BON Loyalty Program & Rewards vs. Diller Loyalty: A Comparison

Introduction

Short answer: Choosing between BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Diller Loyalty depends on whether a merchant prioritizes high-volume B2B/Plus functionality (BON) or member-count-based pricing with built-in marketing automation (Diller). While both offer robust points and referral systems, those looking to minimize operational overhead often find that moving toward an integrated retention suite provides a more consistent customer experience than managing disparate single-function tools.

Building a sustainable Shopify business requires moving beyond the initial acquisition phase and focusing heavily on customer retention. For most merchants, this means implementing a loyalty program that rewards repeat purchases and encourages word-of-mouth marketing through referrals. However, as a store grows, the complexity of managing these programs increases. A merchant must balance the desire for deep customization with the technical reality of app bloat and the costs associated with stacking multiple services.

This comparison examines the specific features, pricing models, and technical capabilities of BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Diller Loyalty. Both apps have earned high satisfaction ratings from their user bases, yet they serve slightly different strategic needs. BON Loyalty leans into the technical requirements of high-growth stores, including headless commerce and B2B-specific tiers. Diller Loyalty positions itself as an autopilot solution, focusing on marketing automation through integrated SMS and email campaigns.

The goal here is to provide a neutral, data-driven analysis. By understanding the nuances of each platform, merchants can determine which tool aligns with their current store maturity, technical resources, and long-term growth objectives.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards vs. Diller Loyalty: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Loyalty Mechanics and Point Redemption Workflows

Loyalty programs live or die by the ease with which customers can earn and spend points. Both apps provide the foundational mechanics expected in a modern Shopify environment, but the execution differs.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards offers a wide array of earning actions, including points for purchases, social follows, and birthday celebrations. A significant advantage for BON is its integration with Shopify Plus checkout. This allows merchants to offer points redemption directly within the checkout flow, a feature that significantly reduces friction and improves the conversion rate of loyalty members. The app also includes specific rewards like free shipping and "money off" coupons, which can be restricted to certain collections or products to protect margins.

Diller Loyalty focuses on a streamlined "earn and redeem" cycle. It emphasizes the customer history, allowing merchants to see exactly when points were earned and redeemed. Diller’s approach is centered on increasing the frequency of purchases through a welcoming bonus and specific rewards for birthdays. Its core strength in this area is the automation of the redemption reminders, ensuring that points do not sit idle and that customers are consistently nudged back to the storefront.

VIP Tiers and Customer Retention Strategy

Moving customers from occasional buyers to brand advocates often requires a tiered VIP system. Both apps support this, though the implementation for BON Loyalty Program & Rewards is notably focused on high-growth segments.

BON’s VIP program includes an "accelerated points" mechanic where higher-tier members earn more points per dollar spent. What sets BON apart is its dedicated B2B Tier Program. Wholesale and business-to-business merchants often have different margin structures and purchase behaviors. BON allows for exclusive tiered rewards specifically for these accounts, which is a rare feature in standard loyalty apps. Furthermore, BON provides "Order Booster" features in its higher plans to encourage larger basket sizes through point-based incentives.

Diller Loyalty approaches VIP tiers through a lens of segmentation. While it offers a standard VIP program across all its paid plans, the focus is on the ability to segment members into groups for targeted marketing campaigns. This means a merchant can identify their top 10% of spenders and send them exclusive SMS or email offers through the platform’s integrated automation tools. This makes the VIP program feel more like a personalized communication channel rather than just a passive points-earning system.

Referral Programs and Fraud Prevention

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the lowest-cost acquisition channels. Both platforms include referral systems, but they handle the risks of referral fraud differently.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards highlights an "Anti-Cheat" referral program even in its free tier. This is critical because referral programs are often targets for "self-referral" where users create multiple accounts to gain discounts. BON’s automated emails for referrals help keep the process transparent and professional.

Diller Loyalty includes a referral program across all tiers, including its free plan. The focus for Diller is on the simplicity of the referral link and the integration with their broader marketing stack. By using Diller’s member history tracking, merchants can monitor referral patterns to ensure that the growth being generated is legitimate.

