Which loyalty app is best for Shopify?

They all start free at 200 orders a month and $15 paid, so the answer lives higher up the ladder. Rivo unlocks VIP tiers at $49 a month, against $199 on both Smile and Growave. Growave bundles wishlist, reviews, and UGC into the same price. Smile has the largest installed base and the most polished ecosystem.

What does a loyalty program actually cost as you grow?

More than the entry tier suggests. All three gate by monthly orders, and the jumps are steep: a store crossing 1,000 orders a month on Smile moves from $79 to $199 to keep its features, plus overage fees during big sale months. Price the tier with the features you need at your peak volume.

Can I switch loyalty apps without losing customer points?

Points balances move via CSV between all three, and each documents importers. What doesn't move cleanly is VIP tier status, referral credits, and history. Plan a migration as points-plus-relaunch, not a lossless transfer.

Do I need Shopify Plus for checkout redemption?

On Smile and Growave, yes, and a high tier too: it takes both Shopify Plus and the $199 Growth plan on Smile or the $499 Plus plan on Growave. That's two gates, not one.

Smile vs Growave vs Rivo: Shopify Loyalty Apps Compared (2026)

Loyalty apps are where pricing-page reading pays off most. Smile, Growave, and Rivo all start free at 200 orders a month and all charge $15 for their first paid tier, which makes them look interchangeable for about five minutes. The differences live in where the features you actually want sit on each ladder. Facts checked June 11, 2026, against each vendor's listing, pricing page, and help docs; no referral relationship with any app on this page.

The short version

Smile (4.9 stars, 4,264 reviews) is the category's installed-base leader with the most polished ecosystem, POS support on every plan including free, and the smoothest path for stores that want points and referrals without much configuration. Its ladder is the steepest: VIP tiers and checkout redemption sit on the $199 Growth plan.
Growave (4.8 stars, 1,228 reviews) is the bundle: loyalty, wishlist, reviews, UGC, and referrals in one subscription. If you'd otherwise pay for a review app and a wishlist app separately, its $15 Entry and $199 Growth tiers are buying three apps' worth of surface.
Rivo (4.8 stars, 1,361 reviews) breaks the category's pricing convention in one place that matters: VIP tiers arrive on the $49 Scale plan, a quarter of what Smile and Growave charge for them. It's also Built for Shopify certified.

Where the features actually sit

	Smile	Growave	Rivo
Free plan	200 orders/mo	200 orders/mo	200 orders/mo
First paid tier	$15	$15	$15
VIP tiers	$199 (Growth)	$199 (Growth)	$49 (Scale)
Referrals	Free and up	$15 and up	$49 and up
Klaviyo	$15 and up	$15 and up	$49 basic; $499 advanced
Dedicated loyalty page	$15 and up	$199 and up	$15 and up
Checkout redemption	$199 + Shopify Plus	$499 + Shopify Plus	$499 (Plus tier)
API access	$999 (annual only)	$499	$499
Annual discount	Not advertised	20 percent	Not advertised

Two pricing mechanics deserve their own paragraph because they generate the angry reviews:

Order-tier jumps. All three gate by monthly orders, and the steps are big. Crossing 1,000 orders on Smile means $79 to $199 to keep what you had. Crossing 500 on Rivo's Scale starts pay-as-you-go scaling. Overages stack on top during sale spikes ($20 per 100 orders on Smile's Growth).
Integration slots as a lever. Smile sells one integration on Essential and two on Standard. Want Klaviyo and your review app connected at the same time? That's the $79 Standard plan minimum, a detail that's easy to miss until setup day.

The honest knocks, from their own critical reviews

Phrased as reported: Smile's recent low-star reviews cite feature gating that surprises ("nothing seems included" until the $199 tier), duplicate-reward bugs at tier boundaries, and refunds not reversing points. Growave's cite multi-currency redemption failures on international stores and breakage after theme updates. Rivo's are the fewest (30 low-star reviews out of 1,361) and cite data-sync delays for Shopify Plus stores and support response gaps against the 24/7 claim.

Worth knowing beyond the big three

BON Loyalty holds a 5.0 across 1,786 reviews with a free plan at 150 orders and a $29 tier at 500 orders, making it the budget dark horse of the category. LoyaltyLion (4.6, 511 reviews) starts free to 400 orders and its $199 Classic includes a designed loyalty page built for you. Yotpo Loyalty remains active and maintained (4.7, 942 reviews, $199 Pro) despite the company's email/SMS retirement, and Okendo's loyalty module comes bundled if you're already in its review suite, covered in our Okendo comparison.

Decision rules

Want VIP tiers without a $199 commitment: Rivo Scale at $49. That single ladder difference is the most actionable fact on this page.
Paying separately for reviews or wishlist apps already: Growave. Consolidating two subscriptions into its bundle usually pays for the upgrade tier by itself.
Want the safest default with the biggest ecosystem: Smile, with the ladder priced into the decision honestly: the program you probably want (VIP, checkout redemption) is a $199-a-month program, not a $15 one.
Tiny store testing whether loyalty moves your numbers: BON's free plan or any of the three free tiers; points and a referral link are enough to learn whether your customers care.
Migrating between them: export points as CSV, expect VIP status and referral history to need a relaunch, and time the move away from your peak season.

One layer loyalty pages never mention: returning customers increasingly arrive via AI assistants that read your store's structured data, not your widgets. The free AI readiness check shows what those assistants currently see.