Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist vs. easyPoints: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Navigating the Shopify App Store to select the right tools for customer retention can be a complex endeavor for any merchant. The sheer volume of options, each promising to boost loyalty and engagement, often leads to analysis paralysis and, eventually, a fragmented app stack. Making an informed decision requires a deep understanding of each app’s capabilities, its strategic fit for a business, and its long-term value.

Short answer: For merchants seeking a focused loyalty and rewards solution with integrated design, easyPoints offers simplicity. However, for those aiming to consolidate multiple retention functions like loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists into a single, scalable platform, Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist presents a more comprehensive, integrated approach that can significantly reduce operational overhead and improve customer lifetime value.

This comparison aims to provide a detailed, objective analysis of Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and easyPoints. By examining their core features, pricing structures, integration capabilities, and ideal use cases, this post will help merchants make a strategic choice aligned with their specific growth objectives and operational realities. The goal is to equip businesses with the knowledge needed to invest in a retention solution that truly supports sustainable growth.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist vs. easyPoints: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Core Features and Workflows

Understanding the fundamental capabilities and how they support merchant workflows is crucial when evaluating loyalty and retention apps. Both Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and easyPoints aim to boost customer engagement, but they approach this goal with differing scopes.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: An Integrated Retention Suite

Growave is positioned as an all-in-one retention platform, integrating five key modules that work together to create a holistic customer experience. This multi-faceted approach means merchants can manage a broader spectrum of retention activities from a single dashboard.

• Loyalty & Rewards: This core module provides a robust points program, allowing customers to earn and redeem points for purchases, sign-ups, social shares, and more. Advanced features include customizable reward actions, points expiration, and the ability to offer gift cards.
• VIP Tiers: Growave enables the creation of tiered loyalty programs, allowing merchants to segment and reward their most valuable customers with exclusive benefits, improving customer lifetime value.
• Referral Program: Beyond direct loyalty, Growave integrates a referral program, turning existing customers into brand advocates by incentivizing them to refer new buyers. This helps acquire new customers at a lower cost.
• Reviews & UGC: A significant differentiator, Growave includes tools for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, photo reviews, and user-generated content (UGC). This helps build social proof, reduce purchase uncertainty, and increase conversion rates directly on product pages. Merchants can automate review request emails and syndicate reviews to Google Shopping.
• Wishlist: The app also offers a wishlist feature, allowing customers to save products for later, which can be leveraged for targeted marketing campaigns like back-in-stock notifications or price drop alerts, converting browsing into purchasing intent.

The integrated nature of Growave's offerings means that loyalty points can be tied to actions like leaving a review or sharing a product, creating a synergistic effect across different engagement touchpoints. This unified approach is designed to streamline operations and ensure a consistent brand experience across various customer interactions.

easyPoints: Streamlined Loyalty Focus

easyPoints focuses specifically on points-based loyalty and rewards. Its primary strength lies in its commitment to integrating the loyalty experience seamlessly within a store's existing design, aiming for simplicity and ease of use for both merchants and customers.

• Points Program: Customers earn points for purchases and sign-ups. Redemption is designed to be straightforward, often occurring directly at checkout.
• Design Integration: A key emphasis for easyPoints is the direct integration of the loyalty program into the shop’s design, avoiding pop-ups. This can provide a more native and less intrusive user experience.
• Action Rewards & Time-based Campaigns: Merchants can set up specific actions that award points, similar to Growave, and run time-limited campaigns to boost engagement or encourage specific behaviors.
• Point Expiration: This feature helps create urgency and encourages customers to redeem their points, preventing a build-up of unused points that could lead to financial liabilities for the store.
• VIP Tiers: Like Growave, easyPoints supports VIP tiers, allowing merchants to differentiate and reward their most loyal customers with exclusive benefits or point multipliers.
• Review Rewards: easyPoints does offer review rewards, but it's important to note this is typically for rewarding reviews, not for managing review collection, display, or UGC functionality as a core platform feature in the way Growave provides.

easyPoints is ideal for merchants whose primary goal is a robust, well-integrated points program without the need for additional features like standalone review collection, referral programs, or wishlists managed within the same app.

