Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist vs. Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right applications for a Shopify store can be a complex endeavor, with countless solutions promising to enhance customer engagement and drive repeat purchases. Merchants often find themselves weighing the benefits of specialized, single-function tools against more comprehensive, integrated platforms. Each approach presents distinct advantages and potential trade-offs regarding operational efficiency, data centralization, and the overall customer experience.

Short answer: Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist offers a multi-faceted platform for loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists, ideal for merchants seeking a consolidated solution to manage various customer retention touchpoints. Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands, conversely, excels in delivering targeted, wallet-based notifications and referrals, best suited for stores prioritizing mobile engagement and direct, app-less communication. Ultimately, the optimal choice depends on a store’s specific growth priorities and existing tech stack, with integrated platforms generally presenting a path to reduced operational overhead.

This analysis aims to provide an objective, feature-by-feature comparison of Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands. The goal is to equip Shopify merchants with a clear understanding of each app's capabilities, helping them make an informed decision that aligns with their unique business needs and long-term retention strategies.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist vs. Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Understanding the nuances of each app beyond a quick summary is crucial for a strategic decision. This section explores the specific capabilities, pricing structures, and operational considerations of Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands.

Core Features and Workflows

The fundamental distinction between these two applications lies in their core approach to customer retention and engagement. Growave aims for a broad, integrated solution, while Novel focuses on a specialized, mobile-first channel.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

Growave positions itself as an all-in-one retention platform. Its strength lies in consolidating multiple crucial growth functionalities into a single interface. Merchants seeking a comprehensive system will find:

• Loyalty Points Program: The foundation for rewarding repeat purchases, encouraging desired customer behaviors, and fostering brand affinity. This includes flexible rules for earning and redeeming points.
• VIP Tiers: A structured way to recognize and reward high-value customers with exclusive benefits, improving retention for the most engaged segments. These VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers are crucial for sustained engagement.
• Referral Program: Tools to turn existing customers into brand advocates, driving new customer acquisition through trusted recommendations with built-in fraud protection.
• Reviews & User-Generated Content (UGC): Functionality to collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, photo reviews, and Q&A on product pages. This builds social proof and trust for new buyers.
• Wishlist: Allows customers to save products they're interested in, leading to back-in-stock notifications or reminder emails that drive future purchases.
• Nudges (On-site reminders): Pop-ups or banners designed to influence immediate purchase decisions or engagement.
• Gift Cards: Available in higher-tier plans, enabling further loyalty program flexibility.
• B2B Selling Support: Features tailored for business-to-business commerce models within the Shopify ecosystem, available on the Plus plan.

This integrated approach means that a customer earning loyalty points could also leave a review, add items to a wishlist, and participate in a referral program, all within a cohesive brand experience managed from one platform.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands

Novel, conversely, centers its strategy around the mobile wallet, specifically Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. This provides a direct, app-less channel for customer engagement that bypasses crowded inboxes and SMS queues. Its key features include:

• Branded Wallet Passes: Allows merchants to create customized digital passes (loyalty cards, coupons, membership cards) that customers can add to their mobile wallets.
• Push Notifications via Wallet Pass: A core differentiator, enabling direct push notifications to customers' lock screens without requiring them to download a dedicated app. This is a unique channel for time-sensitive offers or reminders.
• Conversational Referrals: Simplifies the referral process through SMS or QR codes, facilitating word-of-mouth marketing directly from the wallet pass.
• Location-Based Push Notifications: A powerful feature that can send targeted messages to customers when they are in proximity to a specified location, such as a physical store. This enhances omnichannel experiences and drives in-store traffic.
• POS Integrations: Supports scan-in-store redemptions, ensuring that digital wallet passes are functional for both online and brick-and-mortar operations.
• Automatic Storefront Login (Shopify Plus): Streamlines the customer experience for Shopify Plus users, making it easier for customers to access their accounts.

Novel's strength is its ability to reach customers with high-impact, direct notifications via a channel that is less saturated than traditional marketing methods. It focuses on immediate engagement and convenience through the mobile wallet.

