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

Introduction

Choosing the right Shopify apps to foster customer loyalty and drive repeat purchases can be a complex endeavor for any merchant. The digital commerce landscape offers a multitude of tools, each promising unique advantages for customer retention. Making an informed decision requires understanding not just the features, but also how these tools integrate, scale, and deliver long-term value to a business.

Short answer: Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist offers a comprehensive, all-in-one platform for loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists, ideal for merchants seeking to consolidate their retention stack and scale. Influence: Loyalty & Referral focuses intensely on loyalty programs and referral marketing, appealing to stores primarily looking for specialized solutions in those specific areas. Integrated platforms can significantly reduce operational overhead and ensure a cohesive customer experience, though single-function apps can offer deep specialization.

This comparison aims to provide an objective, feature-by-feature analysis of Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and Influence: Loyalty & Referral. The goal is to equip merchants with the insights needed to select the app that best aligns with their specific business model, growth objectives, and existing technology stack.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist vs. Influence: Loyalty & Referral: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

To make an informed choice, merchants need to look beyond surface-level descriptions and understand the nuanced differences in capabilities, extensibility, and strategic fit between these two prominent Shopify apps. This section delves into a detailed comparison across several critical dimensions.

Core Features and Workflows

The foundational capabilities of a retention app dictate its utility and the depth of customer engagement it can facilitate. Both Growave and Influence aim to enhance customer lifetime value, but they approach this goal with distinct feature sets and priorities.

Loyalty Programs and Points

At the heart of both applications lies the ability to implement loyalty programs. These programs allow customers to earn points for purchases and various engagements, which can then be redeemed for rewards.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist offers a flexible loyalty points program from its Free plan, evolving into advanced rewards with its Entry plan. Higher tiers, like the Growth plan, introduce VIP Tiers, points expiration, and gift cards, enabling a sophisticated, multi-layered loyalty strategy. The platform supports diverse earning rules and redemption options, designed to fit various business models and customer segments. Merchants aiming to build loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases will find extensive configuration options within Growave.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral also provides a robust points and rewards system, starting with basic earn rules and percentage redeem rules in its Free plan. The Starter plan expands this with extra earn and redeem rules, a dedicated landing page, and memberships, offering significant flexibility. Its Plus plan introduces advanced earn and redeem rules, scheduled earn rules, and monthly recurring rewards, catering to more intricate loyalty strategies. Influence specifically highlights earning points for purchases, reviews (as an action, not necessarily managing the review collection itself), and social actions, which provides a comprehensive approach to incentivizing customer behavior.

From a strategic perspective, merchants should consider how deeply they need to customize their points system and what specific actions they want to reward. Growave’s integrated nature means loyalty can be directly tied to actions within its review or wishlist modules, creating a seamless experience. Influence, while powerful, might require integration with another app to leverage review-based point earning if the merchant doesn't already use Reviews.io.

Referral Marketing

Referral programs are powerful tools for customer acquisition and virality, turning loyal customers into brand advocates. Both apps offer features to facilitate this growth channel.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist includes a referral program with fraud protection starting from its Entry plan. This indicates a focus on ensuring the integrity and effectiveness of referral campaigns. The platform allows merchants to reward loyal customers for bringing in new business, contributing to organic growth. The integration of referrals within an all-in-one suite simplifies management and ensures consistency across various retention efforts.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral makes its referral program available from the Starter plan. It emphasizes rewarding loyal customers for referring friends and family, a core tenet of effective referral marketing. Influence's focus on scaling eCommerce brands suggests its referral features are designed with growth in mind, likely offering tools to track, manage, and optimize referral campaigns efficiently.

The strategic choice here depends on the desired level of integration and fraud prevention. Growave explicitly mentions fraud protection, which can be a critical consideration for businesses where referral abuse is a concern. Influence focuses on the mechanics of driving referrals, which aligns with its specialization.

