Introduction
Selecting the right retention tools for a Shopify storefront requires a careful evaluation of how specific features align with long-term business goals. E-commerce success relies heavily on the ability to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers, and loyalty applications serve as the engine for this transition. With numerous options available in the Shopify ecosystem, merchants must look beyond basic point systems to identify which platform provides the technical flexibility, integration depth, and scalability required for their specific operational model.
Short answer: BON Loyalty Program & Rewards is highly suited for merchants requiring specialized B2B functionality and extensive developer tools like API access, whereas Toki Loyalty Program & Rewards stands out for brands prioritizing paid memberships and detailed engagement analytics. Both apps offer robust loyalty frameworks, but the choice depends on whether a store needs technical flexibility or membership-driven engagement models. Integrated platforms can further reduce operational overhead by consolidating these functions into a single system.
The purpose of this analysis is to provide a neutral, feature-by-feature comparison of BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Toki Loyalty Program & Rewards. By examining pricing structures, customization capabilities, and integration ecosystems, this guide helps merchants determine which tool aligns with their current growth stage and technical requirements.
BON Loyalty Program & Rewards vs. Toki Loyalty Program & Rewards: At a Glance
| Feature | BON Loyalty Program & Rewards | Toki Loyalty Program & Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Core Use Case | Retention via points, VIP tiers, and referrals | Rewards, memberships, and POS loyalty |
| Best For | B2B merchants and headless commerce setups | Brands seeking paid membership models |
| Review Count & Rating | 1 review / 5 stars | 72 reviews / 5 stars |
| Notable Strengths | B2B tiered rewards, API access, 24/7 support | Paid memberships, fraud protection, analytics |
| Potential Limitations | Limited review history for trust signals | Higher top-tier pricing |
| Setup Complexity | Low to Medium | Low to Medium |
Detailed Feature Analysis: Loyalty and Reward Mechanics
The foundation of any retention strategy is the mechanic used to incentivize repeat behavior. Both BON Loyalty and Toki Loyalty offer points-based systems, but their execution of these rewards caters to different business structures.
Point Accumulation and Redemption
BON Loyalty emphasizes a rapid launch, allowing merchants to start a program with points, VIP tiers, and referrals quickly. Their system supports standard actions like purchase rewards and social interactions, but it adds value through specialized features like the B2B Tier Program. This allows wholesale merchants to offer exclusive rewards to their business clients, a segment often overlooked by standard loyalty apps. The inclusion of an "Order Booster" in their Growth plan suggests a focus on increasing average order value through time-sensitive or action-specific point multipliers.
Toki Loyalty takes a broader approach to engagement, offering points for purchases, birthdays, and social actions, but it also incorporates unique triggers like surveys and user-generated content (UGC). This makes Toki a strong contender for lifestyle brands that want to reward community participation rather than just transactional behavior. Their "Pay as you Go" model ensures that even at lower tiers, merchants can access the full suite of loyalty features, provided their order volume stays within certain limits.
VIP Tiers and Membership Models
VIP tiers are essential for identifying and rewarding a brand's most valuable customers. BON Loyalty utilizes tiers to offer accelerated points and exclusive rewards, which is a traditional but effective method for increasing customer lifetime value. Their approach is particularly strong for high-growth stores that need to differentiate between standard retail customers and wholesale partners through their B2B-specific tiering logic.
Toki Loyalty introduces a significant differentiator with its paid membership capabilities. This feature allows merchants to create monthly, annual, or lifetime membership plans, complete with trials and prorated billing. For brands looking to emulate "Amazon Prime" style models where customers pay for exclusive access to perks, Toki provides the necessary infrastructure. This shift from a purely reactive loyalty program to a proactive membership model can provide more predictable revenue and higher brand commitment.
Customization and Brand Control
A loyalty program should feel like a native part of the shopping experience rather than a third-party add-on. Customization capabilities determine how well an app can blend into a store's existing design language.
User Interface and Storefront Presence
BON Loyalty provides a tailored loyalty page and supports integration at multiple touchpoints, including the homepage, product pages, and checkout. Their Growth plan allows for custom CSS, which is critical for brands with strict design guidelines. For merchants using modern architecture, BON’s support for Hydrogen and headless commerce ensures that the loyalty experience remains consistent even when the storefront is decoupled from the Shopify backend.
