ESC Wishlist + Save for Later vs. First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards: Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right wishlist app is one of those deceptively small decisions that can affect checkout conversions, email list segmentation, and social sharing outcomes. Shopify merchants face a crowded marketplace of single-purpose tools and must weigh trade-offs between simplicity, customization, analytics, and long-term value.

Short answer: ESC Wishlist + Save for Later is a lean, low-cost option for merchants who want a simple cart-level "save for later" widget and basic social sharing. First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards targets stores that want visitor-friendly wishlists, curated boards, and a dashboard with usage metrics. For merchants who want to avoid feature fragmentation and reduce maintenance overhead, Growave presents stronger value by bundling wishlists with loyalty, referrals, and reviews into one integrated retention platform.

This post provides an objective, feature-by-feature comparison of ESC Wishlist + Save for Later (Eastside Co®) and First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards (Vellir). The goal is to clarify each app’s strengths, limitations, and best-fit merchant profile, then explain why merchants struggling with multiple single-purpose apps may prefer a consolidated solution. The comparison is grounded in the available feature descriptions, pricing, and user ratings.

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later vs. First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Product Positioning and Core Intent

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later: Focused and minimal

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later emphasizes a small set of behaviors: let shoppers save items for later, organize items into unlimited lists, and surface saved items at checkout by placing the "saved for later" area under the cart. The app highlights customization of appearance and social sharing as ways to increase reach. The core intent is to reduce friction for shoppers who aren’t ready to buy immediately and to give them a path back to purchase.

Strengths of this posture are low complexity and straightforward placement in the checkout flow. The trade-off is that deeper features like multi-device sync, extensive reporting, or advanced sharing controls are not highlighted in the app description.

First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards: Boards, sync, and analytics

First Wish positions itself as a wishlist solution that works for both anonymous visitors and logged-in customers, with the additional capability for logged-in users to synchronize their wishlist across devices. The app adds curated “boards” for organizing lists and sharing those boards via social media, email, or messaging apps. An admin dashboard claims insights into customer wishlists and product performance.

The broader scope aims at stores that want list curation and performance visibility without building custom dashboards. The trade-off here is potential limits on monthly wishlist adds unless merchants move up paid tiers.

Feature Comparison

Compare the two apps across the wishlist feature set merchants commonly evaluate.

Wishlist creation and list management

• ESC: Offers unlimited wishlists so customers can categorize products. The description suggests list organization is available but does not specify board-style curated lists or collaboration features.
• First Wish: Explicitly supports curated boards and unlimited board creation on paid tiers, plus sharing functionality. It supports both anonymous and authenticated customers with synchronization for logged-in users.

Practical takeaway: First Wish provides more organized list management with boards and cross-device sync, while ESC focuses on simple unlimited lists without emphasis on synchronization.

Save-for-later placement and checkout behavior

• ESC: Places the "saved for later" section under the cart so saved items are visible at checkout, potentially reducing friction to convert saved items into purchases.
• First Wish: Emphasizes saving items for later and sharing, but the description does not call out a dedicated cart-level "save for later" placement.

Practical takeaway: ESC’s cart placement is a direct attempt to influence conversion at checkout. If the chief goal is to recapture cart-ready shoppers, ESC’s placement is an advantage.

Anonymous shoppers vs. logged-in users

• ESC: The description does not explicitly detail cross-device sync or how anonymous users are handled.
• First Wish: Explicitly supports both anonymous visitors and registered customers, with wishlist synchronization for logged-in users.

Practical takeaway: For stores that rely significantly on guest traffic or want cross-device continuity, First Wish has a clearer proposition.

Sharing and social reach

• ESC: Mentions free social sharing to increase brand reach.
• First Wish: Enables sharing curated boards via social, email, or messaging. Sharing is built into the board model.

Practical takeaway: Both apps support sharing, but First Wish’s board model is more explicitly designed for sharing curated lists (gift registries, mood boards, etc.).

Analytics and admin insights

• ESC: No explicit mention of admin dashboards or activity reports in the provided description.
• First Wish: Offers an admin dashboard with insights into customer wishlists, best performing products, and activity reports.

Practical takeaway: Merchants wanting to understand wishlist-driven engagement and product performance will find First Wish’s analytics more useful out of the box.

Customization and localization

• ESC: Notes a broad range of options to customize how the app looks on the store.
• First Wish: Mentions customizable or translatable labels, which supports localization.

Practical takeaway: Both apps allow visual and label customization. First Wish’s explicit localization features are helpful for multi-language stores.

