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

Introduction

Choosing the right app for wishlist and retention functionality is a common challenge for Shopify merchants. Many stores face a trade-off between simple, single-purpose tools and broader retention platforms that bundle multiple features. Picking the wrong direction can mean extra monthly costs, technical complexity, and lost opportunities to increase repeat purchases.

Short answer: Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist is best for merchants who want a multi-feature retention platform that scales with a brand—loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist in one integrated suite—while Ultimate Wishlist is a focused, budget-friendly option for stores that only need a highly customizable wishlist. For merchants looking to reduce app sprawl and prioritize lifetime value, Growave typically provides better value for money.

This article provides a feature-by-feature comparison of Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and Ultimate Wishlist to help merchants decide which option fits their goals and growth stage. The analysis is impartial and data-driven, using available review counts, ratings, pricing tiers, and functional coverage to identify strengths, weaknesses, and the best use cases for each app.

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

Deep Dive Comparison

This section compares both apps across multiple merchant-relevant criteria: features, pricing and value, integrations, support, implementation, performance, and typical use cases.

Core Product Positioning

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

• Positioning: A retention platform that bundles loyalty and rewards, wishlist functionality, referrals, reviews and UGC, and VIP tiers into one product. Built to serve merchants scaling retention and lifetime value.
• Validation: High review volume (1,197 reviews) and a strong 4.8 rating indicate broad adoption and consistent performance across a range of stores.
• Enterprise features: Checkout and headless support on higher plans, dedicated success resources on Plus plans.

Ultimate Wishlist

• Positioning: Focused wishlist app designed to let customers save items, share wishlists, and receive reminder emails. Emphasizes customization and guest user support.
• Validation: High rating (4.9) but with a much smaller review base (34 reviews), which suggests a smaller user community and lower marketplace traction.
• Simplicity: Designed to be lightweight and quick to install for merchants who only want wishlist capability.

Implication for merchants: Growave targets retention at scale; Ultimate Wishlist targets low-cost wishlist functionality. The product choice hinges on whether wishlist is a single, isolated need or part of a larger retention strategy.

Wishlist Experience: Functional Details

Both apps provide wishlists, but they differ widely in scope and adjacent capabilities.

Wishlist core features compared

• Guest vs. account-based sync:
  • Growave: Supports customer accounts and persistent wishlists across devices when customers log in; also supports back-in-stock notifications tied to wishlist behavior on paid plans.
  • Ultimate Wishlist: Supports guest wishlists and logged-in sync; strong emphasis on allowing wishlist access without mandatory registration.
• Sharing options:
  • Growave: Sharing via standard share buttons, with the longer-term benefit of tying shares to referral and social workflows when combined with other Growave features.
  • Ultimate Wishlist: Explicit sharing via Facebook, Twitter, and Email. Straightforward sharing designed for social discovery.
• Email reminders & follow-ups:
  • Growave: Review request sequences and back-in-stock wishlist emails available on higher plans; more advanced lifecycle messaging when connected with marketing tools.
  • Ultimate Wishlist: Customizable email templates and tiered reminder volumes by plan (e.g., 500–5,000 reminders/month depending on plan).
• Reporting and analytics:
  • Growave: Reporting covers wishlist activity as part of a broader cohort and LTV view, especially valuable when correlated with loyalty and referral data.
  • Ultimate Wishlist: Dashboard provides counts for wishlist adds, page views, and add-to-cart conversions for wishlist items—focused and clear for product merchandising decisions.
• Variants and product-level insight:
  • Growave: Supports review attributes and UGC; wishlist insights can be tied into product promotion tactics and Google Shopping Reviews on higher plans.
  • Ultimate Wishlist: Provides strong per-product stats to identify demand for specific SKUs or variants.

