BON Loyalty Program & Rewards vs. Propel Subscriptions App: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Short answer: Choosing between BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Propel Subscriptions App depends on whether the primary goal is to incentivize repeat behavior through a structured reward system or to automate revenue through recurring product deliveries. While both tools aim to improve customer retention, BON focuses on behavioral triggers like points and VIP tiers, whereas Propel centers on the logistical convenience of subscriptions. Merchants often find that as they scale, managing these distinct retention functions across separate applications can increase operational complexity, suggesting that a unified platform may eventually offer a more streamlined path to growth.

Shopify merchants face a constant struggle to balance customer acquisition costs with lifetime value. As the cost of finding new shoppers rises, the importance of keeping existing ones becomes the foundation of a sustainable business model. Retention is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. For some brands, a loyalty program that rewards every dollar spent is the most effective way to build a community. For others, providing a seamless way for customers to receive their favorite products on a schedule is the key to predictable revenue.

This comparison provides an objective analysis of BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Propel Subscriptions App. By examining their core features, pricing structures, and integration capabilities, merchants can determine which tool aligns with their current stage of growth and technical requirements. This expert evaluation looks beyond the surface-level marketing to understand how these apps function in a real-world Shopify environment.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards vs. Propel Subscriptions App: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Understanding the fundamental differences between these two applications requires a look at how they approach the customer lifecycle. One app attempts to gamify the shopping experience, while the other seeks to remove the friction of repeat purchasing entirely.

Core Features and Retention Workflows

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards is built as a comprehensive solution for points-based engagement. The primary workflow involves rewarding customers for specific actions, such as making a purchase, following a social media account, or celebrating a birthday. These points can then be redeemed for various incentives, including percentage-based discounts, fixed-amount coupons, or free shipping.

One of the more sophisticated elements of the BON platform is the inclusion of VIP tiers. This feature allows merchants to create different levels of membership based on spend or engagement. High-tier members can be granted accelerated point earning rates, which provides a psychological incentive to concentrate their spending with a single brand. For businesses operating in the wholesale space, the B2B loyalty program functionality is a significant differentiator, allowing for tiered rewards that cater specifically to high-volume buyers.

Propel Subscriptions App operates on a different logic. Rather than rewarding a customer for a manual repeat purchase, Propel automates the process. The app allows merchants to offer products on a recurring basis with customizable billing intervals. The core workflow here is about convenience. The customer selects a product, chooses how often they want it delivered, and the app handles the automatic billing and order creation.

Propel features a mobile-first subscription picker, which is essential for conversion in an era where the majority of Shopify traffic occurs on mobile devices. The app also includes a customer portal where shoppers can manage their own subscriptions—pausing, skipping, or canceling as needed. This self-service aspect is critical for reducing the burden on customer support teams. Additionally, Propel allows for loyalty-based discounts, which means merchants can offer deeper discounts to customers who commit to longer subscription terms.

Customization and Control over the Brand Experience

Customization is a major factor in how an app feels to the end consumer. If an app looks like a third-party add-on, it can diminish trust.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards offers significant customization options, particularly at the higher price tiers. Merchants can tailor the loyalty page to match their brand aesthetic. For those with technical resources, the Growth plan unlocks custom CSS, supported by the developer’s team. At the Professional level, the app provides a Software Development Toolkit (SDK) and full API access, which is particularly useful for stores running on headless commerce architectures like Hydrogen. This level of control ensures that the loyalty program feels like an organic part of the storefront rather than a secondary plugin.

Propel Subscriptions App focuses its customization efforts on the "widget" or the subscription picker. This is the interface element that appears on the product page, allowing users to choose between a one-time purchase and a recurring subscription. The app offers widget customization and translation features to ensure the subscription offer aligns with the store’s language and style. While it may not offer the deep API-level customization seen in BON’s higher tiers, its focus is on a beautiful, functional user interface that drives immediate conversions.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

When evaluating feature coverage across plans, merchants must consider not just the monthly fee, but the potential return on investment and the total cost of ownership as the store scales.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards offers a four-tier pricing structure:

• Free Forever: This plan is surprisingly robust, offering points and rewards, an anti-cheat referral program, and automated emails. It even includes points at checkout for Shopify Plus merchants.
• Basic ($25 / month): This adds the loyalty page, multi-language display, POS rewards for in-store shoppers, and points expiration reminders. It also allows for unlimited integrations with tools like Klaviyo.
• Growth ($99 / month): Aimed at scaling brands, this plan includes VIP tiers, B2B programs, and the "Order Booster" feature. It also removes order limits and provides 24/7 live chat support.
• Professional ($349 / month): This is an enterprise-grade plan. It includes custom development packages, the SDK, and full API access for headless commerce.