Reviews and User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content, particularly customer reviews, is crucial for building trust and social proof. This is where a significant functional divergence appears between the two applications.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist stands out by offering a fully integrated Reviews & UGC module. This includes collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, a review request email series, Google Shopping Reviews, and Instagram UGC support from the Growth plan. This makes it a comprehensive solution for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews directly within the same platform that manages loyalty and referrals. This consolidation reduces the need for separate review apps and the associated integration challenges.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral, developed by Reviews.io, allows points to be earned for reviews. However, the app description does not specify that it collects and displays reviews itself as a core feature. Its "Works With" list includes "REVIEWS.io," suggesting that while it can integrate with the Reviews.io platform for point earning, the actual review management (collection, display, moderation) would be handled by a separate app, likely Reviews.io. This distinction is vital for merchants evaluating the comprehensiveness of their retention stack.

For businesses that prioritize having reviews, loyalty, and referrals managed from a single dashboard, Growave offers a compelling advantage. For those already committed to a separate review platform (especially Reviews.io) and seeking a dedicated loyalty/referral engine, Influence could be a complementary choice.

Wishlist Functionality

Wishlists are powerful tools for capturing customer interest and reducing cart abandonment, allowing shoppers to save items for later purchase.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist explicitly includes a Wishlist feature from its Free plan. The Growth plan further enhances this with back-in-stock wishlist emails, transforming the wishlist from a passive saving tool into an active engagement and sales recovery mechanism. This integration allows merchants to monitor demand for out-of-stock items and re-engage interested customers directly.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral does not mention wishlist functionality in its feature descriptions or core offerings. This indicates that merchants requiring a wishlist solution would need to integrate a separate app, adding to their app stack.

Merchants looking for an integrated wishlist capability alongside loyalty, reviews, and referrals will find Growave's offering more complete. If wishlists are not a priority or are already handled by another solution, this difference might be less impactful.

VIP Tiers

VIP tiers are essential for segmenting customers and offering exclusive rewards to high-value individuals, encouraging continued engagement and higher spending.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist introduces a VIP Tiers program from its Growth plan. This allows merchants to create exclusive levels for their most loyal customers, offering progressively better rewards and experiences. This capability is key for nurturing top-tier customers and driving long-term loyalty. Businesses focused on scaling their operations often benefit from VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers, which Growave delivers.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral also features Loyalty Tiers from its Plus plan. It offers the flexibility to customize tiers or import existing levels with ease, suggesting a robust system for managing customer segments. This allows brands to recognize and reward their best customers effectively, enhancing customer lifetime value.

Both apps provide strong VIP tier functionality. The choice may come down to how these tiers integrate with other parts of the customer journey (e.g., reviews, wishlists) and the overall cost-effectiveness of the chosen plan.

Customization and Branding

The ability to tailor the app’s appearance and functionality to match a brand’s aesthetic and unique customer journey is crucial for a cohesive customer experience.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist emphasizes full flexibility to customize app branding and tailor experiences, even supporting headless commerce with API & SDK access on its Plus plan. Customizable emails are available from the Entry plan, and a dedicated loyalty page design is offered in the Growth plan. The Plus plan also allows for custom reward actions and loyalty page custom design, providing extensive control over the user interface and program mechanics.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral also offers deep customization and fast, no-code setup. Its Starter plan includes a dedicated landing page, and the Plus plan provides custom email and referral domains. This indicates a strong capability to brand the loyalty and referral experience. While it promises deep customization, specific details on visual editor capabilities or headless support beyond "Full API access" (on Plus plan) are not as explicitly detailed as Growave's.

For brands with strong aesthetic guidelines or those operating complex, headless Shopify Plus stores, Growave's explicit mention of headless support and extensive design options might offer more confidence in achieving a perfectly branded experience.

