Let’s talk loyalty software. Assuming you want to increase your revenue by 50%, you’ve baked customer loyalty into your marketing strategy. What’s next? Time to start the dreaded search for the right Shopify app to execute on that loyalty-focused marketing strategy.
I’m sure that sounds familiar. Virtually every Shopify merchant reaches a point where they want to introduce loyalty-based rewards for their customers. And let’s be honest—it’s hard not to get overwhelmed about choosing the right loyalty app for your store, given the increasing number of rewards apps being showcased in the Shopify App Store.
Full disclosure. We’re obviously on the list, but we’ve built several features that are a must-have for any Shopify merchant looking to boost customer loyalty and increase the bottom line.
How we tested the best loyalty apps for Shopify
Store owners must consider a myriad of aspects before deciding try out an app. To make it easy, we’ve started with the 5 most relevant players in the Shopify loyalty apps space and analysed each app across a 5-point methodology:
- Clear pricing (monthly cost)
We asked ourselves whether it was clear what plans the apps offer and for what store sizes they're designed. - Affordability level (yearly cost)
We wanted to know whether the app was affordable over the long haul (yearly cost) across different store sizes. - Critical features
We dug to find out whether the app not only has the minimum necessary features, but also really promotes customer loyalty and increases store revenue. - Complimentary features
We checked whether the app offers additional functionalities besides loyalty that could enhance its core offer or customer experience. - App reputation
We researched whether the app has good ratings, positive reviews, and has been on the market for at least 3 years.
We chose this approach because we want you to be able to scan how each app compares, since you’re best equipped to decide for yourself rather than being sold.
Without further ado, let’s jump into it!
1. Froonze Loyalty
Froonze is a full-fledged loyalty solution that integrates seamlessly with its additional Wishlist, Customer Account and Custom Forms plugins, keeping loyalty close to the customer account experience. Packed with all the essential features, it’s one of the few Shopify loyalty apps to offer a fully native Shopify store credit loyalty program and loyalty digital cards for POS checkout.
Clear pricing (monthly cost)
Froonze’s loyalty plugin price ranges from free to $60 per month. It offers 4 easy-to-understand plans. So busy Shopify merchants will be happy to discover that choosing a plan from Froonze’s loyalty plugin is a no-brainer:
Small Shopify merchants who exceed the free plan’s order limit or want access to virtually every loyalty feature (excepting customer exclusion functionality and digital cards) will need to pay only $10 per month.
Large Shopify stores with more than 1000 monthly orders will pay only $60 a month for unlimited orders and access to virtually every loyalty feature Froonze offers.
Froonze’s loyalty plugin plans are based on monthly orders and access to major features such as a VIP program, Klaviyo integration, loyalty points expiration, or rewards in Shopify POS.
Head over to Froonze’s pricing page for a full price breakdown and feature list.
Affordability level (yearly cost)
Froonze shows that creating long-lasting customer loyalty should not only be an affordable endeavour, but the norm.
Smaller merchants who exceed the loyalty free plan’s limit or want all the loyalty features will pay $120 per year. If customer exclusion is preferred or if the 500 monthly order limit is exceeded, the upgrade will cost just $360 per year for loyalty.
Larger stores with more than 1,000 orders will pay $720 a year for the loyalty plugin. The same $720 yearly cost applies to stores that want to use digital loyalty cards to create a smoother POS checkout experience for their customers.
Considering that the global average AOV across industries sits at around $166, paying under $1000 a year, at most, for an app that rewards your customers to spend even more is a steal.
Critical features
Froonze offers all the essentials that a truly affordable, high-performing Shopify loyalty and rewards app should:
- Points-based system with points expiration
- Shopify native store credit loyalty program
- VIP tiers and referral program
- Email notifications with customizable templates
- Multi-language translations and text editing
- Integrations with Klaviyo, POS, and Flow
- New account page extension and preview widget
- Widget styling with freedom to use CSS/JS
Most of these features are free. Other major functionalities such as VIP tiers, referrals, and integrations are available starting with the smallest paid plan—$10 a month.
Complimentary features
Froonze provides merchants the freedom to choose and pay only for the additional plugins they need or want:
- Wishlist (available for Shopify legacy and customer accounts)
- Account (available for Shopify legacy and customer accounts)
- Forms (available only for Shopify legacy accounts)
As an app that aims to keep features close to the customer experience, Froonze has several modules or plugins that not only enhance the core loyalty functionality of the app but also create an integrated customer ecosystem, resulting in a smaller app stack and more growth.
App reputation
Froonze boasts a 5-star rating on the Shopify App Store with over 200 reviews. It was founded in 2021, so it has been on the market for 4 years. The only negative reviews are from merchants who used the app for less than 20 minutes.
Shopify merchants highlight the app’s ease of use and impeccable customer support. Most reviews mention the extensive customisation options, especially for widget appearance, email notifications, texts and translations. Merchants also praise the option to create a store credit-based loyalty program.
2. Joy Loyalty
Joy portrays itself as a social-first rewards program, tailored mostly towards beauty and fitness brands. Joy promises to drive sustainable growth.