Automation and Communication Channels

Communication is the bridge between a loyalty program existing and a loyalty program being successful.

Diller Loyalty has a distinct advantage in integrated marketing automation. It empowers merchants to set up personalized SMS and email campaigns directly within the platform. This reduces the need for a separate automation tool for loyalty-specific notifications. The app is available in a wide range of languages, making it a strong contender for stores operating in international markets that require localized communication.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards relies more on its deep integrations with specialized email and SMS tools. While it offers automated emails for points and referrals, it is designed to work seamlessly with Klaviyo and other marketing platforms. For a merchant who already has a sophisticated Klaviyo setup, BON’s ability to push loyalty data into those flows is a major benefit. BON also provides points expiration reminders via email in its Basic plan, which is a vital tool for driving urgency and repeat visits.

Technical Compatibility and Omnichannel Support

In an era where commerce happens on websites, mobile apps, and in-person, the technical stack of a loyalty app is paramount.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards is built for the modern Shopify ecosystem. It supports Shopify POS, allowing in-store customers to earn and redeem points just like online shoppers. For merchants moving toward a headless commerce architecture, BON offers Hydrogen support and a Software Development Toolkit (SDK) in its Professional plan. This level of API access is intended for stores with developer resources who want to build a completely custom loyalty experience.

Diller Loyalty also supports omnichannel retail, though its primary focus remains on the ease of styling the loyalty widget and emails without needing code. It works with common marketing tools like Mailchimp and MailerLite, but it does not emphasize headless commerce to the same extent as BON. Diller is better suited for the merchant who wants a powerful, "set and forget" system that looks great on standard Shopify themes.

Pricing Structure and Value Realization

The pricing models of these two apps represent two very different philosophies of value.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards uses a feature-based pricing model.

• The Free plan is quite generous, offering points, referrals, and Shopify Plus checkout integration.
• The Basic plan ($25/mo) adds a dedicated loyalty page and POS rewards.
• The Growth plan ($99/mo) unlocks VIP tiers, B2B tiers, and 24/7 live chat.
• The Professional plan ($349/mo) is an enterprise-grade offering with full API access and custom development support.

Diller Loyalty uses a member-based pricing model.

• The Free plan allows for all features but is limited to 200 members.
• The "Pay as you go" tiers scale from $54/mo (300 members) to $172/mo (1500 members). This model is attractive for small stores that want every feature from day one without paying for a high-tier plan. However, as the customer base grows into the thousands, the cost can become a significant monthly expense regardless of the specific features used.

Support and Operational Reliability

When choosing an app, the review count and rating serve as signals of community trust. Diller Loyalty has 6 reviews with a 5.0 rating, suggesting a high level of satisfaction among its current user base. BON Loyalty Program & Rewards currently shows 1 review with a 5.0 rating, which may indicate it is a newer entry or that its users are primarily in a segment that reviews less frequently.

BON offers 24/7 live chat support starting at its $99/mo plan and priority support at the $349/mo level. For high-volume merchants, this "always-on" availability is a insurance policy against downtime during peak shopping seasons like Black Friday. Diller offers "Free support" and emphasizes their commitment to helping merchants "all the way," which is a strong promise for businesses that might feel overwhelmed by the setup of a loyalty program.

Customization and Brand Identity

A loyalty program should feel like a native part of the store, not a third-party add-on.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards provides significant customization, including a brand-tailored loyalty page. In its Growth plan, it unlocks custom CSS with developer support, allowing for deep visual integration. This is particularly important for brands with a strict design language who want the loyalty widget to match their unique aesthetic.

Diller Loyalty allows merchants to customize styling and design on their own loyalty widget and emails. Their approach is focused on a user-friendly interface that does not require technical expertise. This is ideal for smaller teams where the owner or a generalist manager is handling the app setup and maintenance.

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

While BON and Diller offer powerful loyalty features, many Shopify merchants eventually encounter the challenge of "app fatigue." This phenomenon occurs when a store installs separate apps for loyalty, another for reviews, another for wishlists, and yet another for social proof. The result is a fragmented tech stack where data is siloed, the storefront is slowed down by multiple JavaScript scripts, and the total monthly cost of subscriptions begins to spiral.

