Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards vs. Flits Loyalty Rewards Program Comparison

Introduction

Selecting the right retention tools is a pivotal decision for any Shopify store looking to move beyond one-off transactions and toward sustainable customer lifetime value. The market for loyalty and rewards software offers various approaches, from lightweight point systems to complex enterprise frameworks. Two prominent options available to merchants are Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards and Flits Loyalty Rewards Program. Both aim to solve the problem of customer churn, but they do so through different feature priorities and technical philosophies.

Short answer: Rivo is designed for fast-growing direct-to-consumer brands that prioritize modern Shopify architecture and high-frequency product updates, while Flits offers a broader suite of account-page enhancements, including store credit and wishlist functionality. Choosing between them involves balancing the need for specialized loyalty depth against the desire for account-page versatility, keeping in mind that integrated platforms can significantly reduce operational overhead.

The following analysis provides a feature-by-feature comparison of Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards and Flits Loyalty Rewards Program. By examining their core functionalities, pricing structures, and integration capabilities, merchants can determine which solution aligns with their current operational scale and long-term growth objectives.

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards vs. Flits Loyalty Rewards Program: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Core Loyalty and Reward Mechanics

The fundamental goal of any loyalty app is to incentivize repeat behavior. Rivo and Flits both provide the standard framework for earning and redeeming points, but their execution paths diverge quickly.

Rivo positions itself as a modern solution built on the latest Shopify technology. Its primary focus is on a fully customizable loyalty and referral platform that integrates deeply with a brand's existing marketing stack. The rewards system in Rivo is designed to be streamlined, focusing on ways to earn and redeem points that feel native to the Shopify checkout experience. For brands on high-tier plans, Rivo utilizes Checkout Extensions, which allows the loyalty program to live directly within the checkout flow without the friction of external widgets or redirections.

Flits takes a slightly different approach by centering its retention strategy around the customer account page. Beyond simple points, Flits emphasizes a store credit system. This is a strategic distinction; while points are often viewed as a "game" by customers, store credit feels like real currency. This distinction is particularly useful for handling refunds or customer service issues, where issuing credit can retain revenue that would otherwise be lost to a bank reversal. Flits also includes features that go beyond loyalty, such as social login and wishlist functionality, aiming to make the customer account page a central hub for all shopper activity.

Referral Program Capabilities

Referrals are a critical component of customer acquisition costs. Both apps include referral modules designed to turn existing customers into brand advocates.

Rivo’s referral system is built for speed and ease of use. It focuses on driving specific retention metrics by making it simple for customers to share links and for friends to receive rewards. The emphasis here is on the user interface and the ability for the merchant to customize the branding (including CSS and fonts) so the referral experience feels indistinguishable from the rest of the site.

Flits incorporates a referral program that rewards both the inviter and the receiver. A notable feature of the Flits referral system is its integration with the account page. Because Flits handles the "new Shopify accounts" and "legacy accounts" logic, it can track referrals across different customer segments more effectively. This makes it a strong choice for stores that have a long history of customers and need to ensure that referral credits are applied correctly to both old and new profiles.

Pricing Structure and Total Cost of Ownership

Understanding the financial commitment is essential for merchants comparing plan fit against retention goals. Both apps offer entry-level free plans, but their scaling models vary.

Rivo offers a "Free Forever" plan that supports up to 200 monthly orders. This is a generous starting point for new stores. However, the jump to the Scale plan at $49 per month is where features like VIP tiers, points expiry, and advanced branding become available. For enterprise-level brands, the Plus plan at $499 per month is a significant investment. This plan is designed for brands that require checkout extensions and the Rivo Developer Toolkit for custom integrations.

Flits also starts with a free plan for up to 200 monthly orders. Its Growth plan matches Rivo’s $49 price point but includes a broader array of features like store credit, social login, and a wishlist. The Established plan at $199 per month sits between Rivo’s mid and high tiers, offering 40+ integrations and Shopify POS support. For many merchants, Flits may represent a lower total cost of ownership if they were previously paying for separate wishlist or social login apps.

Customization and Brand Control

Maintaining brand consistency is vital for trust. Rivo places a high premium on this, offering custom CSS and font support in its $49 plan. This level of control ensures that the loyalty widget and dedicated pages do not look like "add-ons" but rather like built-in features of the storefront. The Rivo Developer Toolkit further extends this for Plus merchants, allowing for completely bespoke loyalty experiences.

Flits focuses customization efforts on the account page. While it offers onsite options and a floating loyalty widget, its primary value is in transforming the standard Shopify account page into a personalized dashboard. This includes translation support and onsite options that can be configured without writing code. However, achieving the same level of granular CSS control as Rivo might require more manual effort depending on the specific theme being used.

Integrations and Ecosystem Fit

A loyalty app does not exist in a vacuum. It must communicate with email platforms, helpdesks, and SMS tools.

Rivo boasts a "world-class" integration list, working seamlessly with Klaviyo, Gorgias, Postscript, and Attentive. Its focus is on the "modern stack," ensuring that loyalty data flows into marketing automation tools to trigger personalized emails or texts based on point balances or VIP status. The ability to use Shopify Flow also allows for complex automated workflows that can be triggered by loyalty events.

