ESC Wishlist + Save for Later vs. Swish (formerly Wishlist King): An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right wishlist app is a common decision point for Shopify merchants aiming to boost conversion, reduce cart abandonment, and increase repeat visits. With hundreds of wishlist options in the app store, selecting the tool that matches a store’s technical needs and growth goals requires more than a glance at price and features.

Short answer: ESC Wishlist + Save for Later is a simple, low-cost tool built for merchants who only need basic save-for-later and social sharing at checkout, while Swish (formerly Wishlist King) targets brands that want enterprise-style wishlist features, deeper analytics, and stronger integrations. For merchants looking to reduce tool sprawl and unlock cross-channel retention, a unified platform like Growave is frequently a better value for money than adopting single-purpose apps.

This article provides a feature-by-feature, data-driven comparison of ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Swish (formerly Wishlist King). The goal is to give merchants a clear picture of capabilities, trade-offs, typical use cases, and how each app performs on integration, support, and value. After the direct comparison, the piece explains how consolidating wishlist, loyalty, reviews, and referrals into one retention platform can change outcomes for growth-oriented brands.

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later vs. Swish (formerly Wishlist King): At a Glance

Feature Comparison

Core Wishlist Functionality

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later

ESC focuses on two primary behaviors: allowing customers to save items for later (specifically visible under the cart) and enabling social sharing of saved lists. Core capabilities include unlimited wishlists and UI customization options to match a store theme. The central UX pattern centers around converting saved items into next-session purchases by keeping them visible at checkout.

Strengths:

• Clear, focused feature set that addresses a common friction point: customers who aren’t ready to buy now.
• Simple placement under the cart keeps saved items actionable at checkout.

Limitations:

• Limited automation and lifecycle options for nudging users after they save items.
• Minimal analytics or wish list curation tools, so it’s harder to measure impact beyond basic usage.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish presents a fuller wishlist experience designed for brands that treat wishlists as an active growth channel. It enables customers to wishlist items across the shopping journey, not only from the cart, and includes automated, personalized notifications to recover interest. Swish also offers wishlist curation and analytics for merchandising decisions.

Strengths:

• Automated wishlist notifications help drive conversion when items come back in stock or when a price changes.
• Advanced analytics provide insights into what customers are saving and what drives conversions.
• Free setup and customization reduce technical lift.

Limitations:

• More features increase setup complexity for stores that truly only need a simple save-for-later widget.
• Higher starting price than minimal single-feature apps.

Save-for-Later UX vs. Persistent Wishlist

ESC’s approach places the saved items under the cart. That’s optimal for checkout-focused recovery: customers see their saved items right before purchase and can click to move them back into the cart. For stores where most conversions happen on repeat visits or where buyers curate items to purchase later, this pattern can be effective and unobtrusive.

Swish emphasizes persistent wishlists tied to customer accounts and sessions, enabling multi-session curation. This pattern supports more advanced journeys—customers can create multiple lists, share them, and receive automated reminders. For brands with longer purchase cycles or higher average order values (AOV), persistent lists tend to generate greater lifetime value because they facilitate repeat touchpoints.

Engagement & Retention Tools

ESC offers social sharing, which helps with organic reach but does not include lifecycle automations or deep personalization.

Swish includes automated wishlist notifications and direct integrations with Klaviyo, GA4, and Meta, enabling targeted email flows and ad retargeting based on wishlist behavior. Those automations are precisely where wishlists move from passive features to conversion drivers—brands can send a timely email when an item is back in stock, when a saved item drops in price, or as part of a cart-reminder sequence.

Key takeaway:

• If the priority is turning wishlist activity into measurable conversions via email and ad channels, Swish has the tools to make that happen out of the box.
• If the priority is minimal complexity and a small recurring cost, ESC can serve the immediate need.

Customization and Design Fit

ESC advertises a broad range of options for customizing how the app looks on a store. That often means theme-level settings and CSS-friendly outputs. For merchants with a single theme and limited design variations, the customization is likely enough.

Swish commits to full theme integration and offers free setup & customization service across plans. For merchants that require the wishlist to match specific UX flows (headless storefronts, custom theme sections, or mobile-first design), Swish’s onboarding can reduce friction and ensure a seamless customer experience.

