Ask to Buy create & share cart vs. Presents & Gift Requests: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right Shopify app often feels like choosing between dozens of single-purpose tools that promise growth but add complexity. For merchants focused on improving gifting flows, cart sharing, and wishlist-driven conversions, two purpose-built apps stand out: Ask to Buy create & share cart (AskToBuy) and Presents & Gift Requests (CartBoosters). Each targets social sharing and gift-oriented purchase behavior, but they approach the problem differently.

Short answer: Ask to Buy create & share cart is a solid fit for merchants that need a simple, checkout-focused cart-sharing experience with basic tracking and a straightforward setup. Presents & Gift Requests is designed around product-level gift requests and social prompts, offering lower-priced entry plans but limited proof of long-term reliability. For merchants looking to consolidate retention, referral, wishlist, and review functionality into one platform that reduces tool sprawl, an integrated solution like Growave often offers better value for money and a stronger path to increasing customer lifetime value.

This article provides a feature-by-feature, objective comparison of Ask to Buy create & share cart and Presents & Gift Requests. The goal is to help merchants understand strengths, weaknesses, and which app aligns with common store goals—retention, average order value, conversion velocity, and repeat purchase rate—before considering an all-in-one alternative.

Ask to Buy create & share cart vs. Presents & Gift Requests: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Feature Set

Core experience

Ask to Buy create & share cart focuses on moving a partially completed cart to another payer with pre-filled shipping details. The inviting customer can create a cart or a registry and share a link or email so the recipient lands directly at checkout with shipping already populated. That setup is tailored for scenarios where the shopper lacks a payment method (e.g., teens) or sales reps want to prepare orders for customers.

Presents & Gift Requests centers on product-level requests: customers can press a "Buy for me" button on a product page, generate a request (popup/email), and share it with friends and family. The app emphasizes social sharing and subtle hinting for gifts, with popups, email customization, and capture functionality.

Key differences:

• Ask to Buy optimizes the checkout handoff and aims to minimize friction at purchase completion.
• Presents & Gift Requests drives earlier-stage social nudges from the product page and captures email addresses.

Both are targeted at gift-driven commerce, but one optimizes conversion at checkout and the other optimizes awareness and social sharing at the product level.

Customization and UX

Ask to Buy offers built-in buttons and the option to customize them, enabling a tailored look that fits the storefront. Its most notable UX advantage is the pre-filled checkout flow—invitees skip basket building and land in the checkout with a welcome banner or custom experience. That can shorten the purchase path significantly for the payer.

Presents & Gift Requests provides popup triggers and customizable email and popup content. The "Buy for me" button is designed to blend with product pages and encourage sharing. Its UX strength lies in flexible messaging and capturing recipient data, but it lacks the baked-in checkout pre-fill that Ask to Buy provides.

Considerations for merchants:

• For stores prioritizing a frictionless purchase handoff, Ask to Buy’s checkout pre-fill is a meaningful advantage.
• For stores prioritizing social virality and email capture tied to product discovery, Presents & Gift Requests offers options that align well.

Tracking and Analytics

Ask to Buy explicitly mentions tracking cart shares, conversions, and generated revenue. Tracking that maps a sent cart to a completed order is valuable for measuring true ROI of cart-sharing initiatives. The app also notifies inviters when purchases finalize, closing the feedback loop and enabling follow-up engagement.

Presents & Gift Requests lists email capture and popup customization as features, but there is limited explicit information about conversion-level analytics or revenue attribution. Merchants should expect more limited built-in analytics and may need to rely on external tracking to measure outcomes.

Practical takeaway:

• If attribution of shared carts to revenue is critical, Ask to Buy appears to provide more actionable native tracking.
• If the primary objective is growing email or social share volume, Presents & Gift Requests covers those basics but may require additional tools to connect to revenue.

Pricing & Value

Sticker price comparison

Ask to Buy starts at $15 / month for a Basic plan. No tiered plan details beyond that were provided in the app data.

