Ask to Buy vs. Likely ‑ Like Me Button: In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right app among thousands on the Shopify App Store is a recurring challenge for merchants. Small, single-purpose tools can solve an immediate need, but they also introduce maintenance overhead, integration gaps, and rising monthly costs. This article compares two narrowly focused apps—Ask to Buy create & share cart and Likely ‑ Like Me Button—so merchants can match tool choice to business goals and conversion priorities.

Short answer: Ask to Buy create & share cart is a targeted solution for stores that need cart-sharing, partial-payment workflows, or sales-rep assisted checkout. Likely ‑ Like Me Button is a lightweight social-proof tool that surfaces popular products with “likes.” For merchants who want more than a single function—loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist—an integrated retention platform such as Growave typically delivers better value for money and reduces tool sprawl.

The purpose of this post is to provide an in-depth, feature-by-feature comparison of Ask to Buy create & share cart and Likely ‑ Like Me Button—covering features, pricing, integrations, usability, and support—so merchants can make an informed decision. After the objective comparison, the article explains why consolidating multiple single-purpose apps into one retention suite can be a stronger long-term strategy.

Ask to Buy create & share cart vs. Likely ‑ Like Me Button: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

This section examines both apps across core criteria merchants use to evaluate tools: features, setup and UX, pricing and value, integrations and extensibility, analytics and reporting, support and reliability, and security/data considerations.

Features

Ask to Buy create & share cart — Feature Overview

Ask to Buy focuses on enabling shoppers or staff to create and share carts that land recipients directly on the checkout page with pre-filled details. The main features include:

• Add an AskToBuy button to product or collection pages to create a shareable cart via email or link.
• Flow for teens or users without a payment method to pre-fill shipping details so invitees (e.g., parents) can complete payment.
• Gift registry capability where shoppers share a list with friends.
• Sales-rep flows for sales teams to create dedicated carts for customers.
• Invitees land directly in checkout with a custom welcome experience.
• Notifications to inviters when a shared cart results in a finalized purchase.
• Tracking of cart shares, conversions, and revenue attributed to shares.
• Group share support.

These capabilities are deliberately narrow and focused on scenarios where purchase completion needs assistance from another party or sales staff.

Strengths of this approach:

• Directly addresses friction points in assisted or delegated purchasing.
• Converts pre-fill + direct checkout experience into a higher-conversion flow for recipients.
• Revenue tracking allows basic attribution of share-driven sales.

Limitations:

• Functionality is single-purpose; it does not provide loyalty, reviews, or referral mechanics.
• The feature set is tailored; stores without assisted-purchase scenarios gain limited benefit.
• Limited public data on advanced customization, multi-currency behavior, or storefront performance impact.

Likely ‑ Like Me Button — Feature Overview

Likely aims to increase engagement and provide social proof using a like button on product pages. Core features include:

• Show a like button on product pages and featured products.
• Collect likes and surface the most-liked products across the store.
• Customizable icons and color schemes to match brand identity.
• Export reports of liked products with names and counts.
• Real-time reports and simple analytics about likes.

Strengths of this approach:

• Very low friction for customers—click a heart or thumb to express interest.
• Low-cost entry point for stores experimenting with social proof.
• Can surface trends and highlight popular items on landing pages.

Limitations:

• “Likes” are weaker social signals than verified purchases or reviews; they can inflate perceived popularity without direct purchase intent.
• The app does not provide reward mechanics to convert likes into purchases (e.g., email capture or retargeting automatic workflows).
• Feature scope is small: no native wishlist-to-account sync, no incentives, and limited integration with CRM/email tools shown in the public description.

Setup, UX, and Customization

Ask to Buy create & share cart

User experience goals for Ask to Buy:

• Add a visible button that creates and shares carts.
• Pre-fill shipping fields so invitees only need to complete payment.
• Offer sales reps a way to assemble a cart and send it to the customer.

Expected merchant experience:

• Installation likely requires adding the AskToBuy button to product and/or cart templates; the app claims built-in buttons and customization options.
• Merchants should be able to customize the share message and the checkout welcome experience.
• No multi-plan complexity—one basic plan at $15/month is offered, simplifying the budgeting decision.

Practical considerations:

• Stores with custom themes or checkout experiences should validate compatibility (especially if checkout is heavily customized or headless).
• Pre-fill behavior must be tested across devices and locales; some checkout data might be restricted by platform policies.
• The app’s small review base (7 reviews) suggests fewer public reports of edge-case UX issues; merchants should test thoroughly.