Practical implications:

• For stores that prioritize pixel-perfect design or rely on professional themes and modular page builders, Swish’s onboarding is a significant time-saver.
• Small merchants comfortable with light code edits can likely implement ESC’s widget without professional help.

Analytics & Reporting

ESC: Minimal or basic analytics—primarily usage-level metrics that show saved items and basic interactions. That level of visibility is useful for straightforward usage tracking but does not provide deep signal for merchandising or retention optimization.

Swish: Includes advanced analytics and wishlist curation. That data can be exported or integrated with marketing platforms to create behavioral segments. For example, analytics can reveal which collections are most frequently wishlisted or which SKUs fail to convert despite high interest—insights that support inventory planning and targeted campaigns.

Merchants who rely on data-driven merchandising will find more value in Swish’s analytics.

Integrations & Technical Compatibility

ESC lists Shopify themes as compatible; integration is lightweight because the app’s scope is narrowly focused.

Swish lists a broader compatibility set: Checkout, Hydrogen, Klaviyo, Customer Accounts, Search, Recommendations, and more. Notably, Swish offers native connectors with Klaviyo and GA4—this simplifies the implementation of behavioral marketing strategies driven by wishlist data.

If a store already relies on an email provider like Klaviyo for behavior-based flows, Swish’s native integration reduces the need for custom events or manual tagging.

Pricing & Value

ESC Pricing:

• Monthly plan: $5 / month.

Swish Pricing:

• Basic Shopify: $19 / month (includes all features; free setup)
• Shopify: $29 / month
• Advanced Shopify: $49 / month
• Shopify Plus: $99 / month (Plus exclusives: white-glove onboarding, priority support, dedicated account manager, Hydrogen & headless stacks)

Value considerations:

• ESC is attractive for very small stores or micro-merchants with a strict cost constraint who only need a minimal wishlist presence.
• Swish is priced for stores that consider wishlist activity a growth lever and want the support and integrations needed to operationalize that data. The onboarding and automation justify the higher monthly spend for brands that want fast, working solutions without engineering time.

When evaluating value for money, consider the lifetime value impact of enabling automated wishlist flows. If recovering a handful of abandoned wishlists or re-engaging users drives additional AOV and repeat purchase, the ROI on Swish can be clear. ESC provides the cheapest possible way to offer a wishlist, but it won’t produce the same automation-enabled lift without additional apps or custom work.

Implementation, Onboarding & Support

ESC: Self-setup; limited reviews and a low rating on the Shopify App Store suggest merchants should prepare for variability in support responsiveness.

Swish: Free setup and customization service across all plans, plus white-glove onboarding for Shopify Plus. This makes Swish a lower-risk option for merchants without a dedicated developer or internal onboarding capacity.

Support responsiveness matters: a wishlist affects conversion UI patterns, and deployment issues can create friction at checkout. Swish’s higher-touch onboarding reduces the chance of technical regressions or misaligned UX.

Reliability & Reviews

App Store data is an imperfect but useful signal.

• ESC: 2 reviews with an average rating of 1. A low review count plus a low rating suggests potential unresolved issues, low adoption, or support concerns. Merchants should treat this as a red flag: at minimum, request references or test the app in a staging environment.
• Swish: 272 reviews with an average rating of 5. A substantial review volume and a high rating indicate consistent performance, positive merchant experiences, and active product development.

While ratings are not the only measure, they are helpful indicators of reliability, responsiveness, and product-market fit.

Data Portability & Migration

ESC’s limited feature set usually means wishlist data is lightweight (saved SKUs per session), but the app’s documentation on exporting or migrating data may be limited. Merchants planning to switch apps should confirm export capabilities before adoption.

Swish, given its enterprise positioning, typically offers better support for data export, structured wishlists per customer, and migration assistance—especially on higher-tier plans like Shopify Plus. Merchants should confirm data schemas and export formats (CSV, API endpoints).