Toki Loyalty focuses on flexible loyalty campaigns and real-time analytics to guide customization decisions. While it offers customizable programs for social engagement and UGC, the provided data suggests its strength lies in the depth of its engagement metrics rather than purely visual developer tools. The presence of free live support and onboarding indicates that the Toki team assists merchants in aligning the app's appearance and function with their specific brand needs during the initial setup phase.
Developer Tools and Technical Flexibility
For larger enterprises or stores with unique requirements, the availability of technical tools is a deciding factor. BON Loyalty offers a Software Development Toolkit (SDK) and full API access in its Professional plan. This level of access is essential for businesses that want to build custom loyalty logic or integrate their rewards program into external applications.
Toki Loyalty does not explicitly list full API access or an SDK in the provided data, though it mentions "flexible referrals" and "fraud protection." This implies that while Toki might be highly configurable through its dashboard, it may not offer the same level of raw technical exposure for developers that BON Loyalty provides at its highest tier.
Pricing Structure and Total Cost of Ownership
Understanding the financial commitment of each app is vital for maintaining healthy margins. Both apps use a tiered pricing model, but they scale based on different metrics.
Analyzing BON Loyalty Pricing
The pricing for BON Loyalty is structured to grow alongside a merchant's complexity:
- The Free Forever plan is generous, including points, an anti-cheat referral program, and automated emails. It even includes points at checkout for Shopify Plus merchants, which is often a paid feature in other apps.
- The Basic plan at $25 per month introduces multi-language display and POS rewards, making it suitable for growing international brands.
- The Growth plan at $99 per month removes order limits and adds the B2B Tier Program and custom CSS support.
- The Professional plan at $349 per month is the enterprise offering, providing full API access and priority support.
Analyzing Toki Loyalty Pricing
Toki Loyalty uses a model that prioritizes feature access across different order volumes:
- The Free to install plan allows for up to 1000 orders per month and includes the most popular features.
- The Pay as you Go plan at $49 per month grants access to all features, which is a low barrier to entry for advanced functionality like memberships.
- The Growth plan at $299 per month and the Power plan at $599 per month likely scale based on order volume or specialized support needs, as they both indicate "Access to all features!" but at significantly higher price points.
When evaluating these costs, merchants should consider their monthly order volume. BON Loyalty’s Growth plan at $99 offers unlimited orders, which might provide a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows more effectively than Toki's higher-tier plans for high-volume stores. However, for smaller stores that need memberships immediately, Toki’s $49 tier is very competitive.
Integration Ecosystem and Workflow Compatibility
No app exists in a vacuum. The ability to connect with email marketing, helpdesks, and subscription tools is what makes a loyalty program truly effective.
BON Loyalty Integrations
BON Loyalty shows a strong affinity for the technical and review-focused side of the Shopify ecosystem. It works with:
- Shopify POS and Flow for operational automation.
- Review apps like Fera, LAI, and Judge.me.
- Page builders like PageFly for landing page integration.
- Klaviyo for email and SMS marketing.
The focus here is on creating a cohesive experience across the storefront and marketing channels, ensuring that loyalty data is used to drive reviews and personalized communication.
Toki Loyalty Integrations
Toki Loyalty’s integrations lean toward subscription and high-touch engagement tools. It works with:
- Recharge, which is vital for brands running subscription models or paid memberships.
- Postscript and Klaviyo for multi-channel communication.
- Shopify Flow and POS for internal logic and in-store rewards.
The inclusion of Recharge support reinforces Toki's positioning as a leader for brands that view loyalty as a membership experience rather than just a points-back system.
Trust, Reliability, and Support
Merchants often rely on reviews and support availability to gauge the risk of adding a new tool to their stack.
Toki Loyalty has a more established presence in terms of review volume, with 72 reviews and a 5-star rating. This provides a level of social proof regarding its reliability and the effectiveness of its "Free Live Support & Onboarding." For many merchants, this history of positive feedback reduces the perceived risk of implementation.
BON Loyalty, while holding a 5-star rating, only has 1 review in the provided data. This suggests it may be a newer entry or has a smaller user base. However, they counter this with a 24/7 live chat support offer in their Growth plan and priority support in the Professional plan. The availability of 24/7 support is a significant benefit for global brands operating across multiple time zones.