Customization and Control

The ability to brand and tailor the customer experience is critical for maintaining a consistent brand identity.

Growave's Extensive Customization

Growave offers significant flexibility for branding and customization. Merchants can:

• Customize the loyalty program's appearance to match their store's aesthetic.
• Tailor email templates for review requests, loyalty updates, and wishlist alerts.
• On higher plans, leverage a dedicated loyalty page with custom design options.
• For Shopify Plus stores, the platform provides headless API and SDK access, allowing for deep customization and bespoke experiences on advanced storefronts.
• Custom reward actions enable merchants to define unique ways customers can earn and redeem points, going beyond standard purchases.

This level of control ensures the retention tools feel like an integral part of the brand experience rather than a third-party add-on.

easyPoints' Integrated Approach

easyPoints emphasizes integrating its loyalty program directly into the shop's design. This means:

• The loyalty interface is intended to feel native to the store, reducing visual discrepancies.
• The description highlights "unparalleled branding and user experience" through this direct integration, suggesting a strong focus on visual consistency.
• While direct design integration is a strength, the level of granular control over specific elements beyond what's possible within the theme or app settings is not specified in the provided data. Custom integration is mentioned for the Basic plan, which might imply more advanced tailoring options.

For merchants prioritizing a loyalty program that blends seamlessly into their existing site layout without requiring deep technical intervention, easyPoints provides a straightforward solution. However, for those requiring broader customization across multiple retention touchpoints (e.g., custom review widgets, referral dashboards), Growave offers a more comprehensive suite of tools for such control.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

Analyzing pricing plans is essential for understanding the total cost of ownership and ensuring the chosen app aligns with a merchant's budget and growth trajectory.

Growave: A Tiered Approach for Scaling Businesses

Growave offers a tiered pricing structure that scales as order volume grows, reflecting its comprehensive feature set and support for growing businesses.

• FREE Plan: This plan supports up to 100 orders/month (500 total orders) and includes loyalty points, wishlist, product reviews, and data imports/exports. It carries Growave branding and offers 48hr email support. This is a robust free option for smaller stores to start with foundational retention tools.
• ENTRY Plan ($49/month): For up to 500 monthly orders, this plan adds advanced rewards, a referral program with fraud protection, on-site nudges, review request email series, Shopify POS & Flow integration, one external integration (e.g., Klaviyo), customizable emails, and 24/7 email support.
• GROWTH Plan ($199/month): Catering to up to 1,500 monthly orders, this plan introduces VIP Tiers, a dedicated loyalty page, Shopify POS Loyalty QR, points expiration, gift cards, account extensions, review attributes, Google Shopping Reviews, Instagram UGC, back-in-stock wishlist emails, 5-star onboarding, and 24/7 email/chat support.
• PLUS Plan ($499/month): Designed for stores with up to 3,000 monthly orders and B2B needs, this enterprise-level plan includes checkout extensions, headless API & SDK, custom loyalty page design, custom reward actions, unlimited integrations, a customer success manager, dedicated launch plan, and 24/7 email/live chat/phone support.

Growave's pricing model reflects its breadth, offering increasing features and support as a business scales. The value lies in consolidating multiple tools, potentially offering a lower total cost of ownership compared to subscribing to separate apps for loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists. This can be seen when evaluating feature coverage across plans.

easyPoints: Customer-Based Pricing

easyPoints' pricing is structured around the number of "active customers," which is a common model for loyalty apps.

• Free Plan: This plan is "Free to install" and supports up to 300 active customers, including CSV Import and Klaviyo Integration. This is a good starting point for very small businesses.
• Basic Plan ($50/month): For up to 500 active customers, this plan includes everything in Free, plus custom integration, action rewards, time-based campaigns, point expiration, and review rewards.
• Pro Plan ($180/month): Supporting up to 2,000 active customers, this plan builds on Basic with bonus point collection, points history, tiers, and CSV Export.
• Enterprise Plan ($425/month): For up to 5,000 active customers, this plan offers everything in Pro, plus POS integration, API usage, and priority support.

easyPoints provides a clear cost structure based on customer volume, making it easy for merchants to map costs to retention outcomes over time, especially if their primary focus is managing a customer base with loyalty points. The emphasis on "only pay for the features you need" suggests a modular approach to value.

