Love Loyalty Points & Rewards vs. Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right Shopify apps is a critical decision for any merchant aiming to foster customer loyalty and drive repeat purchases. The sheer volume of options can be overwhelming, with each app promising unique benefits. Selecting a solution that aligns with business goals, budget, and operational needs requires careful evaluation. The long-term success of retention strategies often hinges on the foundational tools implemented to manage customer relationships and incentivize desired behaviors.

Short answer: Love Loyalty Points & Rewards focuses intensely on loyalty programs, including points, VIP tiers, and paid memberships, making it suitable for merchants with a precise loyalty-centric strategy. Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist, conversely, provides an integrated suite encompassing loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists, offering a consolidated approach to customer retention that can streamline operations.

This article provides an objective, feature-by-feature comparison of Love Loyalty Points & Rewards and Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist. The aim is to equip merchants with a clear understanding of each app's capabilities, helping them make an informed choice that best supports their customer retention objectives.

Love Loyalty Points & Rewards vs. Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Core Features and Workflows

Understanding the fundamental capabilities of each app is paramount for merchants to assess their fit for specific retention strategies. Both Love Loyalty Points & Rewards and Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist aim to improve customer lifetime value, but they approach this goal with distinct feature sets and philosophies.

Loyalty Programs, Points, and Rewards

Both applications provide the foundational elements of a modern loyalty program, including the ability to earn points, redeem rewards, and segment customers into VIP tiers.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards places a significant emphasis on customization and direct customer interaction within the loyalty program itself. Merchants can define how customers earn points and redeem rewards with considerable flexibility. A standout feature is the ability for customers to redeem rewards directly in the cart without navigating through pop-up widgets. This can streamline the purchase experience, potentially reducing friction at a critical conversion point. The app also boasts over 15 loyalty program placements, offering ample opportunity to integrate loyalty touchpoints across the entire customer journey on the storefront. Beyond standard loyalty points, it offers a "paid memberships" feature, allowing merchants to create subscription-based loyalty programs with exclusive benefits, which can be a powerful tool for recurring revenue and deeper engagement.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist also offers robust loyalty points and rewards functionality, including customizable earning rules and redemption options. Its approach is holistic, integrating loyalty into a broader customer engagement ecosystem. While specific "placements" are not enumerated as extensively in the description, the platform is designed to connect with customers at various touchpoints, including the website, checkout, POS, and mobile. The loyalty programs that keep customers coming back are deeply intertwined with its other modules, meaning that loyalty efforts can be cross-pollinated with reviews, referrals, and wishlists for a unified customer experience. Growave’s loyalty programs are also designed with VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers, offering a clear path to recognize and reward a brand's most valuable patrons.

Referrals

Referral programs are a proven method for acquiring new customers through existing ones, and both apps offer this functionality.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards includes a referrals feature, allowing merchants to incentivize customers to spread the word about their brand. The details on customization for referral rewards and tracking are not extensively specified beyond its inclusion as a core feature of the Professional and higher plans.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist also provides a referral program with fraud protection. This suggests a more sophisticated approach to ensuring the integrity of referral campaigns, a critical consideration for scaling businesses. The referral program is part of its comprehensive suite, allowing it to integrate with other engagement tools.

Extended Retention Features

Here is where the two apps diverge significantly in their core offering.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards is a specialized solution primarily focused on loyalty, referrals, and paid memberships. While it "works with" review apps like Judge.me, it does not include an integrated review management system or wishlist functionality within its own feature set. Merchants using this app would need to acquire separate solutions for these aspects of retention.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist stands out as an "all-in-one platform." Beyond loyalty and referrals, it natively incorporates:
  • Reviews & UGC: The app helps with collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, a critical component of social proof. It supports review automation and various display options, including Google Shopping Reviews and Instagram UGC on higher plans. This functionality is crucial for building trust and improving conversion rates.
  • Wishlist: This feature allows customers to save products for later, reducing cart abandonment and providing valuable data for merchants. Growave also supports back-in-stock wishlist emails on its Growth plan, which can reactivate interested shoppers. The integration of these features under one roof means that a single platform can manage reward mechanics that support customer lifetime value, social proof that supports conversion and AOV, and tools that reduce uncertainty for new buyers.

