Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews vs. Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards Comparison

Introduction

Selecting the right applications to power a Shopify storefront often involves a delicate balance between specialized functionality and operational simplicity. Merchants frequently find themselves choosing between best-in-class tools that solve specific problems, such as generating social proof or managing customer retention through rewards. Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews and Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards represent two different pillars of the customer experience, yet they often overlap in their ultimate goal: increasing the lifetime value of every shopper who visits the store.

Short answer: Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews focuses on visual social proof through photo and video reviews, while Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards prioritizes structured retention through points and VIP tiers. Both apps offer referral modules, but merchants seeking a unified data layer for all retention activities may find that managing separate specialized apps increases technical overhead and cumulative costs.

The purpose of this analysis is to provide a feature-by-feature comparison of Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews and Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards. By evaluating their core capabilities, pricing models, and integration ecosystems, store owners can determine which tool aligns with their current growth stage and technical requirements. This objective overview highlights where each app excels and identifies the trade-offs inherent in building a modular retention stack.

Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews vs. Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards: At a Glance

The following table summarizes the fundamental differences between these two solutions based on the provided data.

Deep Dive Comparison

Understanding how these applications function in a live retail environment requires looking beyond their primary categories. While one is categorized under reviews and the other under loyalty, the overlap in referral features means they often compete for the same space in a merchant's marketing strategy.

Core Features and Workflow Analysis

Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews is built around the concept of "visual social proof." The workflow is designed to automate the collection of reviews through post-purchase emails. A standout feature of this app is the incentive structure; merchants can offer discounts specifically in exchange for photo or video reviews. This creates a self-sustaining cycle where customers provide high-quality content that helps convert future visitors. The app includes ten different widgets, such as carousels and pop-ups, which allow store owners to display reviews at various stages of the buyer journey. On higher pricing tiers, the app introduces AI-driven tools for sorting, highlighting, and even auto-translating reviews, which is particularly useful for stores operating in multiple international markets.

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards takes a different approach by focusing on the mechanics of repeat purchasing. The app allows merchants to build a comprehensive points-based system where customers earn rewards for specific actions, such as making a purchase or engaging with the brand. Unlike a simple referral tool, Rivo provides the infrastructure for a dedicated loyalty page and VIP tiers. This allows brands to segment their most valuable customers and offer escalating benefits. The inclusion of a developer toolkit in the higher tiers indicates a focus on brands that require deep customization and unique integration paths.

Customization and Control

Control over brand aesthetics is a significant factor for growing DTC brands. Loox provides customizable widgets that are designed to fit any Shopify theme without impacting site speed. The focus here is on the visual presentation of the reviews themselves, ensuring that the social proof feels like a natural part of the product page. Support for multiple languages further ensures that the user experience remains consistent for global audiences.

Rivo offers a high degree of branding control, particularly in its Scale plan and above. Merchants can use custom CSS and specific fonts to ensure the loyalty interface matches their brand identity perfectly. The ability to customize the loyalty and referral pages ensures that the rewards program does not feel like a third-party add-on but rather a core part of the store experience. For enterprise-level needs, the Rivo Developer Toolkit provides a path for even deeper modifications that go beyond standard settings.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

The pricing models of these two apps reflect their different scopes. Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews starts at $12.99 per month for the Beginner plan, which covers up to 500 orders and provides basic review collection and widget access. As a merchant scales, the costs increase to $39.99 for video reviews and removals of branding, eventually reaching $299.99 for unlimited emails and referrals. This progression is tied largely to the volume of orders and the sophistication of the social proof tools.

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards offers a free-forever tier for stores with up to 200 monthly orders, making it accessible for very early-stage businesses. The Scale plan at $49 per month unlocks the majority of functional features like VIP tiers and analytics. However, there is a significant jump to the Plus plan at $499 per month. This top-tier plan is clearly aimed at larger brands needing checkout extensions and priority concierge support. When comparing these costs, merchants must consider that Loox does not provide a full loyalty program, and Rivo does not provide review collection. Combining them means managing two separate subscriptions and two sets of integration configurations.

Integrations and Ecosystem Fit

Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews is exclusive to Shopify and integrates with a wide range of tools in the Shopify ecosystem. It works with Klaviyo and Omnisend for email marketing, as well as Meta Shops and Google Shopping to sync reviews across external sales channels. It also integrates with Loyalty Lion, acknowledging that many merchants will need to pair their reviews with a separate loyalty provider.

Rivo also focuses heavily on the Shopify stack, including compatibility with Shopify POS and Shopify Flow. Its integration list includes Gorgias for customer support, and SMS tools like Postscript and Attentive. These integrations are vital for ensuring that loyalty data is available across all customer touchpoints. For instance, a customer support agent using Gorgias can see a customer's loyalty status, or a Klaviyo email can be triggered when a customer hits a new VIP tier.

Operational Overhead and Performance

Managing multiple specialized apps introduces a specific type of operational burden. When a merchant uses Loox for reviews and Rivo for loyalty, they are maintaining two different dashboards, two different sets of customer data, and two different script packages on their storefront. While both apps are designed to be performant, every additional app added to a Shopify store can contribute to "app sprawl," where the complexity of the tech stack begins to slow down development or create data silos.