Presents & Gift Requests begins at $4.90 / month for Standard and offers a Complete Package at $9.90 / month, each including popup triggers, customization, and email sending options (the Complete Package adds 1,000 included emails and DKIM).

At first glance, Presents & Gift Requests is less expensive, which may appeal to stores on tight budgets or testing gifting features. However, pricing alone is only half of the value equation.

Value for money

Value assessment requires looking at what each plan includes and the realistic impact on key metrics:

• Ask to Buy’s higher starting price reflects a focus on checkout integration and revenue attribution features (pre-fill, checkout landing, inviter notifications). For merchants who need to reduce friction at the final payment step and measure revenue from shared carts, that functionality can deliver a good return by shortening the buyer journey.
• Presents & Gift Requests’ lower cost provides a low-friction way to test gifting prompts, capture emails, and drive more product page shares. For early-stage stores, this might be attractive. However, a very small user base and a single 1-star review raise questions about support, reliability, and long-term maintenance. A low subscription cost that fails to drive conversions or breaks can be more costly in lost revenue and time.

Practical decision factors:

• Consider the expected lifetime value increase vs. subscription cost. If cart-sharing is expected to convert browsers into immediate buyers at checkout, Ask to Buy’s higher price may be better value for money.
• If the goal is running inexpensive experiments to see if gift nudges increase traffic and email collection, Presents & Gift Requests is low-risk financially.

Hidden costs and technical debt

Both apps are single-purpose solutions. That creates potential long-term costs:

• Each additional single-function app increases the cognitive load for store maintenance, adds potential points of failure, and can introduce theme conflicts.
• If a store needs loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist functionality in addition to gift and cart-sharing features, multiple subscriptions add up quickly and dilute margin gains.

This is a common reason merchants consider consolidated platforms.

Integrations & Compatibility

Shopify ecosystem fit

Both apps target Shopify and belong to the wishlist category, but their integration depth differs:

• Ask to Buy is checkout-focused: it pre-fills checkout and routes invitees directly to Shopify’s checkout flow. That implies compatibility with the shop’s checkout and possibly less friction with checkout apps, but also potential limitations for merchants on highly customized or third-party checkout flows.
• Presents & Gift Requests integrates primarily at the product page level and handles popups and email triggers. Its compatibility will depend on theme structure and popup handling, and it may require additional testing across product templates.

Neither app lists a broad set of third-party integrations in the provided data, so merchants relying on specific tools (email providers, CRM, or headless setups) should verify compatibility.

Payment and checkout considerations

Ask to Buy’s pre-fill flow means the payer still completes payment through the store’s checkout. For merchants using subscription or alternative checkout processors, testing is essential to confirm a seamless experience.

Presents & Gift Requests captures email and shares requests but doesn’t change payment flow directly; the payer must still discover and complete the purchase, unless the request includes a direct product link.

Recommendation:

• Merchants on Shopify Plus or stores with custom checkout workflows should test both apps in a staging environment to ensure the cart handoff or request link behaves consistently.

Onboarding, Setup, and Usability

Installation and initial setup

Ask to Buy emphasizes simple installation of a button and options to customize. The primary configuration steps are adding the AskToBuy button, setting messaging, and verifying email sending notifications.

Presents & Gift Requests advertises easy installation with popup customization and the addition of a "Buy for me" button on product pages. The Standard plan mentions the ability to use an external email server, which could require DKIM checks and some technical steps.

Practical notes:

• Expect both apps to require theme edits or app block placements. For merchants without in-house development resources, prioritize apps with documented step-by-step guides and responsive support.

Learning curve and merchant effort

Ask to Buy’s main operational concepts are straightforward: create/share cart, notify inviter, track conversions. That simplicity reduces the learning curve.

Presents & Gift Requests offers more granular customization of popups and email templates, which can increase the setup time but provide richer branding control.

Recommendation:

• For fast deployment with minimal adjustments, Ask to Buy may be quicker.
• For tailored messaging and brand-aligned popups, Presents & Gift Requests offers more control but requires more time.