B2B and POS Support

Both apps acknowledge the diverse needs of modern commerce, including business-to-business (B2B) operations and physical retail.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards explicitly states support for B2B loyalty programs and Shopify POS, enabling customers to earn and redeem points in physical stores. This flexibility is a key advantage for omnichannel retailers.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist also supports Shopify POS functionality, with specific features like "Shopify POS Loyalty QR" on its Growth plan. It also explicitly mentions "boosting B2B selling" and "B2B & Unlimited integrations" on its Plus plan, indicating a strong commitment to serving B2B merchants with complex needs.

Customization and Control

The ability to tailor an app to a brand's specific aesthetic and operational requirements is crucial for a cohesive customer experience.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards emphasizes "limitless customization" on its free plan and "customizations" on all paid plans. This suggests a high degree of control over the look and feel of loyalty program elements and rules. The 15+ loyalty program placements further allow merchants to strategically integrate loyalty features into their storefront's design and user flow.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist offers "full flexibility to customize app branding" and "tailor experiences for headless" setups, which is particularly relevant for advanced Shopify Plus stores. Higher plans include "customizable emails," "loyalty page custom design," and "custom reward actions," demonstrating a commitment to deep brand integration and unique retention strategies. This level of control is essential for brands that demand a premium, consistent experience across all customer touchpoints and for those leveraging capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

Evaluating the cost of an app involves not just the monthly fee but also the features included, scalability, and the potential need for additional apps.

Love Loyalty Points & Rewards Pricing

• Free Plan: Up to 150 orders/month, includes a points program, cart redemption, limitless customization, and live chat support. This is a generous offering for new or smaller stores primarily focused on loyalty.
• Professional ($24/month): Adds 15+ loyalty placements, POS support, and referrals, expanding the reach of the loyalty program.
• Growth ($79/month): Introduces VIP tiers and paid memberships (with a 1.8% transaction fee). This plan targets stores ready to implement more advanced loyalty mechanics, but the transaction fee on memberships should be considered.
• Plus ($399/month): Offers UNLIMITED ORDERS, Checkout Extensions, VIP tiers, and a reduced paid membership transaction fee (0.8%). This plan is designed for high-volume merchants needing comprehensive loyalty features at scale.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist Pricing

• FREE Plan: 100 orders/month (with a total limit of 500 orders), includes Loyalty points, Wishlist, Product Reviews, Data imports/exports, Growave branding, and 48hr email support. This free tier is notable for including not just loyalty, but also reviews and wishlist functionality—a significant value proposition compared to single-function free apps.
• ENTRY ($49/month): Adds advanced rewards, referral program with fraud protection, nudges, review request email series, Shopify POS, Shopify Flow, one integration (e.g., Klaviyo), and customizable emails with 24/7 email support. This plan offers a robust set of integrated retention tools for a competitive price.
• GROWTH ($199/month): Includes VIP Tiers, a dedicated loyalty page, Shopify POS Loyalty QR, points expiration, gift cards, account extensions, review attributes, Google Shopping Reviews, Instagram UGC, back-in-stock wishlist emails, and 5* onboarding with 24/7 email/chat support. This plan offers an extensive suite for growing brands looking to maximize retention across multiple channels.
• PLUS ($499/month): Provides Checkout extensions, Headless API & SDK, custom loyalty page design, custom reward actions, B2B, unlimited integrations, a Customer Success Manager, dedicated launch plan, and 24/7 email/live chat/phone support. This tier is built for high-volume, enterprise-level Shopify Plus merchants requiring advanced features and dedicated strategic support.

Value for Money Assessment

When comparing plan fit against retention goals, Love Loyalty Points & Rewards can offer better value for money if a merchant only needs a deep loyalty program and prefers its specific features like cart redemption and paid memberships. Its lower-tier paid plans are more accessible for smaller budgets focused solely on loyalty.

