Ask to Buy create & share cart vs. My Wishlist: Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right retention and conversion tools is one of the hardest decisions a Shopify merchant faces. With thousands of single-purpose apps available, every added integration increases maintenance, cost, and the risk of conflicting behaviors on the storefront. This comparison focuses on two small but relevant wishlist/share-cart solutions: Ask to Buy create & share cart and My Wishlist.

Short answer: Ask to Buy create & share cart is a focused tool for merchants who want to let shoppers create sharable carts and send pre-filled checkouts (useful for gift registries, sales reps, and parent-to-teen purchases). My Wishlist is a lightweight, low-cost wishlist that covers basic save-and-share needs at a lower entry price. For merchants who need more than one specialty widget—particularly those focused on retention and repeat purchases—an integrated retention suite like Growave can provide better value for money and reduce tool sprawl.

Purpose of this article: provide a feature-by-feature, practical comparison so merchants can make an informed choice between Ask to Buy create & share cart and My Wishlist, and then evaluate the trade-offs of continuing to add single-purpose apps versus adopting an integrated retention platform.

Ask to Buy create & share cart vs. My Wishlist: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

This section walks through key merchant concerns—features, pricing, integrations, UX, analytics, security, support, and scalability—so decisions are grounded in outcomes: reduce churn, increase LTV, and drive sustainable growth.

Features

Core functionality and user flows

Ask to Buy create & share cart centers on enabling a shopper (or a sales rep) to assemble a cart that can be shared via email or link. Invitees receive a link that lands directly on a pre-filled checkout page; shipping details and cart contents are already included so invitees only complete payment. The app lists features such as group share, built-in AskToBuy buttons (or the ability to customize buttons), and conversion tracking for shared carts.

My Wishlist centers on product-level intent capture. Shoppers save items to a wishlist, can share the wishlist by email, and merchants can send reminder emails. The app advertises unlimited saved items, reports on wishlists and revenue, and unlimited reminder emails in its $3.99 plan.

Key functional differences:

• Ask to Buy: Moves shoppers straight into checkout (high-intent, low-friction path), supports group sharing and sales-rep workflows, and tracks revenue generated from shared carts.
• My Wishlist: Focuses on intent capture and follow-up (reminders, reports), but users must still go to product pages and add items to cart to purchase.

Implications for outcomes:

• For scenarios where someone needs to pay on behalf of another (parents, corporate buyers, sales reps), Ask to Buy reduces friction and can improve conversion rates for shared purchases.
• For long-term demand capture (wishlists saved for later purchases or gifts), My Wishlist is sufficient and cost-effective.

Customization and storefront integration

Ask to Buy emphasizes customizable share buttons and a tailored welcome experience at checkout. Customization matters when the shared-cart flow needs to reflect brand voice or support sales reps with tailored messages. However, the level of customization available from the app is not exhaustively documented in the app listing; merchants should expect UI-level options rather than deep checkout template rewrites.

My Wishlist provides the essential wishlist widget and email sharing. Customization is likely limited to appearance and basic email templates. For shops that require heavily branded wishlist pages or advanced front-end interactions, custom development or more advanced wishlist solutions may be necessary.

Promotions, bundling, and loyalty interplay

Neither Ask to Buy nor My Wishlist advertises built-in loyalty, referral, or review features. They focus narrowly on one retention-related behavior: shareable carts and wishlists. That means merchants who want to run rewards for wishlist-saves, referrals tied to shared carts, or VIP benefits will need additional apps or manual integrations.

Pricing & Value

Sticker price versus total cost of ownership

• Ask to Buy: Basic plan listed at $15/month. With 7 reviews and a 4.4 rating, this app sits in a mid-range price bracket for a single-purpose tool. The value proposition is the specialized pre-filled checkout flow and conversion tracking for shared carts.
• My Wishlist: Standard plan listed at $3.99/month. The app pitches unlimited saved items and unlimited reminder emails at a very low monthly cost.

When evaluating value, merchants should look beyond monthly fees:

• Implementation time and developer hours for styling and checkout integration.
• Ongoing maintenance, feature gaps that lead to additional apps (e.g., loyalty or referral).
• Overlapping functionality with other apps that may already exist on the store.

For example, a merchant using Ask to Buy for shareable carts may still need a wishlist solution, a loyalty program, and review collection app—each adding its own monthly fee. That stack can quickly exceed the cost of an integrated suite that bundles multiple retention features.