Practical takeaway: If the merchant’s primary goal is a frictionless wishlist with guest support, cross-device sync, and simple sharing, Ultimate Wishlist is efficient and cost-effective. If wishlist behavior needs to feed into retention loops — such as loyalty rewards for completing purchases or targeted back-in-stock messaging tied to VIP tiers — Growave’s wishlist sits inside a larger retention engine.

Loyalty, Referrals, and Reviews

This is the core differentiator: Growave is an all-in-one retention suite; Ultimate Wishlist does not provide loyalty or referral programs.

Loyalty & Rewards

• Growave: Offers points programs, advanced reward actions, VIP tiers, points expiration, gift-card rewards, checkout extensions on Plus, POS loyalty QR, and headless APIs for custom flows. These tools directly impact repeat purchase rate and customer lifetime value.
• Ultimate Wishlist: No built-in loyalty or rewards capabilities.

Referrals & Affiliates

• Growave: Built-in referral programs with fraud protection on paid plans. Referral traffic can be rewarded using loyalty points, creating a closed-loop growth engine.
• Ultimate Wishlist: No referral or affiliate capabilities.

Reviews & User-Generated Content (UGC)

• Growave: Review collection, moderation, and UGC workflows are part of the feature set; review automation and Google Shopping Reviews integration available on higher tiers. This enables social proof to be used across product pages and marketing channels.
• Ultimate Wishlist: No review or UGC features.

Practical takeaway: For merchants whose retention strategy depends on repeat purchases, referrals, and social proof, Growave provides capabilities that directly influence LTV and retention metrics. Stores that only require wishlist features will not miss loyalty and referral features, but those features represent lost opportunity if the merchant plans to scale.

Customization and Theming

Custom appearance and messaging matter for brand cohesion and conversion.

Growave

• Offers flexible branding and customizable loyalty pages.
• Plus plan supports custom loyalty page design and full branding control.
• Supports multi-language stores and headless customizations with API and SDK capabilities for design teams.

Ultimate Wishlist

• Strong customization of text and visual appearance to match the store.
• Non-English support and customizable email templates.
• Designed for fast visual fit with minimal CSS work.

Practical takeaway: Ultimate Wishlist is very easy to match stylistically for most themes. Growave offers deeper customization, especially for brands that want to integrate loyalty pages and branded account experiences.

Checkout, POS, and Headless Support

Checkout and POS integrations are key for brands that sell in multiple channels.

Growave

• Checkout extensions, Shopify POS loyalty QR, and account extensions are available on higher plans.
• Built for Shopify Plus merchants who need checkout customization and headless storefronts; APIs and SDKs exist on Plus plans for full extensibility.

Ultimate Wishlist

• No advanced checkout or POS extensions. Focus remains on storefront wishlist interactions rather than checkout or in-store loyalty.

Practical takeaway: Brands selling across online, offline, and headless channels will get better long-term value from Growave due to its cross-channel tools.

Integrations Ecosystem

Integration depth influences how wishlist data can be used in automated flows and marketing.

Growave Integrations (selected)

• Klaviyo, Omnisend, Gorgias, Recharge, Attentive, PushOwl, Postscript, and page builders such as Pagefly and LayoutHub.
• These integrations enable automated lifecycle messaging, cart recovery, and support-driven loyalty flows.

Ultimate Wishlist Integrations (selected)

• Limited ecosystem; Premium adds Facebook Pixel support for advertising retargeting.
• Focused integration surface for wishlist analytics and email reminders.

Practical takeaway: For brands that rely heavily on email and SMS flows, Growave’s native connectors reduce engineering and automation friction. Ultimate Wishlist can be paired with existing stacks but requires manual bridging for complex flows.

Pricing and Value for Money

Both apps offer free tiers but their pricing philosophies differ: Growave bundles multiple retention tools at higher price points; Ultimate Wishlist focuses on very low monthly cost for wishlist-only needs.