Privacy, Permissions & Compliance

Both apps operate inside Shopify and must comply with Shopify’s app review policies. However, wishlist apps that capture email addresses, tie lists to accounts, or push events to third-party platforms (Klaviyo, Meta) increase the scope of GDPR and other privacy compliance considerations. Merchants should:

• Audit the events and customer data shared with third parties.
• Confirm opt-in/consent flows for email notifications triggered by wishlist actions.
• Verify retention and deletion policies for wishlist records.

Swish’s integrations mean more surface area to manage but also enable more robust consent management when properly configured.

Performance & Scalability

ESC is lightweight and should have minimal performance overhead because its surface area is narrow.

Swish, with deeper account-level features, event tracking, and integrations, must be architected for scale. Swish’s Plus tier explicitly supports headless stacks and Hydrogen, indicating the app is designed for higher-traffic stores with complex front-end needs.

Merchants with large catalogs or high concurrent traffic should validate performance SLAs and any client-side payload that could affect page speed.

Comparative Pros and Cons

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later — Strengths

• Very low monthly cost ($5/month), attractive for micro-merchants.
• Simple UX focused on converting save-for-later behavior at checkout.
• Unlimited wishlists (per app description) and social sharing functionality.
• Easy to implement for merchants comfortable with theme-level tweaks.

ESC Wishlist + Save for Later — Weaknesses

• Extremely low review count and poor rating (2 reviews, rating 1), raising reliability concerns.
• Limited automation, analytics, and integrations; must pair with other tools for lifecycle marketing.
• No explicit free setup or onboarding support; merchant may need developer time.
• Limited evidence of ongoing product development or active user community.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) — Strengths

• Mature product with strong social proof (272 reviews, rating 5).
• Feature-rich: automated wishlist notifications, analytics, strong integration set (Klaviyo, GA4, Meta).
• Free setup and customization across plans; white-glove onboarding for Plus.
• Designed to support complex technical stacks (Hydrogen, headless) and enterprise needs.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) — Weaknesses

• Higher monthly cost starting at $19/month.
• Overkill for merchants who need only a simple save-for-later widget and zero marketing automations.
• More features can mean longer ramp time if a merchant is unprepared to operationalize wishlist data.

Typical Merchant Use Cases

• Small hobby store, single-operator, low monthly sales: ESC can add basic wishlist functionality at minimal cost. Accept trade-offs in automation and analytics.
• Growth-focused DTC brand with established email flows and a Klaviyo stack: Swish is preferable because of native integrations and automation that translate wishlist activity into measurable revenue.
• Enterprise or headless storefront: Swish’s Plus plan supports hydrogen & headless stacks and provides dedicated onboarding and account management.
• Merchants aiming to minimize the number of installed apps while covering loyalty, reviews, and wishlists: Neither ESC nor Swish alone addresses the full retention stack; a consolidated platform is likely better value for money.

Migration Considerations

Switching wishlist providers can impact customer experience if wishlists are not migrated. Before installing, merchants should:

• Confirm export/import mechanisms for wishlists and associated customer identifiers.
• Test wishlist functionality in a staging environment.
• Plan how wishlist-triggered automations will be replicated in the email/ads stack.
• Communicate with the app provider about migration assistance, particularly if the store has thousands of saved items or persistent customer lists.

Swish explicitly offers migration and setup support, which reduces friction. ESC’s lower-touch model may require manual export/import or custom scripts.

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

The proliferation of single-purpose apps creates operational overhead for merchants. Each new app introduces another admin panel, another billing line, more event streams, and more permissions to manage. This problem—commonly referred to as app fatigue—raises real costs:

• Increased technical complexity and higher maintenance time.
• Fragmented customer data across multiple vendors.
• Redundant features and higher total monthly spend.
• Greater risk of conflict between apps that inject scripts or modify checkout flows.

A different approach exists: consolidate core retention features under one integrated platform. This is where platforms that bundle loyalty, wishlists, reviews, and referrals can deliver disproportionate value.

Growave’s philosophy—More Growth, Less Stack—focuses on reducing app sprawl by combining multiple retention tools into one suite. The result is less admin, fewer integration points, and more coherent customer journeys.