Customization and Control

The ability to tailor an app's appearance and functionality to match a brand's identity is paramount for a consistent customer experience. Both apps offer customization, but to different extents and for different purposes.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

Growave offers extensive customization, particularly for higher-tier plans.

• App Branding Customization: Merchants have full flexibility to match the app's branding with their store's aesthetic. This ensures that loyalty widgets, review sections, and wishlist pages feel like an organic part of the website.
• Customizable Emails: Email communications related to loyalty points, review requests, and wishlist updates can be fully branded and tailored.
• Headless Support: For advanced Shopify Plus stores utilizing a headless commerce architecture, Growave provides API & SDK access, allowing for deep customization and seamless integration into custom frontends. This makes it compatible with stores requiring capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs.
• Loyalty Page Custom Design: On Plus plans, merchants can completely custom design their loyalty program page, offering maximum control over user experience.
• Custom Reward Actions: Allows for the creation of unique loyalty earning rules beyond standard purchases or sign-ups.

This level of control means that brands can craft a truly unique and integrated retention experience that aligns perfectly with their brand guidelines and customer journey.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands

Novel's customization focuses on the wallet pass itself and the messaging.

• Branded Wallet Pass Design: Merchants can customize the look and feel of the digital wallet passes to reflect their brand, including colors, logos, and imagery.
• Push Notification Content: The content of push notifications can be fully customized for various campaigns, ensuring relevant and timely communication.
• Referral Messaging: The messaging for conversational referrals can be adapted to suit the brand's tone.

While Novel allows for strong branding within its specific wallet pass context, it does not offer the same breadth of customization across a multi-module platform like Growave. Its focus is narrower but effective within that scope.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

Comparing the a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows and Novel's plans reveals different philosophies regarding value and accessibility.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

Growave offers a tiered pricing model designed to scale with a merchant's business size and complexity, starting with a free option and clear increments. The "Growave app data" shows updated pricing details, which are:

• FREE Plan:
  • Price: Free
  • Includes: 100 orders/month (500 total orders), Loyalty points program, Wishlist, Product Reviews, Data imports/exports, Growave branding, 48hr email support.
  • Value: Excellent for small or new stores to experiment with core loyalty and review functions. The 500 total orders limit provides a good runway.
• ENTRY Plan:
  • Price: $49 / month
  • Includes: Advanced rewards, Referral program and fraud protection, Nudges, Review request email series, Shopify POS and Shopify Flow, 1 integration (e.g., Klaviyo), Customizable emails, 24/7 email support.
  • Value: A significant upgrade for growing stores, unlocking critical features like referrals and an initial integration, crucial for reward mechanics that support customer lifetime value.
• GROWTH Plan:
  • Price: $199 / month
  • Includes: VIP Tiers program, 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.
  • Value: Caters to established businesses looking to deepen customer segmentation with VIP tiers, enhance social proof with UGC, and optimize retention with more sophisticated tools.
• PLUS Plan:
  • Price: $499 / month
  • Includes: Checkout extensions, Headless: API & SDK, Loyalty page custom design, Custom reward actions, B2B & Unlimited integrations, Customer success manager, Dedicated launch plan, 24/7 email / live chat / phone support.
  • Value: Designed for enterprise-level Shopify Plus merchants requiring full customization, advanced B2B support, and comprehensive account management. This plan is built for an approach that fits high-growth operational complexity.

Growave’s pricing structure provides incremental value as a store grows, offering a wide array of features for a singular monthly cost, which can lead to a lower total cost of ownership compared to stacking multiple single-purpose apps. When comparing plan fit against retention goals, merchants can find a tier that directly maps to their current scale.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands

Novel has a simpler, two-tiered pricing structure, with the main paid plan reflecting a higher entry point for full functionality.

• Gonna Try It Plan:
  • Price: Free
  • Includes: Free for developer stores, All features available.
  • Value: Primarily a sandbox for development or testing, not a free tier for live production stores.
• Gotta Have it Plan:
  • Price: $299 / month
  • Includes: Unlimited Push Notifications, Unlimited QR code Referrals, Location-Based Push Notifications, Automatic Storefront Login (Shopify Plus).
  • Value: This is the operational plan for most merchants. It provides access to all of Novel’s core wallet pass and push notification capabilities without limits.