Likely ‑ Like Me Button

User experience goals for Likely:

• Quick installation and visible like button immediately on product pages.
• Branding alignment through customizable icons and colors.
• Export capability for like data.

Expected merchant experience:

• Fast, low-friction install with minimal theme edits.
• Customizable visuals enable consistent styling with the store.
• Two entry plans offer a tiered approach to support and features: Starter ($1.99) and Basic ($2.99), where the Basic plan includes “Most Liked Products” reporting and priority support.

Practical considerations:

• Because the app collects likes, merchants should plan how to act on that data (e.g., promotion, merchandising, or segmentation).
• Likely does not appear to offer wishlist-to-account functionality, so likes are not necessarily linked to customer profiles.
• With a modest rating (3.6 across 10 reviews), merchants should inspect recent reviews to understand reliability and developer responsiveness.

Pricing & Value

Pricing is a vital evaluation metric. Both apps aim to be affordable, but “value” depends on business outcomes and the cost of maintaining multiple single-purpose tools.

• Ask to Buy create & share cart lists a single Basic plan at $15/month. For merchants whose purchases involve assisted payments, gift registries, or sales rep flows, that $15 could represent strong ROI if share-driven orders increase conversion and average order value. For stores without those use cases, it will be a recurring cost for a narrow set of features.
• Likely ‑ Like Me Button offers very low-cost plans: Starter at $1.99/month (unlimited likes, icon options) and Basic at $2.99/month (adds “Most Liked Products,” customizable icons, and priority support). The low pricing makes it appealing for experimentation on many SKUs or small catalogs.

How to judge value for money:

• Consider the conversion lift or engagement metrics expected. A $2–3 monthly tool that delivers measurable increases in product discovery or click-through is low risk.
• Ask to Buy’s $15 monthly price may be better value for stores that derive real assisted-checkout revenue; the built-in revenue tracking helps justify ROI.
• Both apps are single-purpose. For merchants using multiple single-purpose apps (e.g., likes, wishlist, loyalty, reviews), combined monthly costs quickly exceed the price of an integrated retention suite that provides multiple capabilities in one package.

Integrations & Extensibility

A key question for merchants is whether an app can work with the rest of the tech stack—email platforms, analytics, loyalty systems, or custom storefronts.

Ask to Buy:

• The public listing does not list extensive third-party integrations. Its value is in the cart-sharing/checkout pre-fill flow, which interacts closely with checkout and customer accounts.
• For merchants using advanced checkout customizations, compatibility checks with tools like Recharge, Shopify Plus custom flows, or headless setups are important.

Likely:

• Likely focuses on front-end social interactions (likes) and offers export functionality for likes data.
• There’s no public mention of built-in integrations with email platforms or product recommendation engines; exports may be used manually or via middleware.

What merchants should ask developers:

• Are there webhook capabilities or APIs to retrieve likes or shared cart events?
• Can liked-product data be automatically pushed to email platforms (e.g., Klaviyo) or to product recommendation widgets?
• How does the Ask to Buy app handle checkout flows in stores using third-party checkout tools or Shopify Plus checkout customizations?

Reporting & Analytics

Reporting converts features into decisions. Compare the analytics promises:

Ask to Buy:

• Tracks cart shares, conversions, and generated revenue from shares.
• This allows direct measurement of how share flows translate to completed sales—critical for justifying spend.
• The depth of reporting (e.g., time-to-purchase after share, device breakdown) isn’t explicit, so merchants should clarify the reporting granularity.

Likely:

• Reports total likes and identifies most-liked products.
• Offer export of liked products with counts.
• Useful for merchandising and inventory decisions, but lacks attribution between likes and conversions.

Which reporting type matters more?

• For revenue-driven features (assisted purchases), conversion and revenue attribution are primary.
• For awareness-driven features (likes), engagement and product interest metrics are useful, but their downstream impact is indirect unless tied to email or on-site merchandising.

Support, Reviews, and Reliability

Numbers matter when assessing confidence in an app.

• Ask to Buy: 7 reviews, 4.4 rating. A higher average rating suggests satisfied users, but the small sample limits statistical certainty. Merchants should request references or a demo for mission-critical flows.
• Likely ‑ Like Me Button: 10 reviews, 3.6 rating. Slightly more reviews, but a lower average rating suggests mixed experiences. Inspect recent reviews to see whether complaints are about bugs, support, or missing features.