How consolidation improves outcomes

• Unified customer profiles: reward points, wishlist behavior, and reviews tied to the same customer identifier, enabling richer personalization.
• Easier analytics: cross-feature attribution (e.g., did a referral lead to a wishlist that converted?) without piecing together data from different vendors.
• Lower cumulative cost: single subscription covering multiple capabilities rather than multiple monthly bills.
• Faster execution: one vendor-owned data model simplifies implementing multi-channel automations.

Merchants evaluating wishlist apps should weigh the incremental value of a dedicated wishlist tool against the benefits of an integrated suite.

Growave: A practical alternative to single-purpose wishlist apps

Growave combines wishlist functionality with loyalty, referral programs, reviews, and VIP tiers. The platform is built to reduce tool sprawl and centralize retention workflows. For merchants looking to consolidate, Growave enables stores to build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases and to collect and showcase authentic reviews without adding disparate apps for each capability.

Key benefits:

• Wishlist included as part of a broader retention toolset, so wishlist behavior can automatically feed into loyalty point incentives, referral campaigns, and review prompts.
• Built-in integrations with popular marketing and service platforms reduce the need for separate middleware.
• Multi-plan options support a range of store sizes, and a free plan lets merchants test basic capabilities without immediate cost.

For merchants considering consolidation, it’s useful to review pricing and compare the combined monthly spend of multiple single-purpose apps against a unified plan. Merchants can consolidate retention features under one subscription to simplify billing and reduce tech complexity.

How Growave operationalizes wishlist data

Growave treats wishlist behavior as a first-class signal:

• Wishlists are customer-linked, allowing point rules or reward triggers when customers add items.
• Wishlist events can feed into review flows and referral prompts—encouraging customers to share favorite items with friends.
• Wishlist activity integrates with loyalty tiers, helping merchants identify VIP prospects based on saved-value and engagement.

That unified approach increases the chance that wishlist interactions will convert into repeat purchases and higher customer lifetime value. For merchants using email automation platforms, Growave’s integrations also make it straightforward to route wishlist events into behavior-based email flows.

Integrations and platform compatibility

Growave supports many storefront and marketing platforms, reducing the need for additional connectors. For merchants on Shopify Plus or planning enterprise growth, Growave provides tailored solutions and headless support; resources are available for solutions for high-growth Plus brands. The unified data model also simplifies analytics and event routing, compared to combining separate wishlist + analytics + email apps.

See the product in action and pricing

Merchants who want to evaluate the full retention suite can install from the Shopify App Store to test features directly on a development store. For a guided review, Book a personalized demo to see how consolidated retention features perform for a specific store setup.

Growave’s pricing tiers are aimed at different growth stages, and comparing those tiers against the cumulative cost of multiple single-purpose apps often reveals substantial value for merchants that need more than a basic wishlist. Compare plans and limits or sign up for a trial to validate the fit: consider how consolidating under one platform can reduce monthly fees and admin time while improving strategic retention outcomes. Merchants can consolidate retention features to evaluate cost and feature trade-offs.

Examples of integrated workflows that replace stacked apps

• Wishlist-driven loyalty: customers earn points when creating wishlists or when wishlist items convert; these points can be redeemed for discounts or exclusive access.
• Wishlist-to-email automation: wishlist events trigger personalized offers in the brand’s email flows without manual event mapping.
• Wishlist-informed merchandising: analytics show the most wishlisted items; merchandising teams promote these SKUs with targeted campaigns or bundling offers.
• Cross-feature incentives: customers who leave a review on a wishlisted product are auto-enrolled into a referral campaign or receive loyalty points.

Each of these workflows requires stitching together multiple apps if using single-purpose tools. Within an integrated platform, the same workflows are faster to implement and easier to manage.

How Growave helps merchants avoid common pitfalls

• Reduces script bloat and potential conflicts from installing multiple third-party widgets.
• Provides a single support path for cross-feature issues (e.g., when wishlist notifications interfere with queued review requests).
• Lowers the operational overhead of reconciling multiple billing cycles and vendor roles.

Merchants can evaluate the economics directly and decide whether a consolidated retention suite delivers better value and execution velocity than layering single-purpose wishlist apps.