However, when considering the total scope of customer retention, Growave’s integrated platform often presents a lower total cost of ownership by consolidating multiple functions (loyalty, reviews, referrals, wishlist) into one app. Merchants using Love Loyalty might need to purchase separate apps for reviews and wishlists, increasing their overall app stack costs and management overhead. For a clearer view of total retention-stack costs, evaluating feature coverage across plans for Growave often reveals that its bundled offering provides greater value for comprehensive retention strategies, especially as a store scales and needs a broader array of engagement tools. Choosing a plan built for long-term value involves considering not just immediate needs but also future growth and the efficiency of a unified platform.

Integrations and “Works With” Fit

The ability of a retention app to integrate seamlessly with a merchant's existing tech stack is vital for efficient data flow and a unified customer experience.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards is designed to work with key Shopify functionalities such as Checkout, Shopify POS, Customer accounts, and Shopify Flow. It also integrates with popular marketing and review tools, specifically mentioning Klaviyo, Email, and Judge.me, along with "Review apps" generally. This ensures compatibility with common email marketing and social proof solutions.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist demonstrates a broader integration strategy, reflecting its all-in-one nature. Beyond Shopify core features (Checkout, Shopify POS, Customer accounts, Shopify Flow), it integrates with:
  • Page Builders: Pagefly, LayoutHub, GemPages, Shopney. This ensures loyalty and review widgets are compatible with custom page designs.
  • Email & SMS Marketing: Klaviyo, Omnisend, Postscript, PushOwl, Attentive. This allows for sophisticated segmentation and automated campaigns based on loyalty actions, wishlist activity, and review requests.
  • Customer Service: Gorgias. This helps consolidate customer interactions and provides support teams with a full view of customer loyalty and engagement.
  • Subscriptions: Recharge. Critical for businesses with recurring revenue models.
  • Social Commerce: TikTok Shop. Adapting to modern commerce channels. The extensive list of integrations provided by Growave ensures that loyalty programs that keep customers coming back can be enhanced by powerful marketing and support tools, while collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews can be automated and optimized through various platforms. This broad compatibility makes Growave a strong contender for merchants with complex tech stacks or those planning to expand their integrations in the future, supporting advanced storefront and checkout requirements.

Analytics and Reporting

Understanding the performance of retention efforts is crucial for optimization and strategic planning. While neither app's description explicitly details a specific analytics dashboard or reporting suite, insights can be inferred from their functionalities.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards: The focus on points, rewards, VIP tiers, and referrals implies tracking of these metrics. Merchants would likely be able to see how many points are issued, redeemed, and the overall impact of their loyalty programs on repeat purchases. However, detailed analytics beyond these core loyalty metrics are not specified.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: As an all-in-one platform covering loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists, it is designed to help merchants "drive actual growth." This objective inherently requires data and insights. The inclusion of "Data imports/exports" on the Free plan suggests a foundational capability for handling and analyzing customer data. For features like review automation that builds trust at purchase time or retention programs that reduce reliance on discounts, having integrated reporting across these modules would be a significant advantage, providing a holistic view of customer engagement and its impact on revenue. While specific analytics features are not elaborated in the provided data, the platform's stated goal of facilitating growth strongly suggests an emphasis on measurable outcomes.

Customer Support Expectations and Reliability Cues

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

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards: With 227 reviews and a perfect 5.0 rating, Love Loyalty demonstrates extremely high merchant satisfaction. This strong rating, combined with "Live chat support" being available on all plans (even the Free tier), suggests a highly responsive and effective support team. The developer's commitment to "Free and fast migration from LoyaltyLion, Smile, Yotpo" also indicates a customer-centric approach to onboarding.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: With 1,197 reviews and a 4.8 rating, Growave maintains a high level of satisfaction across a much larger user base. While not a perfect 5.0, a 4.8 rating on over a thousand reviews is a strong indicator of consistent quality and reliability for an app with a broader feature set. Growave's support structure scales with its plans:
  • FREE: 48hr email support.
  • ENTRY/GROWTH: 24/7 email support.
  • GROWTH/PLUS: 24/7 email/chat support.
  • PLUS: 24/7 email/live chat/phone support, along with a dedicated CSM (Customer Success Manager) and AM (Account Manager), and a dedicated launch plan. This tiered support model, particularly the dedicated resources for Plus plan users, signifies an enterprise-level commitment to customer success, which is crucial for managing features aligned with enterprise retention requirements. The availability of 24/7 support across multiple channels for higher tiers provides peace of mind for businesses operating globally or with critical time-sensitive needs. Assessing app-store ratings as a trust signal suggests both apps are well-regarded, but Growave’s ability to maintain a high rating with a much larger feature set and user base speaks to its robust architecture and support infrastructure.