Integrations and Ecosystem Fit

An app’s ability to seamlessly integrate with other essential tools in a merchant’s tech stack is paramount for efficient operations and a unified customer experience.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist boasts seamless integration with a wide array of popular marketing, support, and payment apps. Its "Works With" list is extensive, including Klaviyo, Omnisend, Postscript, Recharge, Gorgias, Attentive, TikTok Shop, Shopify POS, Checkout, Customer accounts, Shopify Flow, and page builders like Pagefly, LayoutHub, and GemPages. The Entry plan includes one integration, while the Plus plan offers unlimited integrations and B2B capabilities, highlighting its readiness for complex, multi-tool environments. The platform helps stores implement retention programs that reduce reliance on discounts by tying into a broader strategy.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral integrates with Klaviyo, Gorgias, and mentions "your existing stack." Its "Works With" list includes Shopify POS, Checkout, Customer accounts, Shopify Flow, Klaviyo, REVIEWS.io, Recharge, Gorgias, Attentive, and Loop Subscriptions. This demonstrates a strong connection with key marketing automation, support, and subscription platforms. Influence focuses on fast, no-code setup for these integrations.

Both apps integrate with critical platforms like Klaviyo and Gorgias, essential for email marketing and customer support. Growave’s explicit support for a broader range of page builders and its unlimited integrations for higher tiers suggest a potentially wider compatibility for diverse store setups, especially those with custom front-ends or specific B2B needs. The presence of Shopify Flow support in both apps means merchants can automate various loyalty actions based on store events.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

Evaluating pricing involves more than just the monthly fee; it requires considering the features included, order limits, support levels, and the overall value derived.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist offers a tiered pricing model that scales with a business's growth, measured by monthly orders.

• Free Plan: Up to 100 orders/month (500 total orders), Loyalty points, Wishlist, Product Reviews, Data imports/exports, basic support. This is a robust free tier for foundational retention efforts.
• Entry Plan ($49/month): Advanced rewards, Referral program (with fraud protection), Nudges, Review request email series, Shopify POS/Flow, +1 integration, customizable emails, 24/7 email support. It offers significant features for its price point, allowing merchants to start with a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows.
• Growth Plan ($199/month): Adds VIP Tiers, 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* Onboarding, 24/7 email/chat support. This plan targets growing businesses with more complex needs and a higher order volume (1,500 monthly orders).
• Plus Plan ($499/month): For high-volume stores (3,000 monthly orders), includes Checkout extensions, Headless API & SDK, custom loyalty page design, custom reward actions, B2B & unlimited integrations, Customer Success Manager, dedicated launch plan, 24/7 multi-channel support. This plan clearly targets enterprise-level and Shopify Plus merchants, offering capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral also provides a structured pricing model, with order limits on the free tier and a shift to unlimited orders at the first paid tier.

• Free Plan: Up to 300 orders, Basic earn rules, Percentage redeem rules, Basic widget, Customer email notifications, Customer account extensions. This free tier supports a higher order volume than Growave’s free tier but offers a more focused feature set (loyalty only).
• Starter Plan ($49/month): Unlimited monthly orders, Platform migration support, Referral program, Full POS support, Digital StampCard, Extra earn & redeem rules, Dedicated landing page, Memberships. This plan offers unlimited orders at the same price point as Growave's Entry plan, which is a strong value proposition for merchants with unpredictable or high initial order volumes.
• Plus Plan ($199/month): Loyalty Tiers, Full API access, Scheduled earn rules, Monthly recurring rewards, Advanced earn & redeem rules, Unlimited Membership groups, Collaborator access, Custom email & referral domain. This plan introduces VIP tiers and API access, comparable in price to Growave's Growth plan, but focused exclusively on loyalty and referrals.

When comparing plan fit against retention goals, merchants must consider the feature breadth versus specialized depth. Growave offers a wider array of integrated tools across its plans, which can lead to a lower total cost of ownership by consolidating multiple apps. Influence offers unlimited orders earlier, which is advantageous for businesses with high transaction volumes who primarily need loyalty and referral functionalities. Merchants should also consider the included order limits carefully, as exceeding them can lead to plan upgrades.

