripping
Schedule content to unlock on a timeline relative to each member’s join date — e.g., “available after 14 days.”
No built-in content drip scheduling for membership plans.
Members-only products
Hide details & description for specific products from non-members, so they only appear for active members.
Choose specific products to restrict to members, but no bulk selection by collection, tag, etc to make it easy.
Purchase restrictions
Allow anyone to browse, but restrict adding to cart and checkout to active members only.
No cart-level or checkout-level purchase restriction based on subscription status.
Member discounts
Automatic order-level and product-level discounts for members, calculated at checkout. Supports percentage and fixed amounts.
Requires manual coupon configuration and copy / paste every single coupon code.
Shipping perks
Free shipping, shipping rate discounts, and members-only shipping rates (e.g., priority shipping for members only).
No members-only shipping rate restrictions or shipping perks.
Perk scheduling
Set start and end dates on any perk. Run member sales or seasonal benefits that activate and expire automatically.
No perk scheduling. Benefits are either active or inactive.
Membership billing
Weekly, monthly, annual, or custom intervals with free trials, signup fees, and minimum commitment periods.
Offers subscriptions with billing flexibility, dunning, and customer self-service options.
Customer portal
Self-service portal inside Shopify’s native customer accounts. Members manage billing, view perks, and cancel with a confirmation step.
Customer portal focused on subscription actions — pause, skip, swap, reschedule. Not designed for membership program engagement.
Churn risk detection
Automated churn risk scoring based on member activity. Identify at-risk members before they cancel.
No built-in churn risk detection or member engagement scoring.
Smart tagging
Automatically tag customers in Shopify based on membership tier, status, and activity. Use in Shopify Flow and email automations.
No automatic customer tagging based on subscription status.
Pricing
Free tier available. All features included at transparent price points. No hidden costs as you grow.
Limited free plan available, but adds transaction fees on all plans, which becomes expensive at scale.
0%
Transaction fees on any Zendra plan
50+
Membership features built into Zendra
5.0
Zendra’s Shopify App Store rating
★★★★★
Zendra was really easy to install & set up, I had my first plan added in about 10 minutes. Ian from chat was really helpful to suggest the perks I should include in my membership to get more signups!
Moon Shadow crafts
★★★★★
The team is responsive to questions, quick to turn around updates and feature requests, and has helped us troubleshoot and resolve numerous issues. Recommended without hesitation.
Norfolk Wine & Spirits
★★★★★
Easy set up for what we needed for our business. Team was great getting everything behind the scenes up and running and it looks amazing.
DBC Baby Bedding
Frequently asked questions
Yes! Zendra offers migration services to bring over your existing members, their billing history, and tier assignments. The process is designed to minimize disruption to your active members. Contact us to plan your migration.
Yes. Zendra includes full subscription billing — recurring payments, free trials, and flexible cycles — plus adds membership features that Subi doesn’t offer.
Absolutely. We find that as your program grows, you’ll naturally want to expand — and add content gating, membership tiers, or loyalty features. Starting with Zendra saves you a migration later, lets you add membership features whenever you want to, and saves you money on transaction fees — no tax on your earnings! Zendra works great for simple subscriptions as well as more robust membership & loyalty programs.
Subi is built as a subscription app, and its membership features are limited (and feel like an afterthought). Content gating, tiered membership perks, branded member portals, gift memberships, membership-specific analytics, and built-in loyalty programs are all first-class in Zendra. These are all native features, not add-ons or half-baked implementations.
Zendra’s all-inclusive pricing is competitive with Subi, with a key difference: Zendra does not charge transaction fees. When you factor in the additional apps you’d need alongside Subi for content gating and membership features, Zendra provides a more robust and cost-effective solution for membership programs and subscriptions.
Ready to accelerate your brand’s growth?
100k+
Ecommerce stores have used our apps since we started working with Shopify.
43
Combined years of experience building Shopify apps in our small team.
98%
Customer happiness ratings from support CSAT scores.