Which offers better value for money?

• For stores that only need a shareable cart feature, Ask to Buy can be better value for money than building a custom flow—provided the $15 fee fits within the ROI from increased conversions on shared carts.
• For stores that only need a simple wishlist at minimal cost, My Wishlist is hard to beat on monthly fee alone.
• For stores that expect to add multiple retention tools (loyalty, referrals, reviews, VIP tiers, wishlist), an integrated solution often delivers better value for money than the cumulative cost and complexity of several single-purpose apps.

Integrations & Ecosystem Compatibility

Both Ask to Buy and My Wishlist are categorized under wishlist-type tools, but neither lists an extensive set of integrations on the listing data provided here. Lack of broad integrative support can create silos.

Key integration considerations:

• Email marketing: If wishlists or shared-cart events should trigger automated flows in Klaviyo or Omnisend, merchants must verify if each app sends events or exposes webhooks that can be ingested by the email platform.
• Customer service and helpdesk: For sales reps handling shared carts, integration with support tools (e.g., Gorgias) is useful to provide context on the customer's shared-cart lifecycle.
• Checkout and subscriptions: Ask to Buy touches checkout directly. For stores using subscription platforms like Recharge, compatibility needs confirmation.
• Analytics and reporting: Exporting or syncing share/conversion events into Google Analytics or a BI tool can be critical to measure long-term ROI.

If integration is a priority, merchants should ask both app developers for:

• A list of available webhooks and event names.
• Official integrations with common tools.
• Documentation for developers.

Implementation, UX, and Developer Requirements

Setup complexity

Ask to Buy:

• Likely requires placement of AskToBuy buttons and configuration of the share flow.
• Because it pre-fills checkout details, setup may require provisioning fields and verifying checkout compatibility.
• Potential edge cases: stores with custom checkout scripts, Shopify Plus customizations, or third-party checkout apps may need developer support.

My Wishlist:

• Typically a low-friction install: embed a wishlist widget, configure reminder emails, and set email templates.
• Minimal developer time is usually sufficient.

Front-end experience and conversion impact

Ask to Buy offers a conversion-oriented experience: a shared cart that lands directly on checkout. That can significantly shorten the path to purchase for delegated transactions. However, the app must ensure that data integrity (addresses, SKUs, shipping calculations) is accurate when moving straight to checkout.

My Wishlist preserves the standard product discovery and cart flows, which may lengthen time-to-purchase but offers a non-intrusive way to capture intent.

UX considerations:

• For mobile-heavy stores, the share-to-checkout flow should be tested end-to-end to avoid friction (e.g., deep links that behave differently on mobile browsers and apps).
• Email sharing design and deliverability is essential. Both apps rely on email as a sharing channel. Merchants should test templates and track open rates and conversions.

Analytics, Reporting & Measurement

Neither app claims an extensive analytics suite in the supplied descriptions, though Ask to Buy mentions tracking cart shares, conversions, and generated revenue. My Wishlist advertises wishlist and revenue reports on its $3.99 plan.

What merchants should evaluate:

• Granularity of reporting: Can the app show who shared what, conversion by share, and attribution windows?
• Export options: Are CSV exports or direct integrations with analytics platforms available?
• Event tracking: Does the app push events that can be used to trigger automations or be recorded in a data warehouse?

Ask to Buy appears to be stronger in conversion attribution because it tracks revenue from shared carts. My Wishlist's reports seem focused on wishlist items and reminders, which helps understand intent but may not directly attribute revenue unless configured.

Data Ownership, Privacy & Security

Any app that handles checkout and customer details must be evaluated for data handling policies.

Points to verify with the developers:

• Where customer data is stored and for how long.
• Whether the app accesses payment details (it should not store payment details; it should only pre-fill non-sensitive checkout fields).
• Compliance with privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA) and support for customer data deletion requests.
• Security documentation and any merchant responsibilities (e.g., not exposing private cart links).

Because Ask to Buy pre-fills checkout fields, merchants should make sure the app does not introduce sensitive data exposure risks, and that shared cart links include appropriate access controls.

Performance & Scalability

Scale concerns vary by store size and traffic patterns.

