BON Loyalty Program & Rewards vs. Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Selecting the right retention tools for a Shopify store involves more than just looking at a feature list. It requires a clear understanding of how loyalty mechanics, referral programs, and VIP structures align with long-term business goals and technical requirements. Merchants often find themselves caught between specialized apps that offer deep functionality in one area and broader platforms that aim to cover the entire customer lifecycle. The choice between BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals represents a typical decision point for growing brands looking to improve repeat purchase rates and customer lifetime value.

Short answer: Choosing between these two often comes down to specific business needs, such as BON Loyalty’s focus on B2B tiers and headless commerce or Trustoo Loyalty’s established reputation for ease of use and integrated popups. Both apps offer robust entry-level solutions, but larger stores may find that managing multiple disconnected apps leads to increased operational overhead and fragmented customer data.

This comparison explores the technical capabilities, pricing structures, and practical use cases for both BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals. By examining the strengths and limitations of each, merchants can better determine which tool aligns with their current tech stack and future growth trajectory.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards vs. Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison: Core Features and Workflows

Loyalty Points and Reward Systems

Both applications provide a foundation for point-based reward systems, allowing customers to earn points for purchases and redeem them for discounts. BON Loyalty Program & Rewards emphasizes a multi-touchpoint integration, ensuring that points are visible and earnable across homepages, product pages, and the checkout area. This creates a consistent presence that reminds shoppers of their rewards balance throughout the buying journey. For Shopify Plus merchants, BON offers the specific advantage of points at checkout, which streamlines the redemption process and reduces friction at the final stage of the sale.

Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals approaches points with a focus on engagement and sales boosts. It includes features like limited-time campaigns, which can be useful for seasonal promotions or inventory clearance. Trustoo also integrates points with other engagement tools, such as review rewards, encouraging customers to provide feedback in exchange for currency. This cross-pollination of actions helps build a more active community around the brand.

Earning and Redemption Mechanics

• BON Loyalty allows for specific collection or product exclusions, which is critical for maintaining margins on high-cost or low-margin items.
• Trustoo provides rewards for custom actions on its higher-tier plans, giving merchants flexibility in how they define customer engagement.
• Both apps support standard rewards like "money off," "percentage off," and "free shipping."
• BON includes free product rewards in its Basic plan, while Trustoo offers similar perks focused on boosting customer lifetime value.

Referral Programs and Acquisition

Referral programs are essential for lowering customer acquisition costs by leveraging the trust existing customers have with their peers. Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals places a heavy emphasis on driving organic growth. By rewarding both the referrer and the invitee, it creates a dual incentive that makes the program more attractive for all parties. The inclusion of popups and automated emails within the Trustoo ecosystem ensures that the referral program is promoted actively without requiring the merchant to set up third-party marketing automation.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards includes an "Anti-Cheat" referral program even on its free tier. This is a significant consideration for merchants worried about referral fraud, which can quickly drain marketing budgets. BON also automates the email notifications for referrals, ensuring that both the advocate and the new lead are kept informed of their status and rewards.

VIP Tiers and Customer Retention

VIP tiers provide a structured way to reward high-intent customers and encourage long-term loyalty. BON Loyalty’s VIP tier program is designed to accelerate points and rewards for top-tier shoppers. A unique aspect of BON is its B2B Tier Program, which targets wholesale sales. This is a specialized feature not commonly found in general loyalty apps, making it a strong contender for brands that operate both retail and wholesale arms on Shopify.

Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals also offers VIP tiers, positioning them as a way to turn first-time shoppers into lifelong fans. These tiers are supported by exclusive member perks and tiered rewards. While Trustoo lacks the specific B2B focus of BON, its VIP structure is well-integrated with its analytics dashboard, allowing merchants to see how different segments of customers are performing over time.

Customization and Brand Experience

Loyalty Page and User Interface

A loyalty program only works if customers can find it and understand it. BON Loyalty Program & Rewards offers a brand-tailored loyalty page that can be customized to match the store's aesthetic. On its Growth plan, BON unlocks custom CSS with developer support, allowing for deep design tweaks that ensure the loyalty experience feels native to the storefront.

Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals provides a dedicated rewards page and branding options starting from its Starter plan. It also includes popups as a core part of the user experience. These popups serve as immediate calls to action, notifying customers of their points balance or inviting them to join the referral program as soon as they land on the site.

Multi-Language and Global Reach

For brands selling internationally, multi-language support is a requirement. Both BON and Trustoo include multi-language display options. This allows merchants to translate loyalty widgets, emails, and program descriptions into the native languages of their customers, ensuring that the value proposition of the loyalty program is not lost in translation. This is particularly important for stores operating in diverse markets across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Brand Experience Considerations

• BON Loyalty supports Hydrogen and headless commerce, providing full API access for brands with custom-built frontends.
• Trustoo emphasizes a "no coding required" approach, making it more accessible for small teams without dedicated developers.
• Both platforms offer 24/7 support to assist with customization and technical setup.