Growave pricing summary

• Free: Basic functionality (100 orders/month) and Growave branding.
• Entry ($49/mo): Advanced rewards, referral program, review request series, nudges, POS/Shopify Flow, one integration, 24/7 email support.
• Growth ($199/mo): VIP tiers, dedicated loyalty page, points expiration, back-in-stock wishlist emails, enhanced integrations, priority support.
• Plus ($499/mo): Checkout & headless extensions, unlimited integrations, customer success manager, dedicated launch plan, phone support.

Ultimate Wishlist pricing summary

• Free plan: Up to 500 wishlists/month, guest wishlist, collection page wishlist, share options, full reports.
• Basic ($4.99/mo): Up to 1,000 wishlist items/month, custom email template, up to 500 email reminders per month.
• Pro ($9.99/mo): Up to 5,000 wishlist items/month, up to 2,000 email reminders/month, email reminders to individual users.
• Premium ($14.99/mo): Up to 10,000 wishlist items/month, 5,000 email reminders, Facebook Pixel integration.

Value considerations

• For stores that only need wishlist functionality and expect low monthly wishlist activity, Ultimate Wishlist is extremely low-cost and offers clear scaling tiers for email reminder volume.
• For merchants who want loyalty and referral programs that systematically increase repeat purchases, Growave’s bundled offering provides more direct impact on LTV and can replace several apps (loyalty, referrals, reviews, wishlist), which can mean better value for money at scale.

Practical pricing guidance

• Small merchants with limited wishlist volume and no plans for loyalty or referrals: Ultimate Wishlist is likely better value.
• Growing or DTC brands focused on retention, omnichannel selling, and automation: Growave typically delivers better value because it consolidates multiple revenue-driving features.

Support, Onboarding, and Documentation

Support speed and onboarding quality vary widely and can determine time-to-value.

Growave

• Publicly advertises 24/7 email/chat support on paid plans; Plus includes phone support and a dedicated Customer Success Manager.
• Offers onboarding resources and documentation, plus dedicated launch plans for Plus customers.
• High review volume indicates wide usage and a system of support escalations.

Ultimate Wishlist

• Lightweight documentation and support appropriate to a single-feature app.
• Simpler implementation tends to require less hands-on onboarding.

Practical takeaway: Merchants implementing multi-feature programs (loyalty plus referral plus review flows) benefit from Growave’s onboarding and success resources. Merchants implementing a single wishlist element can rely on quicker self-serve setup via Ultimate Wishlist.

Reporting, Measurement, and ROI

Measuring impact is critical for justifying app spend.

Growave

• Provides reporting that connects wishlist activity to loyalty and referral conversions, enabling a clearer path to ROI by measuring repeat purchase lift and LTV.
• Integration with analytics and email platforms means data can be stitched into customer cohorts.

Ultimate Wishlist

• Clear, focused analytics on wishlist adds, page views, and add-to-cart events that help merchandising and product promotion decisions.

Practical takeaway: If the merchant’s post-installation objective is to quantify incremental revenue from loyalty programs and referral campaigns, Growave’s cross-functional analytics provide a clearer ROI picture. If the objective is to identify wishlist-driven demand for specific SKUs, Ultimate Wishlist is succinct and effective.

Security, Compliance, and Performance

Both apps operate on Shopify and must respect merchant and customer data privacy.

• Growave: Offers enterprise-level controls and support for headless and Plus environments; SLAs and dedicated success resources on Plus plans.
• Ultimate Wishlist: Lightweight, lower surface area, fewer integrations, which can simplify compliance scope.

Practical takeaway: Larger merchants with stricter compliance or availability needs will appreciate Growave’s enterprise support and the ability to centralize retention tools. Small merchants who want minimal complexity and fewer touchpoints will favor Ultimate Wishlist’s simplicity.

Implementation, Migration, and Technical Considerations

Installation and Setup

Ultimate Wishlist

• Fast install and minimal theme edits in most cases.
• Merchants can have a functioning wishlist within minutes to hours.