Ask to Buy:

• For stores that rely on sales-rep workflows or high-volume gift registries, the app must handle many simultaneous share links and pre-fill operations.
• Confirm rate limits and support for Shopify Plus-level traffic spikes.

My Wishlist:

• As a low-complexity wishlist, it typically scales well and will rarely be a bottleneck.

If merchants are planning high-volume promotional campaigns that encourage sharing, it's important to validate that the app can handle spikes without slowing page loads or checkout.

Support & Maintenance

Support quality is often a better predictor of merchant experience than raw feature lists.

• Ask to Buy: With 7 reviews and a 4.4 rating, there is limited public feedback but overall positive sentiment. Ask about support SLAs, expected response times, and availability for custom requests.
• My Wishlist: Only 1 review exists with a 5.0 rating — too small a sample to draw broad conclusions. Confirm support hours, response times, and the developer's roadmap for product updates.

Merchants should also check:

• Whether the app provides onboarding assistance for checkout-related flows.
• Availability of documentation and developer guides.
• Channels for escalation (email, in-app, phone).

Use Cases and Recommendation by Merchant Type

Below are outcome-focused recommendations to help merchants map app choice to business needs.

• Brands that rely on delegated payments (parents buying for teens, corporate buyers, or sales reps closing orders): Ask to Buy is purpose-built to reduce friction by pre-filling checkout and sending invitees straight to payment. Its conversion-tracking features make it easier to measure ROI from shared carts.
• Small stores with limited budgets that simply want visitors to save products and get reminder emails: My Wishlist delivers wishlist basics at a low monthly price and likely requires minimal setup.
• Merchants wanting to capture intent and also reward customers for referring or sharing: Neither app provides loyalty or referral features, so expect to add more apps unless choosing an integrated platform.
• High-growth stores with plans for loyalty, reviews, referral campaigns, VIP tiers, and wishlist functionality: Investing in separate single-purpose apps will add monthly costs and maintenance complexity. An integrated retention suite may be a better strategic fit.

Pros & Cons Summary

Ask to Buy create & share cart

• Pros:
  • Designed to pre-fill checkout and move invitees directly to payment, reducing friction for delegated purchases.
  • Supports group share and sales-rep workflows.
  • Tracks cart shares, conversions, and generated revenue.
• Cons:
  • Narrow functionality (no loyalty, referrals, or reviews).
  • Limited public review volume (7 reviews), which reduces visibility into edge-case issues.
  • Possible implementation complexity for checkout compatibility.

My Wishlist

• Pros:
  • Very affordable monthly price ($3.99 plan).
  • Unlimited wishlist items and reminder emails.
  • Simple, low-friction setup.
• Cons:
  • Extremely limited public feedback (1 review).
  • Lacks broader retention features such as loyalty or referrals.
  • Less immediate conversion impact compared to a share-to-checkout flow.

The Alternative: Solving App Fatigue with an All-in-One Platform

What is app fatigue?

App fatigue is the cumulative friction merchants feel when they maintain multiple single-purpose tools across their store. Symptoms include:

• Rising monthly bills as each tool charges its own fee.
• Conflicting scripts and speed degradation on the storefront.
• Fragmented user data across different services, making cross-channel campaigns harder.
• Operational overhead for updates, support, and cross-app workflows.

Adding a wishlist app, a separate loyalty program, a reviews tool, and a referral engine can quickly create a stack that is expensive and fragile. For merchants focused on retention and long-term customer value, the question becomes: how to maximize outcomes while minimizing the number of moving parts?

Growave’s “More Growth, Less Stack” approach

Growave is designed around reducing tool sprawl by bundling multiple retention features into a single, integrated platform. It combines loyalty, referrals, reviews/UGC, wishlist, and VIP tiers so merchants can orchestrate cohesive campaigns without stitching together multiple vendors.

Key ideas behind the approach:

• Consolidate retention features into one platform to reduce monthly costs and integration work.
• Use unified customer identities to power personalized rewards and automated flows.
• Replace multiple point tools with configurable modules that work together (for example, allowing wishlist saves to trigger reward points or email reminders to be enriched with social proof from reviews).

Merchants evaluating consolidation should ask: does the integrated platform cover the core behaviors that drive repeat purchases and increase lifetime value?

