dough dog
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Skio is a strong, UX-led Shopify subscription platform — but it's built for CPG. The portal is polished, the group-subscriptions feature is solid, and the typical customer is a supplements, beverage, or skincare brand. For apparel that runs on discovery, Skio's replenishment model gets in the way.
Dough Dog is built for apparel — rotating, curated Selections per subscriber, Group subscriptions that ship different products per subscriber (matching tops/bottoms, sibling sets, couples), and inventory reservation that holds the subscriber's pick pre-charge. 1% of subscription revenue + 19¢ per transaction, no monthly fee — vs Skio's Scale plan at $499/mo annual ($599/mo monthly) + 1% + $0.20/order. Launch in under 12 hours.
They optimize for reordering. We optimize for anticipation.
Ten criteria, head to head. Pricing verified April 2026.
| Criterion | Dough Dog | Skio |
|---|---|---|
| Built for apparel | ✓ | ✕ CPG-first |
| Rotating, curated Selections | ✓ Per subscriber, every cycle | ! Customer swap / build-a-box |
| Group subscriptions — different products per subscriber | ✓ Matching, multi-pack, sibling sets | ✕ “Group” = same product shared |
| Inventory reservation | ✓ Live | !⚠️ Not reservation |
| Passwordless login | Via Shopify / Shop Login | ✓ Native SMS/email |
| Customer portal UX | Apparel-tuned | Strong (category-agnostic) |
| Subscribe-and-save | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing (2026) | 1% rev + 19¢/tx · no monthly fee | $499/mo annual ($599/mo monthly) + 1% + $0.20/order |
| Launch time | Under 12 hours | Weeks |
| Best for | Apparel: socks, underwear, t-shirts, pajamas, prints | CPG: supplements, beverage, skincare |
Pricing verified on each vendor's public page in May 2026.
Both Skio and Dough Dog say “Group subscriptions.” They mean different things.
Skio's “swap between cycles” hands the curation labor to the subscriber — a build-a-box flow. Apparel subscribers don't want to become their own merchandiser every 30 days; the reason they subscribed was to stop shopping. Dough Dog runs Selections: per-subscriber curation every cycle, filtered by preferences (prints, cuts, sizes), purchase history (no repeats), and live variant-level inventory.
Skio's “Group subscriptions” share one product across multiple subscribers on one billing. Dough Dog's ship different products per subscriber — matching tops and bottoms, multi-pack bundles, sibling sets in matching prints at different sizes, couples in matching pieces. Same term, different primitive (see the breakdown above).
Skio syncs Shopify inventory like every other platform — but it's not variant-aware at the moment of charge. Dough Dog commits the specific SKU × size × color to the Dough Dog Location 1–5 weeks before ship, so storefront sales can't touch it and assignments can't fail because the size sold through.
Skio takes weeks of setup. Dough Dog launches in under 12 hours, no developers required.
Apparel runs 50–60% gross margin; supplements run 70–80%. Percentage-of-revenue pricing built for CPG compounds painfully at apparel scale. Dough Dog is 1% of subscription revenue + 19¢ per transaction, no monthly fee.
Skio's SMS/email login is the cleanest in the category. Shop Login covers most of this for Dough Dog, but Skio built it native.
Skio's portal is a benchmark across CPG. Dough Dog's portal is apparel-tuned — size management, group views, drop calendars — which matters when you're running apparel. If you're running supplements, Skio is more polished.
Liquid IV, Caraway, and other CPG-adjacent brands. If your brand fits that basket and your procurement team is pattern-matching, Skio has the logos. Note: Recharge acquired Skio on April 30, 2026 — combined roadmap is still emerging, so apparel-native primitives (rotation, matching, inventory reservation) remain unaddressed on either side.
Every Skio tier includes every feature. Philosophically clean.
Verified April 2026.
| Base | $499/mo annual ($599/mo monthly) + 1% + $0.20/order |
| Scale (monthly billing) | $599/mo |
| Annual | ~17% off |
1% of subscription revenue + 19¢ / transaction
No monthly fee. Flat — no percentage-of-GMV, no feature tiers. Aligned incentives: we only succeed when your program does.
Skio Scale runs $499/mo annual ($599/mo monthly) + 1% + $0.20/order. Enterprise is custom. Dough Dog has no monthly fee — 1% of subscription revenue + 19¢ per transaction.
Run end-to-end by the Dough Dog team. Zero store downtime.
Subscriber and plan data exported from Skio and mapped to the Dough Dog schema. Shopify app install. Billing cutover plan.
Test migration on a 10% subscriber cohort. QA. Customer comms drafted.
Full migration. Old Skio plans terminated, new Dough Dog plans live, customer notification sent.
Downtime: none — subscribers keep plans, billing dates, and history. Launch from scratch takes under 12 hours.
Five questions apparel founders ask before switching from Skio.
Yes. Skio is strong for CPG. Dough Dog is built for apparel — rotating Selections, Group subscriptions (matching/siblings/multi-pack), variant-level inventory awareness.
Skio = N subscribers share one product on one billing. Dough Dog = different products shipped across subscribers in a group (matching tops/bottoms, sibling sets in different sizes, multi-packs). Same term, different feature.
Dough Dog is generally cheaper at comparable volume. Dough Dog is 1% of subscription revenue + 19¢ per transaction with no monthly fee. Skio is $299/mo + transaction fees — effectively $799/mo at typical subscription volume.
Yes. The Dough Dog team handles migration, typically 2–3 weeks, zero store downtime.
Skio works for apparel brands with stable SKUs and replenishment programs where portal UX is the top priority. It's not built for rotating Selections, Group subscriptions (matching/siblings), or variant-level inventory awareness at pre-charge — the things apparel brands need.