When a merchant evaluates their retention strategy, they must consider the total cost of ownership. This includes not just the monthly subscription fee, but the time spent syncing data between tools and the potential loss of conversion caused by an inconsistent user interface. If consolidating tools is a priority, start by choosing a plan built for long-term value. By moving toward a platform that integrates multiple retention modules, merchants can ensure that a customer’s review activity, loyalty points, and wishlist items are all tracked under a single profile.

Growave represents a move toward this "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy. Instead of managing a loyalty program in isolation, Growave allows merchants to connect loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases with other critical conversion drivers. For example, a customer can be rewarded with points for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, creating a self-sustaining loop of engagement. This integrated approach ensures that incentives that pair well with lifecycle email flows are triggered by real actions across the entire storefront.

Scalability is another factor where integrated platforms excel. As a store moves from hundreds to thousands of orders, evaluating feature coverage across plans becomes a strategic necessity. A platform that offers loyalty, reviews, and wishlists in one package often results in selecting plans that reduce stacked tooling costs compared to paying for three or four individual apps. This consolidation also simplifies the experience for the customer, who sees a single, unified rewards panel rather than multiple floating widgets cluttering the screen.

Beyond the technical benefits, there is the advantage of shared data. When a merchant can see real examples from brands improving retention by using combined data sets, the path to growth becomes clearer. For instance, seeing how other brands connect loyalty and reviews can help a merchant understand how to use social proof that supports conversion and AOV to drive more members into their loyalty tiers.

Choosing the right path involves checking merchant feedback and app-store performance signals to see how an integrated platform handles high-volume traffic. Ultimately, the goal is to create a seamless journey where every interaction—from saving an item to a wishlist to referring a friend—is recognized and rewarded. By assessing app-store ratings as a trust signal, merchants can gain confidence that an integrated solution will remain stable as they scale.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Diller Loyalty, the decision comes down to the specific operational needs of the business. BON Loyalty Program & Rewards is the preferred choice for those who require advanced B2B tier logic, headless commerce capabilities, or deep integration with the Shopify Plus checkout. Its feature-set is designed to grow with enterprise-level complexity. On the other hand, Diller Loyalty is a strong fit for merchants who value integrated marketing automation and prefer a pricing model that scales based on the number of members rather than a flat feature fee.

However, as e-commerce continues to move toward more complex and competitive environments, the strategic advantage of an integrated retention stack becomes harder to ignore. Managing multiple individual apps often leads to a "Frankenstein" storefront that can confuse customers and slow down performance. By choosing a platform that combines loyalty, reviews, and other retention tools, merchants can reduce their technical debt and focus more on building genuine customer relationships.

Carefully confirming the install path used by Shopify merchants and considering the long-term impact of app sprawl will lead to a more sustainable growth strategy. Whether the priority is B2B tiers or simplified automation, the ultimate goal remains the same: maximizing customer lifetime value while keeping the operational burden as low as possible.

To reduce app fatigue and run retention from one place, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ

Which app is better for a B2B Shopify store?

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards is specifically designed with a B2B Tier Program that allows for exclusive rewards tailored to wholesale customers. This makes it a more specialized choice for merchants who manage both retail and business accounts on the same Shopify instance.

Does Diller Loyalty include email marketing?

Yes, Diller Loyalty includes marketing automation features that allow for the creation of personalized SMS and email campaigns. This is intended to keep customers engaged with the loyalty program without necessarily requiring an external email service provider for basic loyalty notifications.

Can I use these apps with Shopify POS?

Both BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Diller Loyalty offer integrations that work with Shopify POS. This allows for an omnichannel experience where customers can earn and redeem their loyalty points during in-person transactions at physical retail locations.

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

An all-in-one platform reduces "tool sprawl" by combining multiple functions like loyalty, reviews, and wishlists into a single interface. This typically leads to better site performance, a more consistent user experience for the customer, and a lower total cost of ownership as merchants avoid paying for multiple individual subscriptions that may have overlapping features.