How Growave maps to merchant needs

• Loyalty and retention: Growave offers flexible loyalty and rewards programs that can incentivize repeat purchases and increase customer lifetime value. Merchants can design points programs, custom reward actions, and VIP tiers that align with their growth strategies. For merchants looking to build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases, Growave provides advanced customization and integrations with major platforms.
• Wishlist capability: Instead of maintaining a standalone wishlist app, Growave includes wishlist functionality as part of the suite. That wishlist can integrate directly with loyalty and referral logic—so wishlist saves can be tied to rewards or reminder flows without cross-app scripting.
• Reviews and social proof: Growave contains a reviews module to collect and showcase authentic reviews, reducing the need for a separate reviews app. Reviews can feed into product pages, email templates, and social proof widgets.
• Referrals and UGC: Growave has built-in referral mechanics and user-generated content features, so merchants gain referral volume and social proof without bolting on extra tools.

Integrations and enterprise readiness

Growave supports many integrations and platforms commonly used by Shopify merchants, making it easier to centralize data and orchestration:

• For merchants running enterprise stores, Growave supports solutions for high-growth Plus brands and includes API and checkout extensions on higher-tier plans.
• Growave integrates with key marketing and support tools used by merchants, reducing the need to wire up events manually.

Merchants that want to evaluate the platform in a real context can review customer stories from brands scaling retention to see how the suite performs in practice.

Financial comparison and pricing transparency

Rather than paying several small fees for separate wishlist, loyalty, review, and referral apps, merchants can consider Growave’s bundled plans to reduce the total long-term cost of ownership. Growave offers multiple plans to fit merchants at different growth stages.

For quick access to plan details and to compare what’s included at each tier, merchants can compare plans and pricing. Consolidation makes it simpler to forecast costs and measure ROI across multiple retention channels.

Advantages of integrated data and workflows

When wishlist saves, reward behavior, referrals, and reviews are all in one system, merchants gain:

• Unified customer profiles that power personalized incentives.
• Consistent attribution across loyalty actions and purchases.
• Easier experimentation with cross-feature campaigns (e.g., give points for a review, or unlock VIP tiers for referral milestones).
• Less risk of scripts conflicting and slowing pages.

If the objective is to drive repeat purchases and increase LTV while keeping the storefront lean, consolidating on an integrated retention platform reduces technical debt and supports more predictable scale.

How to evaluate whether to consolidate

Merchants deciding whether to switch from single-purpose apps to an integrated suite should consider:

• Current monthly spend on retention and conversion apps versus the cost of a single integrated plan.
• The number of siloed customer behaviors and whether those behaviors would benefit from unified identity and automation.
• The volume and complexity of integrations required with email, subscriptions, and helpdesk tools.
• The support and onboarding needs when migrating features and data into a single platform.

For those ready to explore consolidation, a good next step is to install the full retention suite or compare plans and pricing to see which plan fits the store’s growth stage.

Practical examples of consolidation benefits (no fictional characters)

• A store uses wishlist saves to trigger an email that offers a small points reward if the shopper purchases within two weeks. That flow is easier when wishlist and loyalty live in the same system.
• A merchant wants to encourage reviews by offering loyalty points for verified purchases, then surface those reviews in wishlist reminder emails for social proof. An integrated platform can orchestrate the entire lifecycle without multiple vendor integrations.
• Sales reps using shared carts can also assign reward points for purchases made via those carts, tracking attribution in one dashboard. Combining share-to-checkout workflows with loyalty and referral tracking improves measurement and reduces reconciliation effort.

Growave links and resources

Merchants exploring the value of consolidation can:

• Learn how to consolidate retention features and compare plan inclusions.
• Investigate how loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases can tie into wishlist and referral behavior.
• See how to collect and showcase authentic reviews as part of the same retention suite.
• Review customer stories from brands scaling retention to understand real-world outcomes.
• Install the solution directly from the Shopify App Store to test it in the store environment: install the full retention suite.

Migration and Operational Considerations

When to keep a single-purpose app

There are valid reasons to keep Ask to Buy or My Wishlist:

• Immediate short-term need: If a store needs a quick wishlist or share-cart capability with minimal configuration, the single-purpose app may be the fastest path.
• Budget constraints: For stores with very limited budgets, a $3.99 wishlist may be the only affordable starting point.
• Technical constraints: If custom checkout customizations or headless architectures complicate migration, maintaining a focused app until a migration window is available can be pragmatic.