Clear pricing
Joy’s prices range from free to custom. It offers 4 somewhat confusing pricing plans:
Joy states that for any plan, merchants get “free” monthly orders. Except for the free plan, which caps at 150 lifetime orders, merchants must pay for those “free” monthly orders, so they’re not really “free”.
Merchants who exceed the allocated maximum in a given plan will be automatically charged additional order-based fees. This is especially problematic for store owners who have to juggle more than app fees—that’s virtually any merchant focused on growing their business.
Small stores are left with some basic loyalty functionality and are practically forced to upgrade from $0 to almost $25 to use the more advanced features. Also, once the 150 lifetime free order limit is reached, which means just a couple of months of usage even for the smallest stores, merchants are still required to upgrade.
Bigger stores, with more than 7,000 monthly orders, must go through Joy’s sales team to get a custom price. Joy mentions the Enterprise price starts at $499/month.
Affordability level
It might not seem like it at first, but costs stack up with Joy, turning it into quite an expensive app over time.
Small stores that grow and exceed the lifetime limit will need to upgrade; that’s a jump from $0 to $25, resulting in about $300 per year, and if 500 orders are not enough or more features are desired, the next jump is from $300 to $1,188 a year, at the very least.
Large merchants will have to pay a pretty penny, starting at around $6000 a year, even if Joy caps the monthly maximum allocation at $10,000. That’s still an easy $120,000 a year.
Critical features
According to Joy, core features refer to:
- A loyalty page, referral program
- Translations and notifications
- Customer account blocks
- Specific earning and spending rules
- Certain integrations
Among the advanced features, Joy offers:
- VIP program
- Points preview widget
- Checkout extension (available to Shopify Plus merchants)
- Access to all integrations
One critical feature missing from Joy is the possibility to create a loyalty program based on native Shopify store credit. This is a huge missed opportunity for stores using Shopify’s New Customer Accounts. Rewarding store credit can only be done through Joy’s integration with Shopify Flow, which is limited.
Complimentary features
Joy dabbles only in loyalty software. They offer a customer account blocks feature that’s designed to enhance their loyalty offering, but that’s about it.
App reputation
Joy has a 4.9-star rating on the Shopify App Store with over 1,500 reviews. It was founded in 2021, so it has been on the market for 4 years.
Several customers have complained that Joy offers misleading information about pricing and functionalities. Furthermore, small store owners believe that Joy was not built for them.
3. Rivo Loyalty
Rivo describes itself as a loyalty platform built to drive revenue and retention for Shopify merchants, with a focus on pumping out weekly product updates.
Clear pricing
Rivo’s prices range from free to custom. It offers 4 plans; the paid ones being quite hard to understand:
Lower-volume stores that exceed the 200 monthly free plan or that desire access to more features will need to upgrade from $0 to $49 a month, and eventually jump to $499 per month.
Larger stores, with more than 2,500 orders, will need to go through Rivo’s sales team to negotiate a custom price, and must be willing to spend a minimum of $1,999 a month for the app.
Not only does Rivo charge per monthly orders, but it also pushes a “loyalty and referral participants” condition for the Scale plan, which caps at 250,000 participants. Rivo’s website pricing and the in-app pricing pages display conflicting information. Merchants must install the app to get the real prices. And even then, it’s hard to understand if the Scale or Plus plan is the right one for merchants.
Affordability level
Shopify store owners need to study Rivo’s complex pricing structure to avoid paying more money in the long run for features they may not need.
Smaller merchants that exceed the 200-order limit or want access to advanced features will need to pay between $600 and $6,000 a year.
Large stores, with over 2,500 monthly orders, must be willing to spend a minimum of $24,000 a year.
Rivo is an expensive solution tailored to large Shopify stores (specifically on the Shopify Plus plan), not for smaller Shopify merchants in need of a robust loyalty app that’s easy to use.
Critical features
Rivo promises that every plan comes with several features:
- Loyalty and referral programs
- Customisable branding options
- Detailed analytics
Higher plans offer additional features, including:
- Dedicated loyalty and referral pages
- An account page widget
- VIP program
- Various integrations (limited to 4 for the non-Enterprise plan)
Rivo claims that they offer a store credit program. However, it appears that rewarding store credit can only be done through Rivo’s integration with Shopify Flow, which is, yet again, limiting.
Complimentary features
Excluding the account page widget, Enterprise-level merchants benefit from a list of complementary features as part of the Enterprise plan offer:
- Wishlists and favourites
- Recently viewed
- Saved to cart
- Order management
- Recommendation engine
- Custom blocks
- Eligibility for Rivo Accounts
It’s unclear whether these features are included in the Enterprise plan or are paid for separately.
App reputation
Rivo has a 4.9-star rating on the Shopify App Store with over 1,500 reviews. It was founded in 2021, so it has been on the market for 4 years.
Various merchants have complained about leftover code after the app is uninstalled, as well as features not working, especially after updates. Furthermore, Shopify store owners feel frustrated due to the continuous upselling attempts and pop-ups within the app. Some complained about poor customer support.
4. Smile Loyalty
Smile declares itself the world’s largest reward program provider and has its roots in the Magento ecosystem. Later, they expanded into BigCommerce and Shopify and rebranded from Sweet Tooth Rewards to Smile.