When comparing plan fit against retention goals, merchants need to consider not just monthly price, but also what features are included at each tier and how that aligns with their broader retention strategy. A clearer view of total retention-stack costs often emerges when considering the necessity of multiple separate apps versus an integrated platform like Growave.

Integrations and "Works With" Fit

The ability of an app to integrate seamlessly with a merchant's existing tech stack is paramount for efficient operations and unified data flow.

Growave's Extensive Integration Ecosystem

Growave is designed to be highly interoperable, working with a wide range of popular Shopify ecosystem tools and platforms. Its "Works With" list is comprehensive, indicating a strong commitment to being a central part of a merchant's tech stack.

• Core Shopify Functionality: Seamlessly integrates with Checkout, Shopify POS, Customer accounts, and Shopify Flow, ensuring loyalty and review data can be used across core commerce operations.
• Page Builders: Compatibility with Pagefly, LayoutHub, GemPages, and Shopney ensures that loyalty widgets and review displays can be incorporated into custom page designs.
• Email & SMS Marketing: Integrations with Klaviyo, Omnisend, Postscript, and PushOwl allow merchants to leverage loyalty data for targeted email and SMS campaigns, automating communications and personalized offers.
• Customer Service & Helpdesks: Integrations with Gorgias and Attentive facilitate better customer support by providing loyalty and review context to support agents.
• Subscription Management: Works with Recharge, critical for businesses with recurring revenue models to incorporate loyalty into subscriptions.
• Social Commerce: Integration with TikTok Shop enables social selling strategies.
• Headless Commerce: For advanced Shopify Plus stores, API & SDK access on the Plus plan ensures compatibility with headless storefront architectures.

This extensive integration capability positions Growave as a flexible retention platform that can connect with customers at every stage of the journey, supporting sophisticated marketing automation and customer service workflows.

easyPoints' Focused Integrations

easyPoints also offers key integrations, with a particular emphasis on marketing and POS systems.

• Core Shopify Functionality: Integrates with Checkout, Shopify POS, and Shopify Flow, allowing points to be earned and redeemed across online and offline channels.
• CRM: Works with CRM PLUS on LINE, indicating support for specific customer relationship management tools, particularly relevant for some regional markets.
• Reviews: Integration with Judge.me suggests that while easyPoints doesn't collect reviews itself, it can likely interact with review data from a dedicated review app, such as rewarding customers for reviews left via Judge.me.
• Email Marketing: Integration with Klaviyo is a crucial feature for segmenting customers based on loyalty status and sending targeted campaigns.
• Other Tools: Mentions Gojiberry, Smaregi, and Point of Sales, suggesting additional specialized integrations for specific commerce or POS systems.
• API Usage: The Enterprise plan includes API usage, which allows for custom integrations and more advanced data exchange, although the scope of this API is not as explicitly detailed as Growave's headless capabilities.

easyPoints' integrations are well-suited for businesses primarily focused on enhancing their loyalty program through email marketing and POS functionality. The explicit mention of Judge.me indicates an understanding that merchants will likely use a separate app for comprehensive review management.

Customer Support Expectations and Reliability Cues

The quality of customer support and the perceived reliability of an app are often reflected in its reviews and available support channels.

Growave: Comprehensive Support Across Tiers

Growave’s support structure scales with its plans, indicating a commitment to assisting merchants at various stages of growth.

• FREE Plan: Offers 48hr email support.
• ENTRY and GROWTH Plans: Provide 24/7 email support, with GROWTH adding 24/7 chat support.
• PLUS Plan: Elevates support to 24/7 email, live chat, and phone support, complemented by a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) and a dedicated launch plan. The inclusion of a CSM and a dedicated launch plan on higher tiers signals enterprise-level service for complex implementations and strategic guidance.
• Reliability: With 1,197 reviews and a 4.8-star rating, Growave has demonstrated long-term market presence and positive merchant feedback, indicating high reliability and effective issue resolution for a significant user base. This quantity of reviews indicates strong market adoption and sustained satisfaction.

easyPoints: Scaled Support for Loyalty Focus

easyPoints also offers tiered support, though the specific channels are detailed mainly for higher plans.