Pricing & Value

Pricing is where merchants weigh immediate costs against growth and scalability.

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Single listed plan: Monthly plan at $5 / month.
• Positioning: Very low monthly cost and simple billing. No multiple tiers or usage caps are listed.

Business implication: This pricing is attractive for frugal merchants who only need an inexpensive, minimal wishlist/save-for-later feature. However, low price often means fewer advanced features, limited support, or slower product development.

First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards

• Free plan: Wishlist for anonymous and logged-in customers, up to 1,000 wishlist adds per month.
• Beginner: $9.90 / month — 5,000 adds/month, unlimited boards, sharing.
• Advanced: $19.90 / month — 20,000 adds/month.
• Pro: $29.90 / month — 50,000 adds/month.

Business implication: First Wish scales with usage. The free tier offers an entry point for testing; paid tiers introduce guarantees on volume plus more features. For stores with high wishlist traffic, the tiered pricing aligns spend with usage. The trade-off is the complexity of measuring wishlist adds and moving plans as volume increases.

Comparing value for money

ESC’s single $5 plan is lower cost but narrower in scope. First Wish’s tiered approach costs more at scale but delivers analytics, syncing, and structured boards. For a merchant deciding strictly on cost, ESC is the cheaper monthly outlay. For merchants who need analytics, device synchronization, or expect high wishlist activity, First Wish potentially offers better value for money because it reduces the need for supplementary apps.

Important non-price considerations:

• Maintenance overhead: Two lightweight apps can still add integration and testing maintenance. Single-vendor solutions reduce that overhead.
• Growth path: If wishlist activity becomes a lever for sales, migrating from a $5 app to a more feature-rich platform later carries migration costs.

Integrations & Technical Considerations

App compatibility and checkout behavior

• ESC: Describes placement under the cart, which suggests direct interaction with cart templates. Compatibility with headless stores, checkout scripts, or certain theme builders is not specified.
• First Wish: Mentions dashboard and device synchronization, implying backend persistence and potential session/customer account hooks. Specific integrations are not listed.

Practical takeaway: Merchants using page builders, custom themes, or headless setups should request installation guides and compatibility confirmation prior to install.

APIs and third-party integration

Neither app description lists explicit integrations with email providers, review tools, or loyalty systems. That suggests that merchants who want to connect wishlist events to marketing automation (abandoned wishlist emails, personalized Klaviyo flows) may need to implement custom work or use other tools.

Practical takeaway: If a merchant expects wishlist events to trigger marketing flows or loyalty actions, confirm whether each app offers webhooks, tag-based exports, or native integrations.

Data ownership and export options

The descriptions do not specify data export or ownership terms. For merchants that prioritize access to customer activity data, this is a key pre-install question.

Performance and theme impact

No performance metrics are provided. Lightweight apps like ESC often have lower code footprints, but actual impact depends on implementation. For First Wish, the synchronization feature suggests a backend component that could add complexity.

Practical takeaway: Conduct performance tests on a staging theme, particularly if the store already uses multiple apps that inject scripts. Ask vendor support for best practices to limit front-end load.

User Support, Trust Signals, and Reviews

Review counts and ratings (as provided)

• ESC Wishlist + Save for Later: 2 reviews, Rating: 1.
• First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards: 1 review, Rating: 1.
• Growave (for context): 1,197 reviews, Rating: 4.8.

Objective takeaways:

• Low review counts for both ESC and First Wish mean there is limited public feedback to judge reliability and support responsiveness. Ratings of 1 (based on the small review sample) are red flags that should prompt merchants to read the individual reviews and test support before committing.
• Growave’s review counts and high rating indicate stronger social proof and broader merchant adoption.

Support options and responsiveness

Neither ESC nor First Wish list explicit support levels in the provided descriptions. For any app with low review volume, the support experience is a major risk factor. Merchants should validate:

• Response SLA (hours/days).
• Support channels (email, live chat, phone).
• Availability of installation assistance and troubleshooting.

Implementation & UX Impact

Installation complexity

• ESC: Promises easy customization. Assuming basic theme injection aligns well with simple save-for-later widgets.
• First Wish: Describes easy installation and admin dashboards. The synchronization feature implies some account-level configuration.

Merchants should always test apps on a duplicate theme or request a developer to confirm the theme integration to avoid live-site regressions.