Growave

• More configuration due to multiple features; initial setup can be more involved when enabling loyalty programs, referrals, and review automation.
• Onboarding time varies by plan—higher tiers include more hands-on support and configuration assistance.

Theme Compatibility and Customization

• Ultimate Wishlist is designed for quick visual alignment; theme customizations are straightforward.
• Growave often requires more theme work when integrating loyalty widgets, loyalty pages, and checkout/pos extensions. However, the ability to fully customize loyalty pages is available on higher plans.

Migration and Data Export

• Growave supports data imports/exports and points migrations, which helps when consolidating multiple apps into a single stack.
• Ultimate Wishlist provides export options for wishlist data and reports.

Potential Integration Work

• Growave’s larger integration surface reduces the need for custom middleware in many cases.
• Merchants on Ultimate Wishlist may need to create custom flows (e.g., passing wishlist events to Klaviyo) or rely on tag-based automations.

Use Cases and Recommended Buyer Personas

• Small store, wishlist-only objective, cost-sensitive: Ultimate Wishlist. It’s a straightforward, low-cost option that delivers wishlist features without the overhead of a larger platform.
• Growing DTC brand focusing on retention and LTV: Growave. It consolidates loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlist, enabling coordinated campaigns across channels.
• Shopify Plus/omnichannel brand with POS and checkout customization needs: Growave Plus. Checkout extensions and POS loyalty QR support are differentiators.
• Merchants testing wishlist behavior before committing to loyalty investment: Start with Ultimate Wishlist to validate wishlist demand; upgrade to a retention platform if repeat purchase potential is identified.
• Merchants aiming to reduce monthly app count to simplify maintenance and reduce conflicts: Growave’s integrated approach can replace several single-purpose apps.

Pricing Scenarios and Break-Even Considerations

Merchants should compare the combined cost of single-purpose apps against a multi-feature platform. For example:

• A merchant paying separately for a wishlist app ($10), a loyalty app ($50), a referral app ($30), and a reviews app ($30) will quickly exceed the cost of an integrated platform like Growave Entry or Growth, while also suffering from maintenance overhead and potential integration gaps.
• Conversely, a small merchant paying $4.99–$14.99/month for Ultimate Wishlist will save money immediately if the only unmet need is wishlist functionality.

Calculating value

• Focus on conversion lift (wishlist-to-cart conversions), repeat purchase rate increase from loyalty, and revenue from referral-driven orders.
• Growave can be valued by its ability to push these metrics together; Ultimate Wishlist is valued by its low cost and speed of implementation.

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

Survival of growth strategies depends on clarity and operational simplicity. Many merchants suffer from "app fatigue": the overhead of managing multiple single-purpose tools that each add billing, integration points, UI elements, and potential conflicts.

App fatigue costs merchants in several ways:

• Fragmented data: Customer behaviors live in multiple systems, making it hard to measure holistic LTV or attribute repeat purchases.
• Integration maintenance: Multiple apps require ongoing theme updates and testing after theme or platform upgrades.
• Monthly subscriptions stack: Many single-purpose apps multiplied across loyalty, reviews, referrals, wishlist, and analytics increase recurring costs.
• Slower experiments: Implementing coordinated campaigns across different apps slows down experimentation and time-to-insight.

More Growth, Less Stack

• The "More Growth, Less Stack" approach centers on consolidating retention tools so that one system orchestrates loyalty, referral incentives, reviews, and wishlist triggers. That reduces maintenance overhead and makes data-driven campaigns easier to execute.

How Growave addresses app fatigue

• Consolidation: Merchants can consolidate loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist functionality into a single platform that ties customer behavior to rewards and marketing automation.
• Cross-feature automation: Wishlist adds can trigger targeted back-in-stock messages or loyalty nudges; referrals can be rewarded with points; reviews can be used as UGC for marketing—all within the same platform.
• Enterprise-ready extensibility: For merchants on Plus or Growth plans, headless APIs, checkout extensions, and POS support enable consistent experiences across channels.