Analytics and Reporting

Understanding the performance of loyalty and referral programs is critical for optimization and demonstrating ROI.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: The description mentions "Data imports/exports" on its Free plan, implying data visibility. While not explicitly detailing a dedicated analytics dashboard, the nature of an all-in-one platform usually includes unified reporting across modules. For specific advanced analytics and reporting features, more details would be needed, but its enterprise-level focus implies robust data capabilities at higher tiers.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral: The provided description does not explicitly detail specific analytics or reporting dashboards within the app. However, given its focus on scaling brands and strategy-driven support, it is reasonable to expect some level of performance tracking for loyalty and referral campaigns. Merchants requiring detailed insights into customer segments, loyalty program effectiveness, and referral attribution should inquire about the depth of reporting provided.

For both apps, direct inquiry about analytics dashboards, customizable reports, and data export options would be beneficial for merchants who rely heavily on data-driven decision-making.

Customer Support and Reliability

The quality and accessibility of customer support are vital, especially for business-critical applications.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist highlights strong support across its plans. The Free plan offers 48-hour email support. The Entry plan provides 24/7 email support, while the Growth plan adds 24/7 email/chat support and "5* Onboarding." The top-tier Plus plan offers 24/7 email, live chat, and phone support, along with a dedicated Customer Success Manager and a dedicated launch plan. This comprehensive support structure, combined with 1,197 reviews and a 4.8 rating when assessing app-store ratings as a trust signal, indicates a strong commitment to customer service and app reliability.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral states, "Grow with support from a customer-first team who understands loyalty strategy, not just software." This emphasizes strategic guidance alongside technical support. While specific support channels and response times are not detailed in the plan descriptions, the general phrasing suggests a consultative approach. With 29 reviews and a 4.3 rating, it indicates a positive but smaller user base feedback compared to Growave.

The choice between the two may depend on the level of hands-on support and strategic partnership a merchant desires. Growave offers clearly defined support channels across its tiers, culminating in dedicated managers for larger operations. Influence emphasizes a strategic partnership. The sheer volume of positive reviews for Growave also provides significant social proof of its reliability and support quality.

Performance, Compatibility, and Operational Overhead

The impact an app has on store performance, its compatibility with various Shopify environments, and the overall operational burden it places on a team are crucial considerations.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist explicitly states it is "Built for Shopify Plus" with "powerful checkout and account extensions" and supports headless commerce (API & SDK) on its Plus plan. Its wide range of integrations includes page builders like Pagefly, LayoutHub, and GemPages, indicating broad compatibility. The "all apps work together" philosophy is designed to minimize operational overhead by providing a unified experience. By verifying compatibility details in the official app listing, merchants can gain confidence in its fit for their store.

Influence: Loyalty & Referral is described as "built for scaling eCommerce brands" with "fast, no-code setup." It also supports Shopify POS, Checkout, Customer accounts, and Shopify Flow, indicating good compatibility with core Shopify functionalities. "Full API access" is available on its Plus plan, which implies readiness for more custom or headless implementations, though "headless" is not explicitly mentioned.

The key differentiator here lies in the "all-in-one" versus "specialized" approach. Growave's integrated nature aims to reduce app sprawl—the accumulation of many single-function apps that can lead to performance issues, data silos, and increased management complexity. For merchants running or planning to run on Shopify Plus, an approach that fits high-growth operational complexity is vital, and Growave actively positions itself for this environment. Influence, while powerful in its niche, might necessitate additional apps for features like review collection or wishlists, potentially increasing the overall app count and associated overhead.

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

Merchants frequently encounter "app fatigue"—a state where managing a disparate collection of single-purpose Shopify apps becomes cumbersome. This phenomenon manifests as tool sprawl, where too many apps compete for attention, leading to fragmented customer data, inconsistent user experiences, and increased operational complexity. Each app requires its own setup, maintenance, and integration points, often resulting in data silos that make a holistic view of the customer impossible. The cumulative cost of subscriptions, alongside the time spent on integration and troubleshooting, can quickly outweigh the benefits of individual specialized tools.

This challenge underscores the strategic advantage of an integrated, all-in-one platform like Growave. Its "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy directly addresses the pitfalls of app fatigue by consolidating critical customer retention functions into a single, cohesive solution. Instead of stitching together separate apps for loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists, Growave provides these modules under one roof, designed to work together seamlessly. This approach streamlines workflows, provides a unified data source for customer insights, and ensures a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints.