Support considerations:

• Check what support channels are offered (email, live chat, priority support on paid tiers).
• For apps that touch checkout flows (Ask to Buy), response time and proven compatibility should be priorities.
• For front-end engagement tools (Likely), reliability and theme compatibility are the main concerns.

Growave comparison point:

• For merchants concerned about support SLAs and reliability across multiple retention tools, a consolidated vendor with documented integrations and larger review volume can reduce risk. Growave’s listings and external references show many reviews and a higher average rating, indicating broader adoption and operational maturity.

Security, Data, and Compliance

Both apps interact with customer data—names, shipping addresses, and potentially email addresses—so security and privacy practices matter.

Ask to Buy:

• Pre-filling checkout means the app will handle customer details. Merchants must confirm the app’s data handling, storage, and encryption policies and whether data is transferred to third-party servers.
• For stores under strict privacy standards (e.g., EU customers and GDPR), verify data processing agreements and opt-out capabilities.

Likely:

• Likes are less sensitive from a data perspective, but if likes are tied to customer profiles, verify storage practices.
• Exported data should be handled in a GDPR-compliant manner if it contains personal identifiers.

Best-practice checklist for merchants:

• Request the developer’s privacy policy and data processing agreement.
• Verify whether the app stores PII off-platform and how long data is retained.
• Confirm any compliance with industry standards or certifications if the store operates in regulated verticals.

Use Cases & Merchant Profiles

This section helps merchants map each app to real business contexts.

Ask to Buy — Best for:

• Brands that accept orders where the payer is different from the shopper (e.g., teen purchasers, gift buyers).
• Stores with sales teams that assemble product lists for clients and send checkout-ready carts.
• Retailers running registries or curated group gifting where recipients need a payment-ready checkout.

Ask to Buy — Not ideal for:

• Catalogs that need wishlist features with persistent user accounts.
• Stores that require integrated loyalty, referral, or review workflows.

Likely — Best for:

• Small catalogs or stores experimenting with social proof that want a very low monthly cost.
• Merchants who plan to feature “most liked” items as part of merchandising or email campaigns.
• Brands that primarily want a visual engagement element without complex back-end changes.

Likely — Not ideal for:

• Stores that need wishlist persistence, user-level tracking, or integrations to turn likes into conversions (e.g., targeted emails, discount triggers).

Pros and Cons — Quick Lists

Ask to Buy create & share cart — Pros

• Supports assisted checkout flows and gift registries.
• Pre-fill checkout fields to reduce friction for invitees.
• Revenue tracking for shared carts helps justify outcomes.

Ask to Buy create & share cart — Cons

• Single-purpose solution; lacks loyalty, reviews, referrals, or wishlist integrations.
• Small review base means less public assurance about edge cases.
• $15/month may be hard to justify if share-driven sales are minimal.

Likely ‑ Like Me Button — Pros

• Very low monthly cost; easy to experiment with.
• Simple customization options to match brand styling.
• Exports for liked-product data aid merchandising.

Likely ‑ Like Me Button — Cons

• Likes are a weak proxy for purchase intent unless linked to incentive flows.
• Limited integrations and single-purpose scope.
• Mixed rating suggests merchants should test for stability.

Comparing Impact on Key Merchant Metrics

This section ties features to outcomes merchants care about: conversion rate, average order value (AOV), customer acquisition cost (CAC), repeat purchases, and lifetime value (LTV).

• Conversion Rate: Ask to Buy can directly impact conversion for assisted purchases—when the inviter fills shipping and the invitee only pays, conversion friction drops. Likely primarily improves discovery and engagement, which may indirectly boost conversions.
• Average Order Value: Ask to Buy may increase AOV if sales reps or curated lists include add-ons; group gifting flows can also increase order sizes. Likely influence on AOV is minimal unless used as an input to merchandising that upsells popular rows.
• Customer Acquisition Cost: Neither app directly reduces CAC by themselves. However, Ask to Buy can reduce abandoned-cart friction for specific buyer segments. Likely may improve organic discovery and referral likelihood if likes are surfaced publicly.
• Repeat Purchase & LTV: These are driven more by loyalty, rewards, and review systems than by likes or cart sharing. For sustained improvements in repeat purchase rates, merchants typically need loyalty programs, automated review collection, and referral incentives—features absent from both apps.

This gap is why many merchants consider integrated retention platforms that combine loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist functions.

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

Adding single-purpose apps to cover discrete needs creates a familiar problem: tool sprawl. Each new app brings another subscription, another integration point, another support contact, and potential conflicts with the storefront. This accumulation leads to higher ongoing costs, longer troubleshooting cycles, and fractured customer experiences. This issue is commonly referred to as "app fatigue."