Front-end UX and conversion influence

• ESC’s cart-integrated saved items are visible at checkout, which is likely to have a measurable effect on converting indecisive shoppers.
• First Wish’s sharing and board features encourage social engagement and wishlist discovery, which are more aligned with acquisition and gifting use cases.

UX decision rule:

• To prioritize checkout recovery and immediate purchase conversion, favor tools that surface saved items at checkout.
• To prioritize social sharing, gifting, and product discovery, favor board-based sharing and cross-device sync.

Data & Reporting

Event insights

• ESC: No mention of admin-level reporting.
• First Wish: Offers an admin dashboard with activity reports and product-level performance.

Merchants focused on understanding which products are consistently saved and converting wishlist behavior into merchandising or promotion strategies will prefer First Wish’s analytics. If reporting is a must-have, request screenshots or a demo of the dashboard before committing.

Security, Compliance, and Privacy

Neither app description mentions data retention policies, GDPR compliance, or specific security certifications. For any app accessing customer data or interacting with customer accounts, verify:

• Data handling and storage locations.
• Privacy and cookie policy alignment.
• Ability to purge customer data on request.

Practical implementation checklist for merchants

• Confirm whether wishlist entries are stored server-side (persisted against customer accounts) or only locally (cookies).
• Ask how anonymous wishlists are tied to customers if they later create accounts.
• Request data export formats and retention windows.

Summary of Strengths and Weaknesses

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

• Pros:
  • Very low monthly cost ($5).
  • Simple cart placement that surfaces saved items at checkout.
  • Unlimited wishlists and customization of appearance.
• Cons:
  • Minimal review traction; rating indicates possible concerns.
  • Limited information about analytics, sync, or integrations.
  • Potential lack of robust support and documentation.

First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards

• Pros:
  • Free entry-level plan that supports anonymous and logged-in users.
  • Curated boards, sharing, and cross-device synchronization.
  • Admin dashboard with activity reporting.
  • Scales with monthly wishlist add limits across tiered plans.
• Cons:
  • Usage caps may complicate forecasting for high-traffic stores.
  • Low public review count and rating; limited social proof.
  • Potentially higher monthly cost as usage grows.

Use Cases and Recommendations

Merchants often look for a short guidance to map business needs to app fit.

• Small stores with occasional wishlists and a tight budget:
  • ESC’s $5 plan offers the lowest barrier to entry and a cart-level UX to recover near-checkout interest.
• Stores that want cross-device continuity, curated lists, and basic analytics:
  • First Wish suits merchants who want customers to create shareable boards, especially for gifting and social reach.
• Stores that need deep integration with marketing automation, loyalty systems, or plan to scale wishlist-driven personalization:
  • Neither app lists broad integrations; consider a platform that bundles wishlist with loyalty, referrals, and reviews to minimize fragmentation.
• Stores that rely on guest traffic and expect high wishlist volumes:
  • First Wish’s explicit anonymous support and tiered capacity make forecasting easier but merchants should calculate expected wishlist add volumes against plan limits.

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

The problem: app fatigue and hidden costs

Many merchants start with a single-purpose app to solve an immediate need: save-for-later, wishlists, referral tracking, or reviews. Over time, the storefront can accumulate multiple apps that each solve one problem. This leads to several negative outcomes:

• Increased monthly bills and duplicated feature costs.
• Higher technical maintenance: script collisions, theme updates, and slower page loads.
• Fragmented customer data: wishlist behavior siloed from loyalty or email flows.
• Complex vendor management: multiple support contracts and varying SLAs.

This situation—app fatigue—erodes both developer time and merchant focus. It also reduces the ability to run coherent retention strategies that combine behaviors across wishlists, reviews, and loyalty.

The solution: consolidate retention features

Consolidating wishlist functionality with rewards, reviews, and referrals reduces friction and centralizes customer signals. An integrated approach lets merchants:

• Trigger rewards or referral incentives based on wishlist actions.
• Use wishlist data to personalize review requests or loyalty campaigns.
• Keep one integration point with marketing platforms to simplify automation.

Merchants considering consolidation should look for a partner that provides robust wishlist features plus loyalty, referrals, and reviews so that wishlist events become actionable inputs for retention programs.

Growave’s "More Growth, Less Stack" proposition

Growave positions itself as an integrated retention platform that combines wishlists with loyalty, referrals, reviews, and VIP tiers. The philosophy is to drive sustainable growth while reducing the number of separate apps required to manage customer engagement.

Key components of the value proposition:

• Bundled tools that reduce vendor and script sprawl.
• Built-in integrations with common marketing and commerce tools.
• Enterprise-level features for scaling merchants and Shopify Plus stores.