Propel Subscriptions App offers a more simplified and lower-cost pricing model:

• Free Plan: This is a "free to install" plan that includes unlimited subscriptions, tiered discounts, and the customer portal. It is highly accessible for new stores.
• Growth ($9 / month): This plan adds custom email notifications, the ability to import subscriptions from other apps, and payment retry management. It also allows for changing the discount amount after a certain number of orders.
• Enterprise ($19 / month): Even at the highest tier, Propel remains very affordable. This level adds custom subscription shipping rates, cancellation management, and priority support.

Propel is clearly the choice for merchants on a tight budget who need specific subscription functionality. BON is a more significant investment, but it offers a broader range of psychological triggers (tiers, points, B2B) that are not present in a pure subscription tool.

Integrations and Tech Stack Compatibility

No Shopify app exists in a vacuum. The ability to connect with other tools in the stack is vital for maintaining a clean data flow.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards has a wide integration ecosystem. It works with Shopify POS, allowing for a unified loyalty experience across online and physical retail. It also integrates with popular review apps like Fera, LAI, and Judge.me. These integrations are important because they allow merchants to reward customers for leaving reviews, effectively linking social proof with loyalty incentives. The connection with Klaviyo is perhaps the most critical, as it enables the use of loyalty data (like point balances) within email and SMS marketing campaigns.

Propel Subscriptions App integrates with various payment and subscription backends, including Stripe, Appstle, Recharge, and Seal. This is essential for merchants who might be migrating from another subscription service or who need specific payment processing capabilities. While its integration list is more focused on the mechanics of billing and payments, it ensures that the core subscription engine remains reliable across different environments.

Reliability and Performance Signals

When assessing app-store ratings as a trust signal, there is a notable difference between these two apps in terms of market presence.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards, as per the provided data, has only 1 review, although it is a 5-star rating. This suggests it may be a newer entry or that it caters to a specific niche that has not yet generated a high volume of public feedback. While the 24/7 support and 5-star rating are positive indicators, the low review count means merchants should perhaps take advantage of the free plan to test the support and functionality for themselves.

Propel Subscriptions App has a much larger footprint with 175 reviews and a 4.9-star rating. This indicates a high level of merchant satisfaction over a broader user base. The high rating combined with a significant number of reviews suggests that the app is stable, the setup is as easy as claimed, and the support team is responsive to the needs of its 175+ documented users.

Operational Overhead and App Sprawl

A critical consideration for any growing Shopify store is the impact of adding "just one more app" to the stack. Each new application brings a unique script to the storefront, which can impact page load speeds. Furthermore, each app creates a new "silo" of customer data.

Using BON Loyalty for points and Propel for subscriptions means a merchant is managing two different dashboards, two different billing cycles, and two different customer-facing interfaces. While both apps are efficient in their respective domains, this fragmentation can lead to a disjointed customer experience. For example, a customer might have a high loyalty tier in BON but find that their subscription through Propel does not automatically reflect those VIP benefits unless complex manual integrations are set up.

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

As merchants grow, they often encounter a phenomenon known as "app fatigue." This occurs when the cost and complexity of managing multiple single-function apps begin to outweigh their individual benefits. While BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Propel Subscriptions App are excellent at what they do, they represent two separate pieces of a much larger retention puzzle.

The "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy suggests that a unified platform can deliver better results by removing the friction between different marketing functions. Instead of having a separate app for loyalty, another for reviews, and another for wishlists, a consolidated approach allows these features to work in harmony. This results in a clearer view of total retention-stack costs and a more consistent experience for the shopper.