Performance, Compatibility, and Operational Overhead

The technical foundation of an app affects its speed, stability, and compatibility within the Shopify ecosystem, impacting a merchant's overall operational overhead.

• Love Loyalty Points & Rewards: The description highlights that the app is "using the latest Shopify tech so your loyalty points program will be fast." This commitment to modern Shopify standards is vital for maintaining storefront performance. The inclusion of "Checkout Extensions" on the Plus plan indicates deep integration with Shopify's evolving platform capabilities, which can enhance the customer experience at a critical stage. Support for Shopify POS and Customer accounts further ensures broad compatibility across typical Shopify setups. For merchants seeking to minimize operational overhead related to their loyalty program specifically, the streamlined functionality and direct integration with Shopify's core features can be beneficial.
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: Positioned as an "all-in-one platform packed with features proven to drive actual growth," Growave is also explicitly "Built for Shopify Plus" with "powerful checkout and account extensions." This indicates a strong focus on high-performance and scalability for larger, more complex stores, including readiness for multi-team workflows and complexity. The mention of "Headless: API & SDK" on the Plus plan further underscores its capabilities for advanced storefront architectures, offering an approach that fits high-growth operational complexity. By consolidating multiple retention functions (loyalty, reviews, wishlist, referrals) into a single solution, Growave inherently aims to reduce "app stack" issues such as conflicting code, performance degradation from too many scripts, and data silos. This consolidation can lead to less overhead in terms of app management, updates, and troubleshooting, as well as a more consistent user experience across different retention tools. Verifying compatibility details in the official app listing confirms Growave's broad integration with various Shopify features and popular third-party tools, further streamlining operations.

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

Merchants often find themselves juggling multiple single-function apps to achieve a comprehensive customer retention strategy. This common scenario, often referred to as "app fatigue," presents several challenges: tool sprawl, fragmented customer data across disparate systems, inconsistent customer experiences due to varying app interfaces, increased integration overhead, and a higher total cost from stacking multiple subscriptions. Each app might function well individually, but together they can create an unwieldy and inefficient ecosystem.

This is where Growave’s "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy offers a distinct advantage. Instead of requiring separate apps for loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists, Growave consolidates these critical functions into a single, integrated platform. This approach simplifies a merchant's tech stack, centralizes customer data, and creates a more cohesive experience for both the merchant and their customers. The benefits extend beyond mere convenience; a unified platform can lead to better performance, reduced technical debt, and more effective data analysis for a clearer view of total retention-stack costs. If consolidating tools is a priority, start by comparing plan fit against retention goals.

Growave directly addresses the limitations of a fragmented app stack by providing a comprehensive suite of tools designed to work together seamlessly.

• Loyalty & Rewards: Growave offers loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases. This includes customizable earning rules, redemption options, and VIP tiers that seamlessly integrate with other modules. Reward mechanics that support customer lifetime value are built into the platform’s core.
• Reviews & UGC: The platform excels in collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews and user-generated content. This functionality is crucial for building trust, providing social proof that supports conversion and AOV, and improving search engine visibility. Post-purchase review requests that feel consistent help automate this vital process.
• Referrals: An integrated referral program with fraud protection helps merchants acquire new customers efficiently, turning existing loyal customers into brand advocates.
• Wishlist: Growave includes a wishlist feature that allows customers to save products and receive notifications, such as back-in-stock emails, directly contributing to re-engagement and sales.
• VIP Tiers: Merchants can establish VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers to acknowledge and reward their most valuable shoppers, deepening their engagement.

By integrating these essential retention tools, Growave enables merchants to manage their entire customer lifecycle from one dashboard, ensuring consistent branding and data flow. This is particularly beneficial for brands needing capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs, as an integrated solution can better handle the complexities of high-volume operations and multi-team workflows. Growave offers features aligned with enterprise retention requirements and a platform that supports advanced storefront and checkout requirements, making it a powerful solution for growth-oriented brands. The platform is built to deliver social proof that supports conversion and AOV by linking review collection directly to the customer journey.