Practical Decision Framework

When choosing between ESC, Swish, or a consolidated platform, merchants should assess their needs across these criteria:

• Business complexity: single storefront vs. headless architecture.
• Technical resources: in-house developer vs. reliance on vendor onboarding.
• Marketing stack: need for native Klaviyo/GA4 integrations.
• Growth objectives: prioritize short-term cost savings vs. long-term LTV improvement.
• Appetite for app management: tolerate many small apps or prefer one integrated vendor.

Match the outcome to the product:

• Very small scale, single-purpose requirement, strict monthly cost cap: ESC may satisfy immediate needs.
• Growth-stage brand needing automated wishlist-to-email flows, analytics, and strong theme support: Swish is built for that.
• Brands looking to reduce tool sprawl and activate wishlists as part of a broader retention playbook: consider a unified suite to combine wishlist, loyalty, reviews, and referrals.

If the goal is to reduce the number of discrete tools while unlocking cross-feature synergies, merchants should evaluate how quickly they could implement integrated workflows versus the time and cost to connect separate apps. One efficient way to compare is to install the consolidated app in a staging environment and measure how many separate apps it could replace in practice. Growave’s trialable model makes that validation straightforward—merchants can test features, measure time-savings, and compare monthly costs through a single pricing page. For an in-depth look at how loyalty programs can be run from the same platform, merchants can review Growave’s materials on loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.

If reviews drive conversion for the store, comparing how wishlist behavior and review collection interact inside a unified system helps highlight the advantage of consolidation. Merchants can learn about review automation and UGC workflows via Growave’s feature pages to see how integrated reviews can multiply wishlist value by turning interest into social proof for future buyers. For details on building that capability, check how to collect and showcase authentic reviews.

Hard CTA: Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated retention stack improves conversion and customer lifetime value.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between ESC Wishlist + Save for Later and Swish (formerly Wishlist King), the decision comes down to the scale of wishlist ambitions and the resources to operationalize wishlist data. ESC is a low-cost, focused widget suited to stores that only need save-for-later and basic social sharing at checkout. Swish is a fuller-featured solution built for brands that want automation, analytics, and strong integrations with marketing platforms—backed by a higher review count and robust onboarding.

However, for brands that want to move beyond single-purpose tools and reduce the administrative and technical overhead of a growing app stack, a consolidated retention platform offers a compelling alternative. Growave’s suite brings wishlist, loyalty, reviews, referrals, and VIP tiers into one integrated system—reducing app sprawl and enabling workflows that keep customers engaged across channels. Merchants can evaluate plans and pricing to compare the economics of consolidation and often find better value for money when multiple retention features are needed. To explore how consolidation could simplify operations and increase LTV, consolidate retention features under a single platform and test the fit.

Hard CTA: Start a 14-day free trial to see how a unified retention stack accelerates growth and reduces the number of apps required to achieve the same outcomes. (consolidate retention features)

FAQ

Q: Which app is better if a merchant only wants a minimal save-for-later widget?

• If a merchant truly only needs a simple save-for-later widget visible at checkout and has minimal interest in marketing automations, ESC Wishlist + Save for Later meets that narrow use case at a very low monthly cost. However, confirm export and migration options before committing.

Q: Which app is better for brands that want automated email notifications tied to wishlist behavior?

• Swish is better suited because it offers automated wishlist notifications and native integrations with platforms like Klaviyo and GA4. That enables behavior-driven email flows and targeted re-engagement.

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

• An integrated platform reduces app sprawl by combining wishlist, loyalty, reviews, and referrals in a single product. That consolidation simplifies data flows, reduces cumulative monthly spend, and makes it easier to build cross-feature automations (e.g., awarding loyalty points for wishlist actions). Merchants should compare the combined features and pricing of single-purpose apps against a unified plan to determine value.

Q: What should merchants check before installing a wishlist app to avoid future problems?

• Verify data export and migration capabilities, check integration compatibility with the existing marketing stack, review onboarding options (especially for headless or custom themes), and validate support responsiveness through reviews or a trial period. For merchants considering consolidation, testing unified workflows on a free plan or trial can reveal whether the platform replaces several separate apps.