Novel's pricing suggests it targets merchants who are ready to invest significantly in a mobile wallet strategy. While it offers all features on its paid plan, the $299/month starting price for a live store's full functionality is substantially higher than Growave's Entry or Growth plans, which encompass a broader suite of retention tools. When selecting plans that reduce stacked tooling costs, merchants must consider if Novel's specialized feature set justifies its standalone cost, or if it will need to be supplemented by other apps, potentially increasing overall spend.

Integrations and “Works With” Fit

Both apps emphasize their compatibility with other essential e-commerce tools, crucial for a seamless tech stack. The breadth and type of integrations differ, reflecting their core functionalities.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

Growave boasts an extensive list of integrations, reflecting its "all-in-one" philosophy and need to connect with various parts of the customer journey.

• E-commerce Platform Features: Works directly with Checkout, Shopify POS, Customer accounts, and Shopify Flow. This ensures tight integration with core Shopify functionalities.
• Page Builders: Compatible with popular page builders like Pagefly, LayoutHub, GemPages, and Shopney, allowing loyalty and review widgets to be easily embedded.
• Email & SMS Marketing: Seamlessly integrates with leading platforms such as Klaviyo, Omnisend, Postscript, and Attentive, enabling automated emails and SMS based on loyalty actions, wishlist activity, or review requests. This helps create incentives that pair well with lifecycle email flows.
• Helpdesks: Integrates with Gorgias for streamlined customer support.
• Other Marketing: Supports TikTok Shop and PushOwl, broadening its reach.
• Recharge Integration: Essential for subscription businesses.

Growave's integrations are designed to ensure that its various modules (loyalty, reviews, wishlists) can communicate effectively with a merchant's existing marketing, customer service, and operational tools, reinforcing its role as a central retention hub. Merchants can achieve a clearer view of total retention-stack costs by reducing the number of disparate apps.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands

Novel also integrates with a broad spectrum of platforms, with a particular focus on loyalty, analytics, and marketing tools that can leverage its wallet pass functionality.

• E-commerce & POS: Integrates with Checkout and Shopify POS for in-store and online redemption.
• Email & SMS Marketing: Connects with Klaviyo, Attentive, and Postscript, allowing merchants to incorporate wallet pass strategies into existing communication flows.
• Loyalty & Referrals: Crucially, it integrates with other loyalty apps like Influence.io, Refersion, Yotpo, Okendo, and Stay. This highlights Novel's specialized role; it's designed to enhance existing loyalty programs with wallet pass technology, rather than replacing them entirely.
• Subscriptions: Works with Recharge and Skio.
• Analytics & Optimization: Integrates with Northbeam, Triple Whale, Peel, and Rebuy, providing data and personalization capabilities.
• Helpdesks: Connects with Gorgias and ZenDesk.
• Other: Replo, JustUno, Alloy, Fondue, Junip, Octane, Loop.

Novel’s integration strategy allows it to act as a powerful enhancement layer for established marketing and retention stacks. It's not intended to be an all-in-one loyalty provider but rather a highly effective channel for delivering targeted offers and referrals, often in conjunction with other loyalty platforms.

Analytics and Reporting

Understanding performance is vital for optimizing any retention strategy. Both apps, by their nature, would likely offer some form of analytics, though specific details are "not specified in the provided data" for both.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

While specific dashboard metrics are not detailed, an all-in-one platform like Growave is typically expected to provide analytics related to:

• Loyalty Program Performance: Points earned, points redeemed, loyalty revenue.
• Referral Program Success: Number of referrals, conversion rates from referrals.
• Reviews & UGC Impact: Number of reviews collected, average star rating, conversion uplift from reviews.
• Wishlist Engagement: Number of items wishlisted, conversions from wishlist emails.

The unified nature of Growave implies that data across these modules could be aggregated, offering a holistic view of customer engagement and retention programs that reduce reliance on discounts.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands

Novel's core value proposition of direct, push notifications and location-based triggers would suggest analytics focused on:

• Wallet Pass Adoption: Number of customers adding passes to their wallets.
• Push Notification Performance: Open rates, click-through rates, conversions attributed to push notifications.
• Referral Tracking: Number of referrals initiated via wallet passes, conversion rates.
• Location-Based Engagement: Effectiveness of geo-fenced pushes.