Reliability, Reputation, and Support

App reviews and developer track record

App store data provides a quick signal about merchant experience:

• Ask to Buy: 7 reviews with an average rating of 4.4. A small review base but generally positive.
• Presents & Gift Requests: 1 review with a rating of 1.0. One review and a low score raises caution about reliability and support responsiveness.

Interpreting review counts:

• Low review counts make it hard to generalize; a few bad reviews can skew the average. But a single 1-star review suggests risk. Merchants should examine the review content, response history, and how long the app has been active.
• AskToBuy’s higher rating suggests a better baseline experience, but merchants should still check review recency and developer responsiveness.

Support offerings

Neither app’s data lists support SLAs or live channels. Merchants should verify:

• Support response times.
• Channels available (email, chat, phone).
• Whether the developer provides migration help or troubleshooting for theme conflicts.

Because these apps directly affect checkout or product UX, dependable support is critical.

Security & Data Privacy

Both apps handle customer emails, sharing links, and potentially pre-fill shipping addresses. Security considerations include:

• How customer data is stored and managed by the app.
• Whether email sending uses the merchant’s email server or the app’s server (Presents & Gift Requests offers both options in different plans).
• Compliance with privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA), which depends on the app’s data handling policies.

Merchants should request privacy documentation and confirm how the app stores or transmits PII before installation.

Use Cases and Ideal Merchant Profiles

When Ask to Buy create & share cart is the better fit

Ask to Buy suits stores that:

• Want to reduce friction when the shopper and payer are different people (e.g., minors, corporate buyers, sales reps).
• Need the invitee to land directly in checkout with shipping pre-filled.
• Require attribution of shared cart links to measure conversion and revenue.
• Prefer a straightforward, checkout-first solution rather than extensive product-page sharing.

Typical merchant examples (advice, not fictional narratives):

• Stores selling items often purchased as gifts but where the shopper cannot pay directly.
• B2B/sales-driven setups where reps prepare carts for clients.
• Brands that want to support group gifting or registry-style flows with a single, simple tool.

When Presents & Gift Requests is the better fit

Presents & Gift Requests is likely suitable for merchants who:

• Want to encourage product-level hinting and social sharing (e.g., "drop a hint" UX).
• Are testing whether gift request CTAs increase email list growth or social traffic.
• Need popup customization to match branding and want to capture emails on request sends.
• Are operating on a tight budget for experimentation.

Typical merchant examples:

• Emerging lifestyle brands testing seasonal gift-focused campaigns.
• Stores wanting to add a light-touch social gifting layer without committing to checkout-level changes.

Limitations and Risks

App fatigue and tool sprawl

Adding purpose-built apps for every little conversion trick increases maintenance burden. Each new app can:

• Slow site performance.
• Introduce theme or script conflicts.
• Create subscription stacking that erodes margins.

Both Ask to Buy and Presents & Gift Requests are single-purpose. If a merchant will need loyalty, referral, reviews, wishlist, or VIP tiers later, they should weigh cumulative costs and overhead.

Reliability and support risk

Presents & Gift Requests’ single 1-star review is a red flag. That could indicate:

• Poor support experience.
• Unresolved bugs.
• Breakage after updates.

AskToBuy’s small but more positive review base is reassuring, but low overall review volume still leaves some uncertainty.

Implementation Tips and Best Practices

• Test in a staging theme before pushing live. Verify the checkout handoff or request link across devices and browsers.
• Monitor conversion attribution closely. Use UTM parameters and confirm that shared-cart revenue is tracked in analytics.
• Keep messaging clear: explain to the payer that shipping is pre-filled and what they need to do to complete the purchase.
• For popup-based gift requests, limit frequency to avoid annoying returning visitors; use cookie-based suppression rules.
• Combine gift-request features with email flows that nurture the inviter and recipient—encouraging repeat purchases or cross-sells.

