Joy Loyalty Pricing (2026): Every Plan and What the Free Plan Locks

Joy is one of the easier loyalty apps to start with. The free Starter plan covers 250 orders a month and includes store credit rewards and a small referral program. On day one, it looks like everything a new program needs.

The real price shows up a few months later. You want birthday points, and points that expire so customers come back to spend them. That moves you to Essential at $29. Then you want your emails to come from your own domain, not Joy's. You start selling at markets and want your program at the Shopify POS. You want a Gold tier for your best customers. Each of those lands you on Advanced at $129 a month. If you're setting up a complete Shopify loyalty program, that's the number to plan for.

Joy's pricing page lists the headline features of each plan, but not every setting that's locked. So we installed Joy on a test Shopify store on the free Starter plan and opened every page, tab and setting in the admin. (We didn't click any upgrade buttons.) Here's what we found.

Joy pricing plans at a glance

Prices are in USD, per month, and come from the pricing page inside the app, Joy's pricing page and its Shopify App Store listing, checked on November 11, 2026. Essential and Advanced have a 14-day free trial, Ultimate 30 days. Joy counts orders from every source: online, POS, imported and manual. When we checked, the app also offered 30% off Advanced and Ultimate for the first three months.

What you get on Joy's free plan

Here's what showed no lock on the free Starter plan:

• Points: for orders, creating an account, newsletter and SMS sign-ups, visiting your store, streaks, and social actions such as following you on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok.
• Rewards: amount and percentage discounts, and store credit for orders, using native Shopify store credit.
• Referral program: up to 30 referrals a month, with fraud checks.
• Quizzes that reward customers for answering questions.
• Emails: reward emails with a drag-and-drop editor, including a custom HTML block. They go out from Joy's address.
• Widget: the floating widget in one language, with your colours, fonts and layout.
• Analytics on the program's members, rewards and revenue.

Points are also taken back when an order is refunded or cancelled. That's not a bad starting point for a store under 250 orders a month. Just keep in mind that above 250 orders the whole program pauses until the next month.

The features stores usually upgrade for

These are the locked features that most often push a store onto a paid plan. The full list of 41 follows below.

• Birthday points (Essential, $29): a reward on the customer's birthday, one of the easiest ways to bring someone back once a year.
• Points expiry (Essential, $29): points that expire, so customers come back to spend them. The reminder emails run through Shopify Flow, which is on Essential too.
• Points on product pages (Essential, $29): showing shoppers what they'll earn before they buy.
• Multiple languages (Essential, $29): the program in your customers' languages. Free covers one.
• Loyalty page (Essential, $29): you can edit a page that explains your program on Free, but publishing it needs Essential.
• Review points (Essential, $29): points for writing a product review.
• Emails from your own domain (Advanced, $129): on Free, Joy's emails go out from Joy's address. Essential ($29) lets you set a custom sender address, but sending from your own verified domain needs Advanced.
• VIP tiers (Advanced, $129): Silver, Gold and Platinum levels for your best customers.
• Shopify POS (Advanced, $129): earning and spending points at your shop counter.
• Loyalty in new customer accounts (Advanced, $129): points, rewards and referrals inside Shopify's customer account pages.
• Checkout blocks (Ultimate, $499): redeeming points at checkout.

All 41 features locked on the free plan

On the free plan, 41 features in the Joy admin are locked: 21 on Essential, 16 on Advanced, 3 on Ultimate and 1 on any paid plan. Most locks name their plan, such as "Available on Essential". Click View to see the screenshots from our test store.

Locked feature	Screenshots
Essential, $29/month (21)
Review pointsPoints for writing a product review.	View
Birthday pointsPoints on the customer's birthday.	View
Survey pointsPoints for filling out a survey.	View
Custom earning rulesEarning rules for actions you define yourself.	View
Google review pointsPoints for leaving a Google review of your store.	View
Buy X get Y rewardsA points reward that works like a Buy X get Y discount.	View
Free product rewardsA free product in exchange for points.	View
Free shipping rewardsFree shipping in exchange for points.	View
Gift card rewardsA Shopify gift card in exchange for points.	View
Tree-planting rewardsPoints spent on environmental projects through GoodAPI.	View
Referral taggingTagging referral orders and referred customers in Shopify.	View
Points expiryPoints that expire, so customers come back to spend them.	View
Member-only dealsTime-limited deals that only loyalty members can use.	View
Custom email senderSending Joy's emails from your own address instead of Joy's.	View
Multiple languagesAdding a second language. Free covers one.	View
Shopify metafield syncShowing and syncing loyalty data in Shopify metafields.	No screenshot
Rewarding past ordersPoints for accounts and orders from before you installed Joy.	View
Loyalty pagePublishing a page that explains your program. You can edit drafts on Free.	View
Points on product pagesShowing shoppers how many points a product earns.	View
Thank-you page loyalty blocksEarned points and VIP progress on the order thank-you page.	View
Shopify FlowAutomating loyalty actions with Shopify Flow, including the points-expiry reminder emails.	View
Advanced, $129/month (16)
Anniversary, receipt and form pointsPoints on a membership anniversary, for submitting a receipt or for filling out a form.	View
Instagram rewardsPoints for comments, story mentions, story replies and live comments. Following on Instagram is free.	View
Advanced order rulesPoints per number of items bought, or once an order reaches a spending threshold.	View
MilestonesRewards when a customer reaches a goal, such as a number of orders.	View
VIP tiersSilver, Gold and Platinum levels for your best customers.	View
Paid membershipVIP tiers that customers pay a subscription to join.	View
B2B tiersA partner tier for wholesale customers.	View
Opt-in membershipLetting customers choose to join, or adding members by hand. Free enrolls everyone automatically.	View
Custom sending domainVerifying your own domain for Joy emails.	View
AI launcher iconAn AI-generated icon for the widget button.	View
AI banner imagesAI-generated widget banners with your products.	View
Loyalty in new customer accountsThe Loyalty Hub in Shopify customer accounts.	View
Customer account blocks and wallet passLoyalty dashboard, rewards, referrals and a Google Wallet pass in the account page.	View
Redeem in cartSpending points in the cart drawer.	View
Thank-you page referral blockA referral invite on the order thank-you page.	View
Shopify POSEarning and spending points at your shop counter.	View
Ultimate, $499/month (3)
Mobile app pointsPoints for actions in your mobile app.	View
API accessApp credentials for connecting Joy to other systems.	View
Checkout blocksRedeeming points, showing rewards and entering referral codes at checkout.	View
Any paid plan (1)
AI connectionsConnecting Joy to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor. Joy's pricing lists it on Ultimate.	No screenshot