Integration and Ecosystem Compatibility

Tech Stack Alignment

Integrating a loyalty app with the rest of the Shopify stack is vital for maintaining a clean workflow. Both apps integrate with Shopify POS, which is essential for brands that sell both online and in physical retail locations. This synchronization ensures that a customer can earn points in-store and spend them online, or vice versa, creating a true omnichannel experience.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards lists a wide range of "Works With" partners, including several product review apps like Fera, LAI, and Judge.me. It also integrates with PageFly for landing page building and Klaviyo for email marketing. The inclusion of Shopify Flow integration on the free tier is a powerful addition for merchants who want to automate complex backend tasks based on loyalty events.

Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals integrates with its namesake review app (Trustoo) as well as Judge.me. It also lists Willdesk for live chat and helpdesk support, and Seal Subscriptions for recurring billing. This suggests that Trustoo is well-suited for merchants who are already using other apps within the Channelwill ecosystem, as the integrations are likely to be more seamless.

Data Flow and Automation

Automation is the key to scaling a retention strategy without increasing headcount. BON provides automated emails for points and referrals across all plans. Trustoo also utilizes automated emails and adds the benefit of checkout extensions on its Plus plan, allowing for more advanced integrations within the Shopify checkout flow.

Integration Strengths

• BON Loyalty: Stronger for headless builds and B2B workflows with its SDK and full API access.
• Trustoo Loyalty: Stronger for merchants seeking an integrated "helpdesk and reviews" stack through the Channelwill ecosystem.
• Both apps offer Klaviyo integration, which is the industry standard for retention-focused email marketing.

Pricing and Value Analysis

Free Tier Comparison

Both apps offer free entry points, but the limitations differ significantly. BON Loyalty’s Free Forever plan includes points, rewards, an anti-cheat referral program, and automated emails. Crucially, it does not list a specific order limit in the provided data, although it does limit some advanced features like the Loyalty Page and POS rewards to the paid tiers.

Trustoo Loyalty’s free tier is limited to 25 monthly orders, though this can be unlocked to 50. This makes it a good "proof of concept" plan for very small stores, but most growing brands will quickly outgrow these limits. The Trustoo free plan does include custom CSS, which is a rare feature to find at no cost.

Scaling Through the Tiers

As a store grows, the costs of these apps diverge. Trustoo’s Starter and Growth plans are priced at $19 and $39 respectively, making it a relatively affordable option for mid-sized stores. These tiers unlock critical features like POS integration, analytics, and VIP tiers.

BON Loyalty’s pricing scales from $25 to $99 and then jumps to $349 for the Professional tier. The $99 Growth plan is where BON introduces its B2B Tier Program and unlimited orders. The $349 Professional tier is clearly aimed at enterprise-level merchants, offering a software development toolkit (SDK), Hydrogen support, and priority support.

Budgeting for Retention

• Merchants should focus on comparing plan fit against retention goals to ensure they aren't paying for features they don't use.
• Trustoo offers a lower entry price for VIP tiers ($39) compared to BON ($99).
• BON provides more technical "future-proofing" with its API and SDK on the higher tiers.
• Identifying the selecting plans that reduce stacked tooling costs is essential for maintaining healthy margins.

Reliability and Support Cues

Social Proof and Market Adoption

Trust signals are often found in the review sections of the Shopify App Store. Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals has a significant volume of feedback, with 727 reviews and a 4.8 rating. This high volume suggests a well-tested product with a broad user base. Merchants can gain confidence by scanning reviews to understand real-world adoption and seeing how the app handles common issues.

In contrast, BON Loyalty Program & Rewards has a very low review count in the provided data (1 review). While the rating is a perfect 5, the lack of volume makes it harder to gauge the app's performance at scale or the consistency of its support. However, BON highlights its 24/7 live chat support and dedicated developer support for custom CSS, which are strong indicators of a service-oriented approach.

Technical Performance and Operational Overhead

Every app added to a Shopify store introduces some level of technical debt and potential impact on site speed. BON Loyalty addresses this by offering customization services and developer support to ensure their loyalty point program runs efficiently. Their support for headless commerce also indicates a focus on performance-optimized environments.

Trustoo Loyalty’s "no coding required" promise is a double-edged sword. While it makes the app easy to install, it may lead to less flexibility for brands with complex technical requirements. Merchants should always be verifying compatibility details in the official app listing before committing to a long-term contract.