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

Merchants that adopt multiple single-purpose apps often encounter "app fatigue"—the cumulative drag of managing many subscriptions, reconciling data across separate systems, and dealing with conflicting scripts or integrations. The consequences of app fatigue include slower page speeds, fragmented analytics, higher operating costs, and increased time spent on maintenance instead of strategic growth.

An all-in-one retention platform can minimize these downsides by consolidating complementary features—loyalty, referrals, reviews, wishlist, and gifting mechanics—under a single system. This reduces the number of vendors, centralizes customer data, and creates unified retention programs that are easier to measure and optimize.

Growave’s philosophy, described as "More Growth, Less Stack," aims to deliver exactly this consolidation. Instead of assembling multiple purpose-built apps for loyalty, gift requests, and wishlists, merchants can use a single suite to manage customer retention channels in a coordinated way.

How consolidation improves outcomes

• Unified customer profiles: reward points, wishlist items, referral activity, and review submissions live in one system, enabling campaigns that cross channels without data silos.
• Reduced technical overhead: fewer app scripts and fewer theme edits mean faster performance and fewer conflicts during theme updates.
• Centralized analytics: measure the combined impact of loyalty, wishlists, and review-driven social proof on repeat order rate and average order value more reliably.
• Better value for money: a single subscription often replaces several smaller subscriptions, producing higher ROI when features are actively used.

Merchants can review pricing tiers to match volume and feature needs and decide whether moving from single apps to an integrated solution fits the store’s roadmap.

Growave features that address gifting and cart sharing needs

• Loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases: Growave’s rewards engine supports custom actions and can reward wishlist activity or successful shared-cart conversions, encouraging both gifting behavior and repeat purchases. Merchants can build programs tied to behaviors that single-purpose apps don’t connect automatically. Learn more about building loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.
• Collect and showcase authentic reviews: Reviews and user-generated content amplify trust around gifting items and can be used in email flows triggered by gift requests. Growave helps merchants collect and manage social proof that complements gifting features. See how to collect and showcase authentic reviews.
• Wishlist and gift behaviors: An integrated wishlist supports "share my wishlist" and gift registry flows without a separate app. This reduces friction for shoppers who want to indicate preferred items and for friends who want to purchase directly.
• Referral and VIP tiers: Rewarding both the inviter and the buyer can encourage repeat purchase behavior and increase lifetime value. Growave links referral rewards to other retention mechanics so earned points and incentives can drive meaningful outcomes.

Practical integration examples

• Reward points for sharing a wishlist: Instead of relying on one app to capture an email and another to issue rewards, Growave can award points when a wishlist is shared and then automatically provide an incentive that leads to conversion.
• Seamless review-reminder sequences: When a gift purchase completes, Growave can trigger tailored review request emails or UGC collection flows to capture unboxing moments and social proof.
• Coordinated campaigns during peak gifting seasons: Use a single dashboard to run loyalty bonuses, wishlist promotions, and targeted referral pushes timed to holidays, reducing campaign complexity.

Merchants interested in testing how a unified retention platform streamlines operations can install Growave from the Shopify App Store and compare the outcomes to a patchwork of single-purpose apps.

Cost and tier considerations

Growave offers multiple plans designed to scale with order volume and complexity. For merchants comparing the per-app subscription costs of single-purpose tools, consolidated plans can deliver better value for money once additional retention features are activated.

Merchants can review tiers to see which package aligns with monthly orders and desired features:

• Entry Plan for smaller stores with essential retention tools and basic integrations.
• Growth Plan for businesses that need advanced customization and enhanced integrations.
• Plus Plan for enterprise needs with headless support, checkout extensions, and dedicated success resources.

Compare subscription tiers and features to determine whether consolidation reduces overall subscription spend and increases operational efficiency by allowing the team to focus on growth rather than maintenance. Merchants ready to evaluate integration depth can compare subscription tiers and features.