Contextual resources

• Merchants can review pricing tiers and features to evaluate consolidation benefits and plan upgrades that match order volume and feature needs by comparing available plans on the pricing and plans page.
• Stores curious about how loyalty and rewards drive repeat purchases can explore loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.
• Merchants considering how review automation and UGC can increase conversion should read about collecting and showcasing authentic reviews.

Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated stack improves retention.
Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated stack improves retention.

Additional consolidation benefits

• Reduced conflict risk: Fewer apps means fewer theme conflicts.
• Single source of truth: Customer engagement metrics and reward balances are stored in one system.
• Faster ROI loops: When wishlist data directly informs loyalty campaigns, merchants can shortcut the time from insight to action.

Contextual examples of consolidation

• When a customer adds an item to wishlist, the platform can automatically:
  • Queue a back-in-stock notification tied to the wishlist item.
  • Add the customer to a segment eligible for VIP offers if consistent wishlist behavior suggests high purchase intent.
  • Trigger a review request post-purchase if the wishlist converts to an order.

This coordinated behavior is table stakes for brands that want to lift repeat purchase rate and average order value without increasing operational complexity.

Implementation Checklist for Choosing Between the Two

Use this checklist to decide which solution fits the merchant’s needs:

• Is wishlist the only feature required?
  • Yes → Ultimate Wishlist.
  • No → Growave.
• Does the merchant want loyalty, referrals, or reviews in future roadmaps?
  • Yes → Favor Growave.
• Does the merchant sell in-store or use Shopify Plus checkout customizations?
  • Yes → Growave Plus provides necessary checkout and POS tools.
• Is immediate budget constraint the top priority and wishlist volume is low?
  • Yes → Ultimate Wishlist is better value for money initially.
• Does the merchant prefer a single vendor for retention workflows and fewer integrations?
  • Yes → Growave reduces stack complexity.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist and Ultimate Wishlist, the decision comes down to scope and growth priorities. Ultimate Wishlist is an efficient, low-cost choice for stores that only need wishlist features, offering strong customization, guest wishlist support, and focused reporting. Growave is a broader retention platform that bundles loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist functionality; it’s better suited to merchants that want to increase retention, improve customer lifetime value, and reduce tool sprawl.

Growave’s integrated approach aims to replace multiple single-purpose apps with one platform so merchants can focus on growth rather than maintenance. For merchants ready to centralize retention features and scale with a single toolset, explore Growave’s consolidated plans and consider moving away from a multi-app stack by reviewing pricing and plans. Install from the Shopify App Store to evaluate the app live on your store.Review pricing and plans to compare tiers and features.

Start a 14-day free trial to see how a unified retention stack accelerates growth. Start a 14-day free trial to evaluate full retention features and pricing.

FAQ

Q: How do the review counts and ratings affect the decision?

• Ratings are a snapshot of satisfaction; Ultimate Wishlist has a slightly higher average rating (4.9) but only 34 reviews, which suggests a smaller user base. Growave’s rating (4.8) with 1,197 reviews indicates broad adoption and more varied feedback across different merchant sizes and industries. Heavy review volume improves confidence in reliability and support consistency.

Q: Which app is faster to install and test on a live store?

• Ultimate Wishlist is faster to install and typically requires minimal configuration. Growave requires more setup when using multiple modules (loyalty, reviews, referrals) but provides more coordinated capabilities once configured.

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

• An all-in-one platform reduces the number of vendors, billing lines, and integration points, centralizes customer data, and makes coordinated campaigns easier to run. Specialized apps can be cheaper upfront and quicker for a single feature, but they increase operational overhead and can limit cross-feature automation.

Q: Can a merchant start with Ultimate Wishlist and move to Growave later?

• Yes. Many merchants validate wishlist demand with a lightweight app and then migrate to a multi-feature platform once retention strategies are prioritized. When migrating, ensure wishlist exports and customer identifiers are included to maintain continuity.