These metrics would allow merchants to gauge the direct impact of their mobile wallet strategy on customer behavior and repeat purchases.

Customer Support Expectations and Reliability Cues

The quality of customer support is a critical factor for merchants, especially when dealing with complex integrations or time-sensitive issues. Review counts and ratings can offer a general indication of merchant satisfaction.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

Growave's higher number of reviews (1,197 with a 4.8 rating) suggests a well-established and generally well-regarded support system. The level of support is tiered with their plans:

• FREE Plan: 48hr email support.
• ENTRY Plan: 24/7 email support.
• GROWTH Plan: 24/7 email/chat support, plus 5* Onboarding.
• PLUS Plan: 24/7 email/live chat/phone support, a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM), and a dedicated launch plan.

This structured support model ensures that larger, more complex businesses receive personalized attention and strategic guidance, while smaller stores still have access to consistent help. The dedicated CSM and launch plan for Plus users underscore Growave’s commitment to enterprise clients and features aligned with enterprise retention requirements.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands

Novel has a smaller number of reviews (14 with a 5 rating). While a perfect 5-star rating is impressive, the lower volume means it provides less statistical confidence in overall long-term customer satisfaction compared to an app with thousands of reviews. The description mentions "Get setup in minutes," implying ease of use that might reduce the immediate need for extensive support. Specific details on support channels (email, chat, phone, hours) are "not specified in the provided data." Merchants would need to inquire directly about support availability and response times, especially for higher-traffic stores.

Performance, Compatibility, and Operational Overhead

Considering how an app integrates into the broader operational ecosystem of a Shopify store is essential for long-term scalability and efficiency.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

Growave is designed with scalability in mind, particularly for high-growth merchants.

• Shopify Plus Ready: Explicitly "Built for Shopify Plus," it offers powerful checkout and account extensions, headless capabilities, and support for multi-team workflows, making it suitable for retention tooling suited for Plus governance needs.
• Reduced App Sprawl: By combining multiple retention functions into one platform, Growave aims to reduce the number of separate apps a merchant needs, potentially leading to faster page loads, fewer integration conflicts, and simpler data management.
• Unified Data: Consolidating loyalty, reviews, and wishlist data in one place can simplify analytics and personalization efforts, allowing for a more cohesive understanding of customer behavior.
• Maintenance: One app to update, troubleshoot, and manage, rather than several, can significantly reduce the operational burden on a merchant's team.

The goal is to streamline the retention stack, providing a more robust and less fragmented experience for both the merchant and the customer.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands

Novel emphasizes a lightweight customer experience and direct communication.

• App-less Customer Experience: The core benefit is that customers do not need to download a separate app to receive push notifications or manage their loyalty. This reduces friction for the end-user.
• Omnichannel Solution: Strong POS integrations ensure consistency across online and offline touchpoints, crucial for businesses with physical stores.
• Integration with Existing Loyalty: Its design to "easily integrate with just about any loyalty app" means it can complement an existing retention program without necessarily replacing it. This avoids disrupting an established loyalty solution.
• Minimal On-site Impact: Since much of its functionality lives in the mobile wallet, its direct impact on website performance (e.g., page load times from widgets) might be lower compared to an app that injects many elements onto every page.

Novel's operational overhead primarily involves managing the wallet pass content and push campaigns, along with ensuring its integrations with other tools are functioning correctly. It focuses on adding a powerful new channel rather than rebuilding the entire retention strategy.

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

Merchants frequently face a pervasive challenge known as "app fatigue." This phenomenon arises from the proliferation of specialized Shopify apps, each addressing a specific need—one for loyalty, another for reviews, a third for referrals, and yet another for wishlists. While each app might be excellent in its niche, the collective consequence is often a fragmented tech stack, leading to tool sprawl, data silos, increased integration overhead, inconsistent customer experiences, and, ultimately, stacked monthly costs. This creates a complex and often inefficient operational environment, detracting from the core goal of driving sustainable growth.