Support and enterprise readiness

An advantage of a larger retention platform is more robust support and enterprise-focused services:

• Dedicated launch plans and customer success for higher-tier shoppers.
• Priority support and 24/7 channels at the top tier for mission-critical stores.
• Integrations with common martech like Klaviyo and Recharge so loyalty and review signals can be used in email and subscription flows.

For stores on Shopify Plus or those planning headless implementations, Growave provides solutions for high-growth environments and supports complex flows. See how this aligns with solutions for high-growth Plus brands.

Try before committing

Merchants evaluating consolidation can book a hands-on walkthrough to see how a unified platform addresses gifting, wishlists, and retention strategies in one place. Book a personalized demo to explore use cases, integration scenarios, and expected impact on retention.

(Embedded hard CTA: Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated retention stack improves retention.)

Implementation Checklist: Migrating From Single Apps to an Integrated Stack

• Audit current single-purpose apps and list the exact features used (e.g., checkout pre-fill, popup triggers, email templates).
• Map features to the integrated platform: Determine which items are native and which may need customization.
• Back up theme and data: Export theme files and any app data to ensure recovery options.
• Plan a phased migration: Start by replacing non-critical features (popups, wishlists), then move to checkout-affecting capabilities.
• Test end-to-end flows: Shared carts, gift requests, wishlist sharing, and reward redemption across devices.
• Monitor KPIs: Compare conversion rate, average order value, repeat purchase rate, and average time to purchase before and after migration.
• Adjust and optimize: Use unified analytics to iterate on reward rules and campaign timing.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Ask to Buy create & share cart and Presents & Gift Requests, the decision comes down to specific needs. Ask to Buy is better suited for stores that need a reliable, checkout-focused cart-sharing flow with pre-filled shipping and conversion tracking. Presents & Gift Requests fits merchants who want a low-cost way to add product-level gift requests, popups, and email capture, but the limited review history and low rating warrant caution.

Both apps are single-purpose. For brands aiming to reduce tool sprawl and build sustainable retention—combining wishlist behavior, loyalty, referrals, and reviews—an integrated platform reduces maintenance overhead and often delivers better value for money. Growave’s "More Growth, Less Stack" approach consolidates these retention channels so merchants can focus on strategic growth rather than juggling multiple subscriptions and integrations.

Merchants interested in exploring how a unified retention stack reduces operational friction and drives repeat purchases can compare subscription tiers and features or install Growave from the Shopify App Store.

Start a 14-day free trial to see how consolidating gifting, wishlist, reviews, and loyalty under one roof improves retention and simplifies operations. Start a 14-day free trial

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do Ask to Buy and Presents & Gift Requests differ in terms of driving conversion?

• Ask to Buy drives conversion by streamlining the checkout handoff—invitees land directly in checkout with pre-filled shipping, which shortens the purchase path. Presents & Gift Requests drives earlier-stage interest and social sharing, which can increase traffic and email capture but may require additional steps to convert.

Q: Which app offers better tracking of revenue generated from shared gifts?

• Ask to Buy explicitly lists tracking of cart shares, conversions, and generated revenue, making it easier to attribute shared-cart revenue. Presents & Gift Requests focuses on capture and sharing, and merchants may need supplementary tracking to connect requests to completed purchases.

Q: How does an all-in-one platform compare to specialized apps?

• An all-in-one platform consolidates loyalty, wishlist, referrals, and reviews, reducing maintenance overhead, centralizing customer data, and enabling coordinated campaigns. This often leads to better long-term ROI and fewer integration headaches compared to managing multiple single-purpose apps.

Q: If a merchant wants both gifting and loyalty features, should they use both specialized apps or an integrated solution?

• If gifting and loyalty are strategic growth levers, an integrated solution reduces technical debt and provides better value for money. Integrated platforms allow rewarding sharing and wishlist behavior directly within a loyalty program, creating a seamless experience that multiple standalone apps struggle to match.

Additional resources:

• Learn how to build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.
• See how to collect and showcase authentic reviews.
• Browse customer stories and inspiration from merchants who consolidated retention tools to scale faster: customer stories from brands scaling retention.