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

While choosing between BON and Trustoo is a valid path for many merchants, it often highlights a larger problem in e-commerce management: app fatigue. As a brand grows, the tendency is to add a specialized app for every new requirement. You might have one app for loyalty, another for reviews, a third for wishlists, and a fourth for Instagram galleries. This "tool sprawl" leads to fragmented data, inconsistent customer experiences, and a significantly higher total cost of ownership.

The philosophy of "More Growth, Less Stack" offers a different approach. Instead of managing five different subscriptions and five different support teams, merchants can use an integrated platform that handles multiple retention levers simultaneously. By using loyalty programs that keep customers coming back alongside other features in a single suite, stores can ensure that their data flows seamlessly between modules. For example, when a customer leaves a review, that data can immediately trigger loyalty points or move them into a higher VIP tier without needing complex third-party integrations.

Using an all-in-one platform helps brands maintain a unified brand voice. Instead of having popups from one app and loyalty widgets from another that look slightly different, a single platform provides a cohesive UI across the entire site. This consistency builds trust and makes the shopping experience feel more professional. Furthermore, it simplifies the merchant's workflow. Instead of logging into multiple dashboards to check performance, all retention metrics—from referral sales to wishlist conversions—are available in one place.

Strategic growth is often about evaluating feature coverage across plans to find the most efficient path forward. For many, this means moving away from a "frankenstein" stack of single-purpose apps. By consolidating tools, teams can spend less time on troubleshooting integrations and more time on high-level strategy. This transition is often supported by VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers, which work more effectively when they are part of a broader, integrated retention engine.

When loyalty is tied directly to other social signals, such as collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, the impact on conversion is magnified. New visitors are more likely to trust a brand that shows a clear connection between its loyal community and its product quality. This is where review automation that builds trust at purchase time becomes a powerful asset. By seeing practical retention playbooks from growing storefronts, merchants can learn how to leverage these integrated tools for maximum impact.

The move toward an integrated stack is also a matter of financial efficiency. When a merchant looks at a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows, they often find that a single platform subscription is more cost-effective than four or five separate app fees. This is especially true when considering the hidden costs of management time and developer resources required to maintain a complex app stack. Brands that have moved to a consolidated model often share customer stories that show how teams reduce app sprawl while actually seeing better results in their retention metrics.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals, the decision comes down to the specific needs of the business and the technical environment of the store. BON Loyalty is an excellent choice for merchants who need B2B functionality, have a headless Shopify store, or require deep API access for custom integrations. Its focus on specialized tiers and developer-friendly tools makes it a strong contender for enterprise-level or complex storefronts.

On the other hand, Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals is a robust and well-vetted solution for brands that value ease of use, integrated marketing popups, and a proven track record evidenced by hundreds of positive reviews. Its lower price points for mid-tier features make it accessible for growing stores that want a solid loyalty and referral program without a heavy technical lift.

However, as any seasoned e-commerce strategist will advise, the long-term challenge is not just choosing an app, but managing the complexity of the entire retention stack. Fragmented tools often lead to fragmented customer experiences. Moving toward an integrated platform allows for a more holistic approach to customer lifetime value. By connecting loyalty, reviews, and referrals in one place, merchants can create a seamless journey that feels natural to the shopper and manageable for the brand.

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 Shopify Plus store?

Both apps offer features that cater to Shopify Plus merchants. BON Loyalty Program & Rewards offers points at checkout and Hydrogen support, which are highly valued by Plus users for their customization and checkout control. Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals offers checkout extensions on its Plus plan ($299/month), providing similar deep integration into the checkout flow. The choice depends on whether the merchant prioritizes headless commerce (BON) or a more out-of-the-box integrated engagement suite (Trustoo).

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

Specialized apps often provide deeper functionality in one specific area, but an all-in-one platform reduces technical complexity and costs by housing multiple tools under one roof. The primary advantage of an all-in-one platform is data synchronization; for example, a customer's review activity can immediately influence their loyalty status. This eliminates the need for third-party "glue" apps or custom coding to make different tools talk to each other.

Can I use these apps with Shopify POS?

Yes, both BON Loyalty Program & Rewards and Trustoo Loyalty & Referrals support Shopify POS. This allows merchants to bridge the gap between their online and offline sales channels. Customers can earn points during in-person purchases at a physical store and then redeem those points when shopping on the website later, or vice versa, supporting a consistent omnichannel loyalty experience.

Does BON Loyalty support multi-language stores?

Yes, BON Loyalty Program & Rewards includes multi-language display options. This is a critical feature for brands that operate in international markets, as it allows all customer-facing elements of the loyalty program—such as the rewards page, notifications, and widgets—to be translated into the customer's local language, improving engagement and understanding.