The strategic solution for many growing brands lies in adopting a "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy, an approach championed by integrated platforms like Growave. Instead of stitching together multiple disparate tools, a unified platform aims to consolidate essential customer retention functionalities under one roof. This not only simplifies management but also fosters a more cohesive and data-rich environment for understanding and engaging with customers. When merchants seek to avoid this app fatigue, planning retention spend without app sprawl surprises becomes a priority.

Growave is designed to address this fragmentation directly by offering an all-in-one suite that covers loyalty, rewards, referrals, reviews and UGC, and wishlists. This consolidation means a single login, a consistent interface, and centralized customer data, making it easier for teams to manage and optimize their retention efforts. The platform provides merchants with robust loyalty programs that keep customers coming back, ensuring customers feel valued at every touchpoint.

By integrating these critical functionalities, Growave helps merchants overcome the common pitfalls of a scattered tech stack. Data from collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, for instance, can inform loyalty tiers, while wishlist activity can trigger personalized loyalty offers. This interconnectedness allows for more intelligent segmentation and more impactful campaigns. For businesses with advanced requirements, such as those on Shopify Plus, Growave offers sophisticated capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs, ensuring the platform can grow with the brand. Furthermore, the platform’s emphasis on social proof that supports conversion and AOV means reviews and loyalty data work hand-in-hand to boost purchasing confidence. Merchants seeking to scale their operations efficiently often find that features aligned with enterprise retention requirements are crucial for long-term success. Investing in a platform that offers extensive evaluating feature coverage across plans allows merchants to select a solution that grows with their needs.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands, the decision comes down to their primary strategic objectives and existing tech ecosystem. Novel stands out for its innovative approach to mobile engagement, offering direct, app-less push notifications and location-based marketing via wallet passes. It is an ideal choice for brands prioritizing cutting-edge mobile interaction and seeking to augment an existing loyalty stack with a powerful new communication channel, especially for omnichannel strategies involving physical stores. Its strength lies in its focused delivery of highly engaging, personalized mobile experiences.

Conversely, Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist presents a more holistic, integrated solution. It is designed for merchants who require a comprehensive platform to manage multiple facets of customer retention—from loyalty points and VIP tiers to reviews, referrals, and wishlists—all within a single app. This approach is particularly beneficial for businesses looking to streamline their operations, reduce app sprawl, and consolidate customer data for a unified view of engagement. Merchants aiming for deep customization and a robust feature set across various retention touchpoints, especially those scaling on Shopify Plus, will find Growave to be a strong contender. The advantage of a single solution for loyalty programs that keep customers coming back cannot be overstated.

Ultimately, if a merchant’s goal is to leverage a highly specialized mobile communication channel to supercharge an existing strategy, Novel offers unique advantages. However, if the aim is to build, manage, and scale a multi-faceted customer retention program from one integrated platform, reducing overhead and ensuring a consistent customer journey across loyalty, reviews, and wishlists, Growave provides a more comprehensive and streamlined solution. 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, combines multiple functionalities (e.g., loyalty, reviews, referrals) into a single application. This typically leads to reduced operational overhead, centralized data management, and a more consistent customer experience. Specialized apps, such as Novel, focus on excelling in one particular area (e.g., mobile wallet passes). While they can offer deeper functionality in their niche, they often require integration with other apps to create a complete retention strategy, potentially leading to increased complexity and higher total costs.

Which app is better for merchants with physical store locations?

Both apps offer significant benefits for merchants with physical stores. Novel excels with its POS integrations and location-based push notifications, allowing for highly targeted in-store engagement through wallet passes. Growave also supports Shopify POS for loyalty redemptions and earning, and its comprehensive loyalty and review programs can drive repeat visits and foster community both online and offline. The "better" choice depends on whether the priority is direct, mobile wallet-based communication in-store (Novel) or a broader, integrated loyalty and review program that extends to the physical retail environment (Growave).

Can Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands integrate with an existing loyalty program?

Yes, Novel is designed to integrate with various existing loyalty applications. Its strength lies in providing a powerful communication and redemption channel via mobile wallet passes, which can complement and enhance an established loyalty program rather than replacing it entirely. This allows merchants to leverage Novel's unique push notification and location-based features while continuing to use their preferred loyalty points and rewards system.