• Support: The Free, Basic, and Pro plans do not explicitly detail their support channels beyond general assistance.
• Enterprise Plan: Specifies "Priority Support," which typically means faster response times and dedicated attention, but does not explicitly mention phone or live chat access in the provided data.
• Reliability: With 35 reviews and a 4.8-star rating, easyPoints shows positive feedback from its user base. While the rating is high, the lower number of reviews suggests a smaller or newer user base compared to Growave, making it a different kind of reliability signal. Merchants scanning reviews to understand real-world adoption might note the difference in scale.

For merchants, the choice often comes down to the depth of support required and the complexity of their retention strategy. Businesses managing multiple integrated modules might prioritize dedicated account management and multiple support channels as offered by Growave's higher tiers. Those focused solely on a loyalty program might find the standard support on easyPoints sufficient.

Performance, Compatibility, and Operational Overhead

Considering how an app performs, its compatibility with different Shopify environments, and the overall operational burden it places on a store is crucial for long-term success.

Growave: Built for Scale and headless Commerce

Growave emphasizes its design for growth and compatibility with advanced Shopify environments.

• Shopify Plus Readiness: The app is explicitly "Built for Shopify Plus," offering capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs. This includes powerful checkout and account extensions, and features aligned with enterprise retention requirements. The Plus plan offers headless API & SDK access, supporting advanced storefront and checkout requirements for high-growth operational complexity.
• Multi-language Support: While not explicitly detailed in the provided data, all-in-one platforms designed for scaling often support multi-language stores, which is a common requirement for larger or international merchants.
• Operational Overhead: By consolidating Loyalty, Reviews, Referrals, and Wishlist into one platform, Growave aims to reduce "app fatigue" and the operational overhead associated with managing multiple single-function apps. This means fewer integrations to maintain, consolidated billing, and a unified data view, leading to less app sprawl. The developer notes that all apps work together to connect with customers at every stage of the journey, ensuring a consistent user experience.

easyPoints: Design-Integrated Performance

easyPoints highlights its smooth integration within the shop's design as a performance and user experience benefit.

• Design Integration: By ditching pop-ups and integrating directly into the shop's design, easyPoints aims to provide a fast and non-intrusive experience that supports conversion and engagement.
• Shopify POS Compatibility: Offers a Shopify POS extension to reward customers both online and offline, ensuring compatibility across sales channels. The Enterprise plan includes POS integration.
• Operational Overhead: As a specialized loyalty app, easyPoints focuses its resources on optimizing the loyalty program's performance. For merchants who only need a loyalty solution, this specialization can lead to a lean, efficient operation for that specific function. However, if reviews or referrals are also required, additional apps would be necessary, potentially increasing the total operational overhead and stacked tooling costs.

When considering performance and operational overhead, merchants must weigh the benefits of a highly specialized, design-integrated app like easyPoints for pure loyalty against the efficiency and reduced complexity of an all-in-one platform like Growave, which manages multiple retention touchpoints from a single interface. Choosing a plan built for long-term value involves considering both immediate needs and future scaling requirements.

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

Merchants frequently encounter "app fatigue"—a pervasive challenge arising from the proliferation of single-function applications in their Shopify stores. This often leads to a disjointed user experience, fragmented customer data spread across various dashboards, increased integration overhead, inconsistent branding, and a compounding of monthly subscription costs. Each new app, while solving a specific problem, adds to the complexity of the overall tech stack, demanding more time and resources for management, updates, and troubleshooting. The result is often tool sprawl, where a merchant spends more time orchestrating apps than focusing on core growth strategies.