Merchants assessing Growave should look at how wishlist events are tied to loyalty actions, how reviews and UGC can be collected and showcased, and what native integrations simplify marketing workflows.

How consolidation changes operational workflows

When wishlists, loyalty, and reviews live in one platform, merchants can:

• Award points or trigger referral invites when a customer saves a product to a wishlist.
• Automatically send targeted emails or flows when high-value products are added to wishlists (assuming the platform connects to the merchant’s ESP).
• Use wishlist popularity to influence promotional strategies, staff picks, or VIP communications.

These capabilities make wishlist data an active lever, not a passive report.

Growave feature highlights in context

Growave’s suite brings together several features that directly address the limitations commonly found in single-purpose wishlist apps:

• Loyalty and Rewards: merchants can create points-based programs, custom reward actions, and VIP tiers to increase retention. See how merchants can build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.
• Reviews and UGC: it offers tools to collect, moderate, and display reviews, which turns social proof into a sales driver. Merchants can more easily collect and showcase authentic reviews.
• Wishlist functionality: integrated wishlists that connect to loyalty and referral logic so wishlist actions can trigger rewards or personalized campaigns.
• Referrals: built-in referral campaigns that can work alongside wishlists to turn engaged shoppers into advocates.
• Shopify Plus and enterprise support: for high-growth merchants, Growave supplies features and services tailored to larger stores; review solutions for high-growth Plus brands.
• Customer evidence and inspiration: real-world examples highlight how brands combine features to boost retention — read customer stories from brands scaling retention.

Because these features are combined, merchants eliminate the need to stitch together events across multiple apps. That reduces front-end scripts and makes it easier to maintain both performance and a single source of truth for customer engagement.

Integration and technical advantages

Growave lists compatibility across a range of commerce and marketing tools, which reduces the need for complex custom integrations:

• Connectors and integrations include checkout-level features, customer accounts, and popular ESPs and support tools.
• For merchants relying on headless or advanced architectures, the platform provides APIs and SDKs on higher-tier plans.

When migrating from single-purpose wishlist apps, consider:

• How customer wishlist data will be migrated or recreated.
• Whether the new platform offers APIs or CSV import tools to preserve historical behavior.
• Impact on existing flows and whether the platform supports advanced triggers in the ESP.

Built-in reporting and actionability

An integrated platform turns passive wishlist metrics into actionable data points for merchandising and marketing. Instead of separate analytics dashboards across multiple apps, merchants get consolidated insights and can design cross-functional campaigns—loyalty, referral, and review—driven by a single customer action.

How consolidation affects cost and time-to-value

The pricing dynamics of a consolidated platform differ from that of small point apps:

• Upfront subscription cost is higher than a single $5 wishlist app but often replaces several subscriptions.
• Reduced developer time for maintenance and consolidation reduces ongoing operational costs.
• Faster time-to-value when wishlist actions can immediately feed loyalty and email programs without engineering work.

Merchants should model the combined cost of the single-purpose apps being replaced to compare true value.

Try before committing: demos and trials

Merchants who want to validate the integrated approach can compare features directly by:

• Asking for demos that showcase wishlist-to-loyalty flows and reporting.
• Reviewing customer case studies for stores with similar volume and business models.
• Checking the app listing and install experience to see how easily the platform integrates with existing tools and themes.

For merchants ready to explore a consolidated stack, it’s possible to book a personalized demo to evaluate how wishlist data can become part of a broader retention program. Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated retention stack improves retention.

Pricing and trial options for consolidation

Growave offers tiered plans aimed at stores that are ready to consolidate:

• An entry-level plan to start combining loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlist.
• Growth and Plus plans for merchants with higher order volumes and advanced customization needs. Merchants can compare plan levels and features to determine which consolidation stage fits their scale and budget on the official pricing page. Merchants can also choose to install a unified retention app from the Shopify App Store.

To assess the financial case for consolidation, merchants should:

• Sum the monthly cost of existing single-purpose apps.
• Estimate savings in developer time and reduced performance remediation.
• Consider incremental revenue from combined campaigns that would be difficult to deliver with fragmented tools.

For more detail on pricing and plan features, review the plan options to decide which tier aligns with growth projections by visiting the pricing page to consolidate retention features.