Order limits and what happens when you go over

Every Joy plan has a monthly order limit: 250 on Starter, 500 on Essential, 2,000 on Advanced and 7,000 on Ultimate. Joy counts orders from every source, online and in store, imported and manual.

On the free plan, Joy doesn't charge you. Instead, above 250 orders the loyalty program pauses until the next monthly reset or until you upgrade. On paid plans, Joy keeps the program running and adds an overage fee: $15 per 100 orders on Essential, $10 on Advanced and $5 on Ultimate.

So the order count can change your bill as much as the features you use. Take a store on Essential that usually does 400 orders a month. In a busy November it does 800. Those 300 extra orders add $45, so that month costs $74 instead of $29. At 1,200 orders a month, Essential costs $134, more than Advanced at $129. Past about 1,150 orders a month, Advanced is cheaper, whatever features you use.

Key features and the cheapest Joy plan for each

If your store needs even one of these, that's the least you'll pay for Joy each month, before any overage fees.

Included on every Joy plan: native Shopify store credit for orders, the referral program (30 referrals a month on Starter, 100 on Essential, unlimited from Advanced), custom HTML in emails, and points adjustments on refunds.

Is Joy Loyalty worth the price?

For a small store, Starter is not bad, and Essential at $29 adds birthday points, points expiry, more languages and your own sender address for up to 500 orders.

The price jumps after that. VIP tiers, Shopify POS, loyalty in new customer accounts and emails from your own domain all sit on Advanced at $129, more than four times the price of Essential. That's where most growing programs end up, so it's the number to compare. And because every paid plan charges per order above its limit, a busy month costs more than the plan price.

A cheaper way to run the same program: Froonze

We make Froonze, a Shopify app with loyalty, reviews, wishlists and customer accounts. Froonze Loyalty has no overage fees and tops out at $60 a month. Here's how its prices compare with Joy's:

• VIP tiers and Shopify POS: $10 a month on Froonze (Loyalty Advanced), $129 on Joy. See our guide to POS loyalty apps.
• Emails from your own domain: free on Froonze, $129 on Joy (Advanced). Joy's $29 plan only lets you set a custom sender address.
• Birthday points, points on product pages and multiple languages: free on Froonze, $29 on Joy.
• Points expiry and the loyalty page: $10 on Froonze, $29 on Joy.
• Apple and Google Wallet cards: $60 on Froonze (Unlimited), with cards that staff scan at the POS. Joy's wallet pass is on Advanced at $129 and works with Google Wallet.
• Checkout redemption and API access: $60 on Froonze, $499 on Joy. Checkout redemption needs Shopify Plus on both.
• Busy months: no overage fees on any Froonze plan. Over the order limit, your customers keep earning and redeeming; only the admin locks until you upgrade or the cycle resets. Unlimited orders cost $60 a month.

Where Joy does better: its free plan covers 250 orders a month and includes referrals, while Froonze's free plan covers 100 and puts referrals on Advanced ($10). Both include native Shopify store credit rewards on the free plan. Joy also offers gift card rewards (Essential), which Froonze doesn't.

For a feature-by-feature breakdown, see our Froonze vs Joy Loyalty comparison. To see how Joy's prices sit next to other loyalty apps, read our Shopify loyalty app price comparison.

How we checked: we installed Joy on a test Shopify store on the free Starter plan and recorded every locked feature in the admin on November 11, 2026. Prices come from Joy's in-app pricing page, its website and its Shopify App Store listing on the same date.

Joy can change its prices, plans or features at any time, so check joy.so/pricing for current numbers. Joy is a trademark of its owner, and this article isn't endorsed by Joy. Spotted something out of date? Let us know and we'll fix it.