This comprehensive approach not only reduces the number of apps a merchant needs to manage but also creates a synergistic effect where loyalty, reviews, and wishlists reinforce each other. It fosters a more coherent and engaging customer journey, ultimately driving sustainable growth by focusing on long-term relationships rather than isolated transactions. The ability to manage such a broad set of tools within a single interface, while providing enterprise-level features, simplifies the execution of complex retention strategies and can significantly reduce planning retention spend without app sprawl surprises.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Love Loyalty Points & Rewards and Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist, the decision comes down to strategic focus and the desired scope of retention efforts. Love Loyalty Points & Rewards stands as a highly specialized and robust solution for merchants whose primary goal is to implement a deep, customizable loyalty program, including unique features like paid memberships and diverse storefront placements. Its perfect 5.0 rating on a significant number of reviews speaks volumes about its effectiveness and customer support for those needing a loyalty-centric approach.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist, conversely, appeals to merchants seeking a more holistic and integrated approach to customer retention. By combining loyalty, referrals, reviews & UGC, and wishlists into a single platform, it addresses the challenges of app fatigue and fragmented data. This comprehensive offering provides excellent value for merchants aiming to streamline their tech stack and manage multiple facets of customer engagement from one place. Its strong 4.8 rating across a larger review base, coupled with extensive features for growing and Shopify Plus businesses, positions it as a powerful, all-in-one solution for managing loyalty programs that keep customers coming back and for building trust through UGC workflows that keep product pages credible.

Ultimately, the choice depends on whether a merchant prioritizes a highly specialized, dedicated loyalty solution or a comprehensive platform that consolidates several vital retention tools. For businesses looking to optimize their entire customer journey and reduce operational overhead by minimizing their app stack, an integrated platform like Growave offers a compelling value proposition and a powerful approach to customer lifetime value. To reduce app fatigue and run retention from one place, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ

How do the free plans of Love Loyalty Points & Rewards and Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist compare?

The free plan for Love Loyalty Points & Rewards supports up to 150 orders/month and includes a points program with cart redemption and live chat. Growave's FREE plan handles 100 orders/month (with a total limit of 500 orders) but uniquely includes loyalty points, a wishlist, and product reviews, along with data imports/exports. Merchants prioritizing a robust loyalty-only start might prefer Love Loyalty's higher order limit on the free plan, while those seeking an early integrated approach with reviews and a wishlist would find Growave's free offering more comprehensive.

Which app is better for new stores versus established ones?

For new or smaller stores focused strictly on implementing a loyalty program without immediate need for integrated reviews or wishlists, Love Loyalty Points & Rewards might be a more straightforward and cost-effective entry point, particularly with its lower-priced Professional plan. For established and growing stores, especially those on Shopify Plus, Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist provides a more scalable, all-in-one platform that can consolidate existing retention tools and support complex needs like checkout extensions, headless commerce, and dedicated account management, making it easier to manage retention tooling suited for Plus governance needs.

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

An all-in-one platform like Growave centralizes multiple retention functions—loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists—into a single application. This typically leads to reduced app sprawl, consistent customer data, streamlined workflows, and often a lower total cost of ownership compared to subscribing to several individual specialized apps. Specialized apps, such as Love Loyalty Points & Rewards, excel at providing deep, feature-rich functionality within their specific niche. They might offer unique features not found in bundled solutions, but they require merchants to manage multiple integrations and potentially deal with data silos between different tools. The choice depends on a merchant's preference for depth in one area versus breadth and integration across several.

What about Shopify Plus specific needs?

Both apps offer features relevant to Shopify Plus merchants. Love Loyalty Points & Rewards includes "Checkout Extensions" on its Plus plan and offers unlimited orders, catering to high-volume businesses. Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist is explicitly "Built for Shopify Plus" and provides advanced features on its higher tiers such as "Checkout extensions," "Headless: API & SDK," and dedicated customer success resources. This indicates a strong design philosophy around the specific requirements of large-scale, high-growth Shopify Plus operations, making it suitable for brands that require advanced customizations and robust support for an approach that fits high-growth operational complexity.