Assessing Risk: Migration, Data, and Change Management

Migration considerations

Moving from single-function wishlist apps to an integrated platform requires planning:

• Data continuity: confirm whether the new platform can import past wishlist entries or whether customers must rebuild lists.
• Customer communication: if wishlists will be affected, prepare a communication strategy to inform customers and preserve trust.
• QA and testing: test on a staging environment to avoid breaking the storefront or existing flows.

Vendor reliability and support

A major reason merchants choose consolidation is vendor reliability—but vendor size and maturity matter:

• Larger platforms provide documented SLAs, onboarding assistance, and migration support.
• Small one-feature apps may not offer dedicated migration help; merchant developers must handle migrations.

Growave advertises enterprise support for higher-tier plans and integrations suited to scaling merchants. To evaluate risk, check available support types and prior implementations by viewing customer stories from brands scaling retention.

Security and compliance

When consolidating, ensure the selected platform meets regulatory requirements and data protection standards in all operating markets. Ask vendors for their privacy policies, data processing addendums, and procedures for data requests.

Final Feature-by-Feature Snapshot

• Wishlist creation:
  • ESC: Unlimited lists, cart placement.
  • First Wish: Boards, anonymous + logged-in support, sync, sharing.
• Checkout influence:
  • ESC: Visible saved items under cart to prompt purchase.
  • First Wish: Not explicitly cart-integrated in description.
• Analytics:
  • ESC: Not specified.
  • First Wish: Admin dashboard with activity reports.
• Sharing:
  • ESC: Social sharing available.
  • First Wish: Boards optimized for sharing via multiple channels.
• Pricing:
  • ESC: Single $5 monthly plan.
  • First Wish: Free → $9.90 → $19.90 → $29.90 tiers based on wishlist adds.
• Integrations:
  • ESC & First Wish: No explicit list; merchants should confirm API/webhook and ESP compatibility.
• Support & trust:
  • ESC: 2 reviews, rating 1 — limited social proof.
  • First Wish: 1 review, rating 1 — limited social proof.
  • Growave: 1,197 reviews, rating 4.8 — broader adoption for context.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and First Wish ‑ Wishlist & Boards, the decision comes down to two primary questions: How simple or feature-rich does the wishlist need to be? And how important is integrated analytics and cross-device behavior?

• Best for minimal-cost, cart-focused recovery: ESC Wishlist + Save for Later offers an ultra-low-cost entry with cart-level "saved for later" placement. It’s suitable for small merchants who want immediate checkout-focused gains without additional analytics or cross-device sync.
• Best for organized, shared wishlists with reporting: First Wish provides curated boards, sharing, and an admin dashboard that helps merchants understand wishlist activity. It’s a better fit for brands that want gifting, social sharing, and analytics built into the wishlist experience.
• Best for merchants who want retention as a coherent strategy rather than a set of point solutions: Growave consolidates wishlist, loyalty, referrals, and reviews into a single platform. That reduces app sprawl, centralizes customer signals, and enables wishlist events to become actionable triggers in loyalty or referral campaigns. Compare plan options and sign-up details to evaluate fit on the pricing page to consolidate retention features. Merchants who prefer to install a unified retention app can install a unified retention app from the Shopify App Store or review solutions for high-growth Plus brands for enterprise needs.

Start a 14-day free trial to explore how an integrated retention stack replaces multiple single-purpose apps and streamlines growth. Consolidate retention features

FAQ

Q: Which app is better for guest shoppers who may not log in?

• First Wish explicitly supports both anonymous visitors and logged-in customers, which means it is built with guest usage in mind and offers synchronization for logged-in users. ESC’s description does not explicitly mention anonymous handling or synchronization.

Q: If the goal is to increase conversions at checkout, which app has an edge?

• ESC’s placement of saved items under the cart is designed to surface saved products during checkout, reducing friction to convert saved items. That direct cart-level visibility gives ESC an advantage for checkout conversion use cases.

Q: How do pricing models affect scalability?

• ESC’s single $5 plan is inexpensive for low-volume use but offers limited visibility into scalability. First Wish’s tiered pricing scales with wishlist adds, which clarifies costs as list activity grows but may require plan upgrades. Merchants should model expected wishlist volume before choosing.

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

• An all-in-one platform turns wishlist behavior into actionable events tied to loyalty, referrals, and reviews, reducing integration work and vendor management. Rather than paying and maintaining multiple apps, merchants benefit from consolidated reporting, fewer scripts, and cohesive retention strategies. For merchants considering consolidation, reviewing how wishlist events can trigger loyalty or review flows in the same platform is essential; merchants can collect and showcase authentic reviews and combine them with loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases to create a single retention engine.