By integrating loyalty programs that keep customers coming back with mechanisms for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, Growave enables merchants to create a virtuous cycle of engagement. Loyal customers are encouraged to leave reviews, which in turn builds social proof that supports conversion and AOV for new shoppers. Similarly, the platform’s referral marketing capabilities are enhanced when deeply integrated with existing loyalty data, allowing merchants to identify and reward their most engaged advocates. This integrated strategy supports reward mechanics that support customer lifetime value across the entire customer journey.

For growing businesses and those on Shopify Plus, the benefits of consolidation extend to operational efficiency and scalability. An integrated platform reduces the number of vendors to manage, simplifies billing, and minimizes potential conflicts between apps. It also ensures that all customer data related to retention is centralized, making it easier to analyze performance, personalize experiences, and adapt to evolving customer needs. Growave's commitment to features aligned with enterprise retention requirements means it supports the advanced needs of larger stores, from checkout extensions to headless commerce capabilities. If consolidating tools is a priority, start by planning retention spend without app sprawl surprises. This strategic consolidation is not just about convenience; it is about building a more resilient, scalable, and ultimately more profitable customer retention infrastructure.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and Influence: Loyalty & Referral, the decision comes down to the desired breadth of functionality versus specialized depth in specific areas. Influence: Loyalty & Referral excels as a focused solution for robust loyalty programs and referral marketing, particularly suitable for businesses that already have a separate solution for reviews or wishlists, or those who value its unlimited order capacity on paid Starter plans. Its emphasis on loyalty strategy support may also appeal to specific teams.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist, conversely, positions itself as a comprehensive, all-in-one retention platform. It integrates loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlist functionalities into a single suite, offering significant advantages for merchants looking to reduce app sprawl and ensure a cohesive customer experience. Its extensive features, scalability for Shopify Plus, and robust support structure make it particularly well-suited for growing brands and those aiming for a unified approach to customer retention and engagement. Ultimately, the best choice depends on a merchant’s current tech stack, budget, scaling ambitions, and whether their priority is a specialized tool for loyalty/referrals or a consolidated platform for broader retention needs. To discover how a unified platform can streamline operations and amplify customer engagement, merchants can explore a clearer view of total retention-stack costs. 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, like Growave, integrates multiple functionalities such as loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists into a single application. This approach centralizes data, simplifies management, reduces potential conflicts between apps, and often provides a more consistent customer experience. Specialized apps, like Influence, focus on a narrower set of features, such as loyalty and referrals. They can offer deep functionality in their specific niche but may require additional apps to cover other retention needs, potentially increasing operational complexity and costs.

Which app is better for a new Shopify store with a limited budget?

For a new Shopify store with a limited budget, both apps offer a free plan. Growave’s free plan includes loyalty points, wishlist, and product reviews for up to 100 orders/month, providing a foundational set of retention tools. Influence’s free plan supports up to 300 orders/month with basic earn/redeem rules for loyalty, offering a higher volume capacity for loyalty-focused stores. The choice depends on whether the store prioritizes a broader set of basic features (Growave) or a higher transaction volume for loyalty only (Influence) at the free tier.

Can these apps support Shopify Plus stores?

Yes, both apps indicate compatibility with Shopify Plus features. Growave explicitly states it is "Built for Shopify Plus" with powerful checkout and account extensions, headless capabilities (API & SDK), and dedicated enterprise support on its Plus plan. Influence also mentions Shopify Flow, Checkout, and Customer accounts in its integrations and offers Full API access on its Plus plan, suggesting readiness for scaling brands and custom implementations typical of Shopify Plus.

Is it possible to migrate existing loyalty program data to these apps?

Growave explicitly mentions "Data imports/exports" on its Free plan, indicating capabilities to manage existing data. Influence's Starter plan includes "Platform migration support," suggesting assistance for transferring loyalty program data from other systems. Merchants should always confirm the specifics of data migration capabilities and process with the app developers to ensure a smooth transition.