Clear pricing
Smile’s prices range from free to custom. It’s far more straightforward than Joy or Rivo. It offers 6 plans:
Lower-volume stores that exceed the 200 monthly orders free plan or that want to access more features will need to upgrade from $0 to $49 a month. And, eventually, to $199/month once the 500 monthly order limit is reached.
Larger stores with more than 7,500 orders will need to either keep paying $5 per 100 orders or contact the Smile sales team for a custom offer. Smile allows merchants on their loyalty Plus plan to choose between monthly ($999/month) or yearly ($849/month) payments.
Busy store owners may not have time to pay attention when they exceed the order count limits. However, they will be automatically charged nonetheless.
Smile’s additional order-based fees charged for exceeding the allocated maximum create similar problems to Joy’s.
Affordability level
The pricing structure might be easier to digest, but the price tag itself isn’t.
Smaller stores that exceed the 200 monthly order count limit will pay almost $600 annually. Exceeding the 500 monthly order count raises the cost to around $2,400 per year.
Large stores will pay between $10,200 and $12,000 per year, depending on the billing frequency (annual or monthly). And that’s at the very minimum. Smile provides no info about the starting sum for the custom plan.
Smile is an expensive platform that targets large, enterprise-level Shopify stores willing to pay a hefty price for what appears to be limited value, not smaller merchants on a budget who need customisation options to fuel growth.
Critical features
Smile mentions that they offer several features:
- Points program and a loyalty page
- Customisation options (basic and advanced)
- VIP program and referral program
- On-site reminders
- Reporting and various integrations
Smile offers only the classic reward types: points, discounts, and free products, without mentioning Shopify's native store credit options.
Every critical feature requires a paid plan, except for the basic points and referral programs.
Complimentary features
Smile offers only loyalty features, and that’s pretty much it. There are no additional features to help enhance the customer experience.
App reputation
Smile has a 4.9-star rating on the Shopify App Store with 4,000 reviews. It was founded in 2012, so it has been on the market for 13 years. Smile is the fossil on this list.
And it does things the ancient way—price goes up, value stays the same, or worse, decreases. That’s the consensus among the many negative reviews. Some merchants complained about a lack of support effort, while many others highlighted broken features, constant paywalls, and even being kept on paid plans without consent. And we’re talking about Shopify merchants who switched from Smile after 1, 3, and even 10 years of use.
5. BON Loyalty
BON calls itself the leading Shopify loyalty & rewards app that helps thousands of merchants nurture customer loyalty and increase repeat purchases.
Clear pricing
BON’s prices range from free to $349 per month. It offers 4 plans that are easier to understand than Smile, Rivo, and Joy. The plans are:
Smaller stores that exceed the free plan’s monthly order limit or want to access more features will need to switch from $0 to either a monthly ($25/month) or yearly ($23/month) cost.
Larger stores that don’t want to be locked into a monthly order limit can choose between monthly ($99/month) or yearly ($79/month) subscriptions for certain advanced features. Alternatively, they can opt for monthly ($349/month) or annual ($279/month) payments for the most advanced features.
BON uses a mix of order count and available features for its plans, similar to Froonze. All the paid plans offer 20% off for annual subscriptions. While the prices are clear, it takes some figuring out what features are included in each plan.
Affordability level
The monthly prices give the impression that BON is affordable in the long run, but when we did some maths, we found out otherwise.
Smaller stores that exceed the 250 monthly order count limit or simply want more will pay between $275 and $300 per year, depending on the billing frequency (annual or monthly).
Large stores will pay between $950 and almost $1,200 per year, or $3,350 and $4,200 per year, depending on desired features and billing frequency (annual or monthly).
BON is not that expensive, but it’s not affordable either. On one hand, Shopify merchants with large stores will benefit from the lower price. On the other hand, smaller Shopify stores will still have to pay some, but for limited features.
Critical features
BON highlights that it offers several functionalities, such as:
- Points-based system and dedicated loyalty page
- VIP and referral programs
- Shopify POS integration
- Multi-language support
- Email notifications
BON doesn’t offer the option to create a native Shopify store credit loyalty program; only points-based options are available.
Complimentary features
BON is limited to loyalty features only and doesn’t provide extra features to enhance the customer experience.
App reputation
BON has a 4.9-star rating on the Shopify App Store with around 1,450 reviews. It was founded in 2021, so it has been on the market for 4 years.
Merchants complained about a diverse range of issues. These include a lack of engagement with the app, app features not working, needing to pay for simple customisations, and a lack of proper solutions from support, to name a few.
What loyalty app to consider for your Shopify store
The table below highlights whether you should consider the loyalty app for your Shopify store, especially in the long run. Store sizes are based on whether you run a smaller store, with under 1000 orders, or a larger one with over 1000 orders.
Install the best Shopify loyalty app
Not sure where to go from here? You have two choices. Pick two loyalty apps that resonate with you and try them in development stores.
The other option? Go straight for the clear winner. Install the Froonze app on your store or a development store to take it for a test drive. First-time installs get a 14-day free trial!