For merchants who want to reduce complexity while improving retention metrics, an integrated platform can be more efficient. Growave’s positioning addresses that exact pain point with a “More Growth, Less Stack” approach.

What is app fatigue?

App fatigue occurs when a store uses many single-function services—each solving a micro-problem but collectively creating maintenance overhead. Symptoms include:

• Rising monthly fees from multiple subscriptions.
• More frequent theme conflicts as new scripts are added.
• Fragmented user data across separate services that don’t communicate.
• Slower reaction time to customer requests because the merchant must coordinate multiple vendors.

Whether migrating from a legacy stack or starting a new shop, consolidating key retention features into a single platform reduces these problems.

Growave’s “More Growth, Less Stack” proposition

Growave bundles loyalty, referrals, reviews & UGC, wishlist, and VIP tiers into one suite so merchants can run cross-functional retention strategies without many disconnected apps. Key advantages include:

• Centralized data: Customer actions—likes, wishlist saves, referrals, and review submissions—are collected in one place, enabling cohesive segmentation and targeted incentives.
• Unified rewards: Loyalty points and referral bonuses can be coordinated with wishlist and review activities to increase engagement and repeat purchases.
• Enterprise readiness: Growave offers features suitable for high-growth brands, including support for Shopify Plus and headless architectures.

For merchants evaluating consolidation, Growave provides transparent plan tiers and an App Store presence to simplify installation and onboarding. Merchants can explore options to consolidate retention features and assess which plan aligns with order volume and required feature depth. Growave is also available to install directly from the Shopify marketplace, allowing merchants to install the suite from the Shopify App Store.

How Growave replaces functions of Ask to Buy and Likely

• Shareable lists and wishlists: Growave’s wishlist functionality allows shoppers to save items and share lists. While Ask to Buy focuses on pre-filled checkouts, wishlist sharing combined with referral and reward mechanics can achieve similar outcomes—shoppers share wishlists that include incentives or prompts to complete purchases.
• Social signals and product interest: Growave's reviews and UGC modules enable authentic social proof that typically outperforms anonymous “likes.” Reviews are more strongly correlated with purchase decisions because they contain feedback, photos, and verified experience. Merchants can use collect and showcase authentic reviews to highlight verified purchase insights rather than raw like counts.
• Reward-driven conversion: Instead of a simple like, Growave can reward wishlist saves, review submissions, or referrals with loyalty points, creating measurable pathways from engagement to purchase. Merchants can build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases and tie them to behaviors that both Ask to Buy and Likely attempt to influence.

Merchants interested in a guided evaluation can book a personalized demo to see how an integrated stack improves retention. This is useful for stores that want to map existing workflows (e.g., shared carts or like-driven merchandising) into a consolidated program.

Practical benefits of consolidating into a single retention platform

• Lower operational overhead: One vendor to manage, one script to load, and one data schema to review.
• Improved measurement: Cross-feature attribution (e.g., how many referred customers became loyal buyers) is simpler with unified reporting.
• Better customer experience: Consistent design and messaging across loyalty, wishlist, and reviews reduce confusion and increase perceived brand quality.
• Higher long-term value: Loyalty and referral programs directly impact repeat purchases and LTV, which single-purpose apps rarely address on their own.

Merchants can learn from customer stories from brands scaling retention that have moved from multiple single-function apps to an integrated solution and seen clearer retention gains.

Where an all-in-one platform still needs selection care

While consolidation reduces tool sprawl, platform choice still requires evaluation on:

• Feature parity: Confirm the platform supports the specific workflows (e.g., pre-filled checkout sharing vs. wishlist sharing with incentives).
• Integration matrix: Ensure the platform integrates with critical systems (e.g., Klaviyo, Omnisend, Recharge, Gorgias). Growave documents numerous third-party integrations and supports Shopify Plus stores, which eases enterprise adoption.
• Cost vs. usage: For merchants who only need a simple like button and never plan to run loyalty or reviews, a $2–3 solution may be budget-friendlier. For merchants investing in retention programs, an integrated plan often represents better value for money when considering cumulative app costs.

To evaluate a consolidated approach, merchants can compare the cost of multiple single-purpose subscriptions against the Growave pricing tiers and functionality to determine total cost of ownership. Growave’s pricing page allows merchants to consolidate retention features into a single subscription and assess the fit by order volume. Growave’s app listing on the Shopify marketplace also provides user feedback and an easy install path for testing in a live store; merchants can install the suite from the Shopify App Store.