Recognizing these challenges, the "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy champions a consolidated approach. Instead of piling up specialized apps for every retention need, this strategy advocates for an integrated platform that bundles core functionalities into a single, cohesive solution. This not only streamlines operations but also fosters a more unified customer journey, leveraging connected data to drive more effective engagement. If consolidating tools is a priority, start by comparing plan fit against retention goals.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist embodies this philosophy by offering a comprehensive suite of retention tools within one application. This integrated approach solves many of the problems associated with app fatigue by providing a unified platform for several critical functions:

• Loyalty and Rewards: Instead of a separate loyalty program app, Growave offers robust loyalty programs that keep customers coming back, including points, VIP tiers, and referral programs. This centralizes customer incentives and strengthens repeat purchase behavior, utilizing reward mechanics that support customer lifetime value.
• Reviews & User-Generated Content (UGC): Merchants do not need a distinct review app. Growave enables collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, photo reviews, and other UGC directly within the platform. This builds vital social proof that supports conversion and AOV without requiring another subscription, leveraging social proof that supports conversion and AOV.
• Wishlist: The wishlist feature is integrated, allowing customers to save products and enabling merchants to send targeted back-in-stock or price drop emails, fostering re-engagement without relying on yet another tool.
• Referral Programs: Built directly into the loyalty offering, referral programs turn satisfied customers into powerful advocates, driving new customer acquisition seamlessly.
• VIP Tiers: Enhancing loyalty, the VIP tier functionality is part of the core platform, allowing for differentiated rewards and experiences for high-value customers.

This holistic approach means fewer dashboards to manage, less data fragmentation, and a more consistent brand experience for customers. For larger and scaling businesses, especially those on Shopify Plus, an integrated solution provides crucial advantages. Growave offers capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs, aligning with the complex requirements of high-volume stores. The features are aligned with enterprise retention requirements, ensuring the platform can grow with the business without needing to swap out core retention tools. By consolidating essential growth tools, merchants can reduce their reliance on a sprawling app ecosystem, leading to better focus, improved data insights, and ultimately, more sustainable growth.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and easyPoints, the decision comes down to the scope of their retention strategy and the preferred level of platform integration. easyPoints excels as a dedicated loyalty and rewards program, offering a straightforward, design-integrated solution for merchants whose primary focus is points-based customer engagement. Its emphasis on seamless theme integration and ease of use makes it a strong choice for businesses seeking a simple, effective loyalty tool without additional complexities.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist, conversely, stands out as a comprehensive, all-in-one platform. It is designed for merchants who require not just loyalty and rewards, but also integrated solutions for customer reviews, user-generated content, referral programs, and wishlists, all managed from a single dashboard. This integrated approach is particularly beneficial for growing businesses, B2B operations, and Shopify Plus stores that prioritize consolidating their tech stack to reduce operational overhead, maintain brand consistency across multiple customer touchpoints, and leverage synergistic data across retention channels. By choosing a comprehensive platform, businesses can often gain a clearer view of total retention-stack costs, streamlining their efforts while scaling their impact. The choice between a specialized tool and an integrated suite hinges on a merchant's specific needs, growth trajectory, and appetite for tool consolidation. To reduce app fatigue and run retention from one place, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ

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

An all-in-one platform combines several functionalities (e.g., loyalty, reviews, referrals, wishlists) into a single app, offering a unified dashboard, integrated data, and consistent branding. Specialized apps focus on a single function, often excelling in that niche. The all-in-one approach can reduce app sprawl, integration overhead, and stacked costs, while specialized apps might offer deeper features for their specific area at the expense of needing more apps in the tech stack.

Is Growave suitable for small businesses just starting out?

Yes, Growave offers a Free plan that supports up to 100 orders/month, including loyalty points, wishlist, and product reviews. This provides essential retention tools without an initial financial investment, making it accessible for new or small businesses to begin building customer loyalty and engagement.

Does easyPoints support offline loyalty programs?

Yes, easyPoints offers a Shopify POS extension, allowing merchants to reward loyal customers both online and offline. This ensures a consistent loyalty experience across different sales channels.

What kind of support can I expect from these apps?

Growave offers tiered support, ranging from 48-hour email support on its Free plan to 24/7 email, chat, and phone support with a dedicated Customer Success Manager on its Plus plan. easyPoints' Enterprise plan includes "Priority Support," though specific channels are not detailed for all plans. Review volume and ratings for both apps (Growave: 1,197 reviews, 4.8 stars; easyPoints: 35 reviews, 4.8 stars) suggest generally positive customer experiences with their respective support offerings.