Growave provides an integrated environment where various retention modules are designed to communicate with each other natively. When a brand uses loyalty programs that keep customers coming back, those programs are more effective if they are tied directly to other forms of engagement. For instance, in an all-in-one system, a customer can be automatically rewarded for leaving a review or adding an item to a wishlist without the merchant needing to configure complicated third-party integrations.

The benefits of this integration extend to social proof as well. By collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews within the same platform that manages the loyalty program, a merchant can create a virtuous cycle. A loyalty point can be the incentive for a review, and that review then becomes the social proof that supports conversion and AOV for the next customer. This level of synergy is difficult to achieve when using a fragmented stack.

For brands that have moved beyond the initial startup phase, the requirements for retention tooling become more demanding. Growing stores often need VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers that are more sophisticated than basic point-earning. They require a system that can handle higher order volumes and provide deeper analytics into how each retention lever is performing.

If consolidating tools is a priority, start by choosing a plan built for long-term value.

For those operating at the highest levels of ecommerce, such as Shopify Plus merchants, the stakes are even higher. Large-scale stores require features aligned with enterprise retention requirements, such as API access, checkout extensions, and dedicated support. An integrated platform is often an approach that fits high-growth operational complexity better than a collection of disparate apps, as it simplifies governance and ensures that the storefront remains performant.

When a merchant considers scanning reviews to understand real-world adoption, the data for Growave shows a substantial track record with 1,197 reviews and a 4.8-star rating. This volume of feedback indicates that the platform has been tested across thousands of different store configurations and business models, providing a level of reliability that is essential for brands that cannot afford downtime or technical glitches.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Propel Subscriptions App, the decision comes down to the specific retention mechanism that is most critical for the current business model. If the goal is to build a brand community through gamified rewards and VIP tiers, BON Loyalty Program & Rewards offers a deep and customizable feature set that can accommodate everything from small stores to headless enterprise setups. On the other hand, if the business relies on consumable products where recurring revenue is the primary driver, Propel Subscriptions App provides an incredibly affordable and user-friendly way to launch a subscription service in minutes.

However, it is important to recognize the trade-offs of the "single-app" approach. While these tools solve immediate problems, they can contribute to a fragmented technology stack that becomes harder to manage as order volume increases. Every additional app is another subscription to track, another interface for the team to learn, and another potential point of failure for the storefront's performance.

Strategic growth requires looking at the customer journey as a whole rather than a series of isolated interactions. An integrated platform allows for a more cohesive strategy where loyalty, reviews, and referrals all work together to maximize lifetime value. This unified approach reduces the technical debt of the store and provides a smoother, more professional experience for the customer. By choosing a platform that encompasses multiple retention tools, merchants can focus more on their marketing strategy and less on troubleshooting the integrations between different pieces of software.

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

FAQ

Is it better to start with a loyalty program or a subscription program?

The choice depends on the product type. Subscription programs are ideal for consumable goods that customers need on a regular basis, such as coffee, supplements, or skincare. Loyalty programs are more versatile and work for almost any brand, as they focus on rewarding repeat purchases regardless of the timeframe. Many successful stores eventually use both to capture different types of customer behavior.

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

Specialized apps often provide very deep features for one specific function, which can be useful for businesses with highly unique requirements. However, all-in-one platforms offer the benefit of native integration, meaning different modules (like reviews and loyalty) work together without extra configuration. This typically leads to a better user experience, lower total costs, and less impact on site speed compared to installing several individual apps.

Can I migrate data from BON or Propel to a unified platform?

Most high-quality retention platforms offer migration paths for loyalty points and subscription data. When moving to a unified system, it is common to import existing customer point balances and referral data to ensure a seamless transition for the shoppers. Merchants should check if the platform offers a dedicated launch plan or support for this process.

Does adding more apps slow down my Shopify store?

Every app that adds code to the "front end" (the part the customer sees) has the potential to impact load times. While many developers optimize their apps for performance, having five separate apps for five different functions will generally be slower than having one app that handles all five. Minimizing the number of scripts running on the storefront is a key part of maintaining a high conversion rate.