When to consolidate into an integrated suite

• Multiple retention needs: If a store plans to run loyalty programs, referrals, reviews, and wishlists, a single platform is typically easier to manage.
• Desire for cohesive customer journeys: When wishlist saves, review submissions, and referral conversions are part of a single lifecycle, integration reduces friction.
• Longer-term cost control: Even if the upfront monthly fee of an integrated platform is higher, the combined value of multiple modules can make it better value for money than paying separately.

Migration steps and checklist

If a merchant chooses to migrate from single-purpose apps to an integrated platform, a practical checklist includes:

• Audit current feature usage and monthly costs.
• Export wishlist and customer data from existing apps.
• Map out email automation triggers and events that must be replicated.
• Test the integrated solution in a staging environment.
• Schedule cutover during off-peak hours and have rollback plans.
• Monitor X days post-migration for dropped conversions, email deliverability, and script performance.

Growave offers onboarding and higher-tier support for larger merchants, which can help accelerate migration planning. To explore direct assistance, merchants can compare plans and pricing or install the full retention suite.

Final Comparison: Which App Is Best For Which Merchant?

• Ask to Buy create & share cart is best for:
  • Merchants who need to enable delegated purchases (teens to parents, corporate buyers, sales rep workflows).
  • Stores that want to reduce the friction between sharing a shopping selection and completing payment.
  • Teams that value conversion attribution for shared carts and generating revenue from group buys and registries.
• My Wishlist is best for:
  • Small stores and hobby brands needing a low-cost wishlist with unlimited saves.
  • Merchants who primarily want basic intent capture and email reminders without broader retention features.
  • Stores on tight budgets that do not yet require loyalty or referral mechanics.
• Merchants who should consider an integrated retention platform:
  • Merchants planning to use wishlists, loyalty programs, referral campaigns, and reviews together.
  • Stores that want to consolidate billing, reduce scripts on the storefront, and use unified customer data to increase LTV.
  • Brands scaling rapidly and needing enterprise-level support, integrations, and headless/Plus capabilities.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Ask to Buy create & share cart and My Wishlist, the decision comes down to scope and outcomes. Ask to Buy is a specialized solution that reduces checkout friction for shared purchases and supports sales-rep or gift registry flows. My Wishlist is a budget-friendly wishlist tool that captures intent and automates reminders. Both are useful in the right context, but neither replaces a broader retention strategy that includes loyalty, referrals, and reviews.

Shops that want to avoid app fatigue and build cohesive retention programs should evaluate integrated suites that bundle these capabilities. Growave presents a unified approach that brings wishlist, loyalty, referral, and reviews into one platform—helping merchants reduce the number of apps while improving customer lifetime value. Merchants can compare plans and pricing to see which plan fits their growth stage, explore how to consolidate retention features, and review how to collect and showcase authentic reviews as part of the same system. To test the integrated flow in a store environment, merchants can install the full retention suite.

Start a 14-day free trial to see how a unified retention stack accelerates growth: compare plans and pricing.

FAQ

• How does Ask to Buy create & share cart differ from a standard wishlist?
  • Ask to Buy focuses on creating complete carts that can be shared and landed directly on a pre-filled checkout, optimizing delegated payments and group purchases. A standard wishlist captures product-level intent and typically requires the shopper to return to the product page and add items to cart manually.
• Which app will improve conversion rates faster: Ask to Buy or My Wishlist?
  • Ask to Buy has a direct path to checkout for invitees, which can lead to faster conversions in delegated-payment scenarios. My Wishlist improves conversion over time via reminders and intent capture but does not shorten the path to purchase in the same way.
• If a merchant needs wishlist, loyalty, and reviews, is it better to pick multiple single-purpose apps or an integrated platform?
  • For most merchants building multiple retention channels, an integrated platform reduces operational overhead, consolidates data, and often delivers better value for money. Evaluating bundled plans and integration capabilities can clarify the economic trade-offs.
• How does an all-in-one platform compare to specialized apps?
  • An all-in-one platform centralizes features—loyalty, wishlist, referrals, reviews—under a single vendor, which simplifies data unification and cross-feature automation. Specialized apps may be lighter and cheaper for single needs, but the total cost and complexity grow with each additional app. To evaluate consolidation, merchants can compare plans and pricing and review real-world examples from customer stories.