The Alternative: Solving App Fatigue with an All-in-One Platform
While specialized apps like BON Loyalty and Toki Loyalty offer powerful individual features, they can contribute to a phenomenon known as "app fatigue." As a brand grows, the tendency is to add one app for loyalty, another for reviews, another for wishlists, and yet another for referrals. This "tool sprawl" often leads to fragmented data, inconsistent customer experiences, and a complex technical stack that is difficult to maintain.
When a merchant manages five different apps, they are also managing five different subscriptions, five different sets of code in their theme, and five different support teams. This complexity can hinder growth rather than fuel it. A more streamlined approach involves moving toward an integrated platform that handles multiple retention functions under one roof. By comparing plan fit against retention goals, merchants often find that a consolidated stack offers a clearer view of total retention-stack costs while providing a more seamless experience for the end-user.
If consolidating tools is a priority, start by choosing a plan built for long-term value.
Growave provides a solution to this fragmentation by offering an integrated suite that includes loyalty, reviews, referrals, wishlists, and VIP tiers. This "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy ensures that customer data flows naturally between different modules. For example, when a customer leaves a review, they can be immediately rewarded with loyalty points without needing a complex integration between two separate apps. This creates loyalty programs that keep customers coming back because the rewards feel immediate and connected to their actions.
Furthermore, an integrated platform simplifies the merchant's workflow. Instead of jumping between dashboards to see how reviews are impacting loyalty participation, everything is accessible in one place. This allows for more cohesive VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers, as the brand can see a 360-degree view of the customer's interaction. Whether a merchant is looking for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews or implementing review automation that builds trust at purchase time, having these tools unified reduces the technical overhead of manual syncing.
The benefits of this approach are visible in real examples from brands improving retention. These stores often find that by reducing the number of scripts loading on their site, they improve page speed and conversion rates. Additionally, customer stories that show how teams reduce app sprawl highlight how marketing teams can be more agile when they only have one platform to learn and master. For brands looking to scale, seeing how the app is positioned for Shopify stores provides a blueprint for moving away from a patchwork of single-function apps toward a unified retention ecosystem.
Conclusion
For merchants choosing between BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Toki Loyalty Program & Rewards, the decision comes down to the specific nature of the business and its technical needs. BON Loyalty is the clear choice for brands that require specialized B2B functionality, wholesale tiering, and developer-level API access for headless commerce. Its structure is built to support technical complexity and high-volume wholesale operations efficiently.
On the other hand, Toki Loyalty Program & Rewards is the preferred option for merchants who want to leverage paid memberships and focus on community-driven engagement through surveys and UGC rewards. Its established review history and focus on ROI-driven analytics make it a reliable choice for brands that want a membership-first loyalty experience. Both apps are excellent at what they do, but they serve different strategic priorities.
However, as a brand matures, the cumulative cost and complexity of maintaining separate apps for loyalty, reviews, and other retention needs can become a bottleneck. Moving toward an integrated solution allows for a more unified customer journey and a more manageable tech stack. By checking merchant feedback and app-store performance signals, brands can see the long-term benefits of a consolidated platform.
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 B2B wholesale merchants?
BON Loyalty Program & Rewards is specifically designed with B2B capabilities, including a B2B Tier Program that allows merchants to create exclusive rewards and tiers for their wholesale clients. This makes it a more suitable choice for businesses that operate both retail and wholesale storefronts.
Can Toki Loyalty handle paid membership programs?
Yes, Toki Loyalty Program & Rewards includes robust features for paid memberships, allowing brands to offer monthly, annual, or lifetime plans. This includes management of trials and prorated billing, which is ideal for brands wanting to create an exclusive "inner circle" for their customers.
Is full API access available for custom integrations?
BON Loyalty Program & Rewards offers full API access and a Software Development Toolkit (SDK) on its Professional plan. This is essential for merchants who need to build custom loyalty workflows or integrate their rewards data with external platforms or headless storefronts.
How does an all-in-one platform compare to specialized apps?
An all-in-one platform reduces "app sprawl" by combining multiple functions like loyalty, reviews, and wishlists into a single dashboard. This typically results in a lower total cost of ownership, faster site speeds due to fewer scripts, and more consistent data across the customer journey. While specialized apps may offer niche features, an integrated platform provides a more cohesive experience for both the merchant and the customer.