Migration & Implementation Considerations

Switching from single-purpose apps to an integrated platform requires planning. Key steps:

• Map current workflows: Identify which apps handle wishlist, likes, cart-sharing, or assisted checkouts. Document touchpoints, email flows, and any checkout customizations.
• Export historical data: For any app that stores likes or shared-cart events, export the data to preserve insights. Likely allows export of liked-product data. Ask to Buy should provide logs of shared-cart conversions for attribution.
• Test in a staging environment: For apps that touch checkout or customer accounts (Ask to Buy especially), validate functionality in a theme preview or development store before publishing.
• Plan customer communication: If wishlists or saved items shift platforms, communicate to customers how their saved lists will be preserved or migrated.
• Coordinate integrations: Ensure customer profiles, loyalty balances, and review histories are synchronized with email and CRM platforms.

Growave provides migration support and documented integrations to ease transition; merchants can review migration options and customer case studies to understand typical timelines and gains by visiting customer stories from brands scaling retention.

Decision Framework: Which App Should We Choose?

Rather than one-size-fits-all "winner" language, this framework helps merchants choose based on needs.

• If the primary need is assisted checkout or delegated payment flows (e.g., teen-to-parent, sales rep checkout, gift registry), Ask to Buy is the focused choice. It provides pre-fill and direct checkout links and tracks revenue from shared carts—features that directly address that use case.
• If the merchant wants a low-cost way to add a social-proof indicator to product pages and experiment with engagement metrics, Likely ‑ Like Me Button is a low-risk option. The Starter and Basic plans keep monthly costs minimal.
• If the merchant seeks to build long-term retention, increase repeat purchases, and reduce the number of apps in the stack, an integrated platform like Growave will likely be better value for money. It unifies wishlist, loyalty, reviews, and referral features into one system—enabling coordinated campaigns and clearer measurement. Merchants can review Growave plans to consolidate retention features and see if it fits order volume and integration needs. For hands-on evaluation, merchants may consider to book a personalized demo to see how an integrated stack improves retention.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Ask to Buy create & share cart and Likely ‑ Like Me Button, the decision comes down to specific business needs. Ask to Buy is best for stores that require assisted checkout or shared carts and need direct revenue attribution for those flows. Likely ‑ Like Me Button is best for merchants seeking inexpensive, low-effort social proof on product pages to surface popular items and inform merchandising.

However, both tools are single-purpose solutions. Merchants building a retention engine—targeting higher repeat purchases and longer customer lifetime value—will often find better value by consolidating loyalty, referrals, reviews, wishlist, and VIP functionality into a single platform. Growave’s suite is designed to reduce app sprawl and combine these features so merchants can run coordinated campaigns and measure impact from one place. Merchants interested in reducing tool fragmentation can review options to consolidate retention features or install the suite from the Shopify App Store.

Ready to see the impact of an integrated retention stack? Start a 14-day free trial.

FAQ

• How do Ask to Buy and Likely differ in terms of measurable revenue impact?
  • Ask to Buy is designed to produce measurable revenue from shared carts because it directs invitees straight to checkout and tracks conversions and generated revenue. Likely records engagement (likes) and helps identify popular products, but it does not natively attribute likes to purchases; merchants must connect likes to promotional activities to see revenue impact.
• Will either app replace a wishlist or loyalty program?
  • No. Ask to Buy is focused on shared carts and pre-filled checkout flows; Likely provides social proof through likes. Neither app offers the loyalty, referral, or advanced wishlist features required to meaningfully increase repeat purchase rates—functions that an integrated retention platform provides.
• How should a merchant decide between a single-purpose app and an all-in-one platform?
  • Start with the business objective. For one-off needs (e.g., trialing social proof at very low monthly cost), a single-purpose app can be cost-effective. For systematic retention goals (increase LTV, decrease churn, centralize rewards), an all-in-one platform typically delivers better long-term value for money. Compare cumulative monthly costs, integration overhead, and the ability to run cross-feature campaigns.
• How does an all-in-one platform compare to specialized apps?
  • An all-in-one platform consolidates features, centralizes customer data, and simplifies support and maintenance. Specialized apps can be cheaper for narrow use cases but lead to higher total cost of ownership and fragmented data when multiple tools are combined. For retention-driven strategies, unified features (loyalty, referral, reviews, wishlist) in one platform enable cohesive programs that specialized apps alone cannot deliver. For more context, merchants can explore how to consolidate retention features and use collect and showcase authentic reviews in a single system or implement loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.