Loox provides 24/7 customer support to help with technical hurdles, which is essential for a tool that lives on the front end of the site. Rivo similarly offers 24/7 live chat support and emphasizes its weekly product updates. This high level of support is a trust signal for merchants who cannot afford downtime on their conversion-critical widgets or retention programs.

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

As Shopify stores grow, the challenge often shifts from finding the "right app" to managing the "right stack." App fatigue occurs when a merchant spends more time syncing data between tools like reviews, loyalty programs, and wishlists than they do on actual marketing strategy. This fragmentation often leads to inconsistent customer experiences; for example, a customer might receive a review request from one app and a loyalty points update from another, with no coordination between the two.

Growave addresses these challenges by moving away from the single-function app model. Instead of having separate billing, support, and data structures for every feature, this platform integrates loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists into a single dashboard. This approach simplifies the merchant experience and provides a clearer view of total retention-stack costs. When these tools live under one roof, the data flows naturally between them. A customer who leaves a review can automatically be rewarded with loyalty points, and those points can be tracked alongside their wishlist activity, creating a comprehensive profile of customer behavior.

For brands focusing on long-term growth, the "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy reduces the technical debt associated with multiple installations. It ensures that the storefront remains fast and that the user interface is consistent across all retention touchpoints. By collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews within the same ecosystem that manages loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases, merchants can create more sophisticated automation flows without complex third-party connectors.

If consolidating tools is a priority, start by choosing a plan built for long-term value. This transition allows teams to focus on strategy rather than troubleshooting app conflicts. Brands can look at real examples from brands improving retention to see how an integrated stack performs in the wild. The consolidation of data also leads to better insights, as the platform can provide a tailored walkthrough based on store goals and constraints that accounts for the entire customer journey rather than just one siloed metric.

Furthermore, for high-growth merchants, having a single point of contact for support is a major operational advantage. Instead of bouncing between different developers to find out why a loyalty widget is conflicting with a review pop-up, merchants have a unified support team. This efficiency is reflected in the reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from, where the volume of positive feedback highlights the reliability of an all-in-one solution. By seeing how other brands connect loyalty and reviews, it becomes clear that the value of an integrated platform lies in its ability to provide review automation that builds trust at purchase time while simultaneously driving loyalty programs that keep customers coming back.

Ultimately, reducing the number of apps in the stack leads to selecting plans that reduce stacked tooling costs. This allows for a focused demo that maps tools to retention outcomes and ensures that the marketing budget is spent on features that drive growth rather than on redundant subscription fees.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews and Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards, the decision comes down to which specific retention gap needs to be filled first. Loox is the superior choice for brands that are heavily focused on visual aesthetics and need to build immediate trust through photo and video social proof. Its AI-driven sorting and deep integration with social shopping channels make it a powerful tool for conversion rate optimization. On the other hand, Rivo is better suited for merchants who prioritize a structured loyalty framework, offering the flexibility of VIP tiers and a dedicated rewards page that can be heavily customized via CSS.

However, as a store matures, the limitations of using specialized, disconnected apps become more apparent. The cost of individual subscriptions adds up, and the lack of a unified data layer can lead to missed opportunities in customer engagement. While Loox and Rivo excel in their respective niches, they represent a modular approach that often requires more manual oversight as the business scales.

Strategic growth is often better supported by an integrated platform that manages the entire lifecycle of customer retention. By choosing a solution that combines these features, merchants can reduce technical friction, lower their total cost of ownership, and provide a more seamless experience for their customers. For those ready to evaluate their current stack, comparing plan fit against retention goals is an excellent first step toward a more efficient operation.

To reduce app fatigue and run retention from one place, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ

Can I use Loox and Rivo together on the same Shopify store?

Yes, it is possible to use both applications simultaneously. Loox would handle the collection and display of product reviews, while Rivo would manage your points-based loyalty program and VIP tiers. Both apps include referral features, so you would need to choose which one powers your referral program to avoid sending duplicate or conflicting requests to your customers. Keep in mind that using both will mean managing two different billing cycles and two separate sets of customer data.

Does Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews offer a loyalty program?

Loox focuses primarily on visual reviews and social proof. While it includes a referral module and the ability to offer discounts in exchange for reviews, it does not feature a traditional loyalty points system, VIP tiers, or a dedicated rewards page. If your goal is to build a complex loyalty ecosystem where customers earn points for various actions, you would typically need to pair Loox with a dedicated loyalty app.

Which app is better for a new store with a small budget?

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards offers a free-forever plan for stores with under 200 orders per month, which is highly beneficial for new merchants. Loox ‑ Visual Product Reviews starts at $12.99 per month and does not offer a free-forever tier, though its entry-level price is relatively accessible. For a new store, the choice depends on whether your immediate priority is building trust through reviews or encouraging repeat purchases through a rewards program.

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

An all-in-one platform integrates multiple retention tools—such as reviews, loyalty, and wishlists—into a single application. The main advantage is the reduction of "app sprawl," leading to faster site performance and a unified customer profile. While specialized apps may sometimes offer deeper niche features, an integrated platform provides better value for money by eliminating multiple subscription fees and ensuring that different retention tactics, like rewarding points for leaving a review, work together automatically without complex configurations.