Flits has a broader but perhaps less "modern-exclusive" integration list, claiming compatibility with over 40 third-party apps, including Judge.me, Loox, and Vajro. This makes Flits a versatile choice for merchants who use a wide variety of tools across different categories. The inclusion of Shopify POS integration in the Established plan is a key detail for omnichannel retailers who need to sync rewards between their physical and online stores.

Analytics and Reporting

Data-driven decisions are the hallmark of successful growth strategies. Merchants need to know if their loyalty programs that keep customers coming back are actually generating a return on investment.

Rivo provides analytics in its $49 plan and advanced analytics in the $499 plan. These reports focus on retention metrics, helping merchants see how loyalty points are influencing repeat purchase rates. By focusing on these specific data points, Rivo aims to provide a clear picture of how the app is driving growth.

Flits offers basic analytics (covering the last 30 days) on its free plan, while the Growth plan extends this to 365 days of data. This allows for year-over-year comparisons, which is useful for identifying seasonal trends in customer loyalty and store credit usage. The Established plan adds further depth, though specific details on custom reporting are not specified in the provided data.

Customer Support and Reliability

When a loyalty program goes down, it can lead to frustrated customers and lost sales. Support quality is often a deciding factor.

Rivo emphasizes its "world-class live chat support" available 24/7. The founder’s note highlights a focus on helping brands improve actual retention metrics, suggesting a more consultative approach to support. With only one review provided in the data (at a 4.8 rating), the long-term public sentiment is less documented than its competitor, but the emphasis on weekly product updates suggests an active and responsive development team.

Flits has a much larger pool of public feedback, with 391 reviews and a 4.9 rating. This indicates a high level of merchant satisfaction over a longer period. Support ranges from ticket-based assistance on the free plan to live chat on the Established plan. The high rating across nearly 400 reviews is a strong trust signal for merchants who prioritize proven reliability and established support workflows.

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

While choosing between Rivo and Flits often feels like a choice between two different feature sets, many merchants eventually encounter a common hurdle: app fatigue. This phenomenon occurs when a store becomes a patchwork of various single-function tools. One app handles loyalty, another handles reviews, a third manages wishlists, and a fourth controls social proof. This "tool sprawl" leads to fragmented customer data, inconsistent user experiences, and a significantly higher total cost of ownership.

When a brand uses separate apps for every function, they often find themselves selecting plans that reduce stacked tooling costs just to keep their overhead manageable. Each additional app adds a new layer of code to the storefront, which can impact page load speeds. Furthermore, getting these disparate apps to "talk" to each other often requires complex manual integrations or expensive third-party connectors. If the loyalty app doesn't know about the review the customer just left, or if the wishlist doesn't trigger a loyalty-based incentive, the brand misses out on powerful automation opportunities.

Growave offers a solution to this complexity through a "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy. Instead of being just a loyalty app, it serves as an integrated retention platform that combines several essential modules into one package. By housing loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases, reviews, wishlists, and social login under one roof, Growave ensures that data flows seamlessly between every part of the customer journey. For example, a merchant can automatically reward a customer with loyalty points for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, all without setting up a single external integration.

This integrated approach directly addresses the operational friction that scaling brands face. Instead of managing four or five different subscriptions and support teams, merchants can oversee their entire retention strategy from a single dashboard. This leads to a more consistent customer experience; the loyalty widget, review request emails, and wishlist buttons all share a unified design language. Brands can find real examples from brands improving retention by moving away from fragmented stacks and toward a more cohesive system.

Furthermore, the data transparency gained from an integrated platform is invaluable. When loyalty and reviews are connected, you can easily identify your most influential customers—those who not only buy frequently but also leave positive feedback and refer friends. You can then target these individuals with VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers. This level of insight is much harder to achieve when your data is siloed across multiple apps.

By reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from, it becomes clear that many brands prioritize this consolidation. Whether it is using review automation that builds trust at purchase time or leveraging customer stories that show how teams reduce app sprawl, the goal is the same: to create a lean, efficient, and powerful retention engine. For stores that are tired of the "app stack" dance, moving to a platform that handles the heavy lifting of retention in one place allows the team to focus on what matters most—building a brand people love.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards and Flits Loyalty Rewards Program, the decision comes down to the specific goals of the storefront and the desired depth of the loyalty experience versus account-page utility. Rivo is an excellent choice for modern DTC brands that want a sleek, fast, and highly customizable loyalty and referral program that leverages the latest Shopify Plus features like checkout extensions. Its focus is narrow but deep, providing high-quality tools for brands that already have a sophisticated marketing stack in place.

On the other hand, Flits offers a more horizontal approach. It is ideal for merchants who want to maximize the value of their customer account pages by integrating store credit, social login, and wishlists alongside a points-based loyalty program. Its store credit system provides a unique advantage for managing returns and customer service, making it a practical choice for businesses with high transaction volumes or complex refund needs.

Ultimately, both apps are specialized tools that perform their primary functions well. However, as a business scales, the overhead of managing specialized apps for loyalty, another for reviews, and another for wishlists can become a bottleneck. This is where an integrated platform provides a strategic advantage by reducing technical debt and unifying the customer experience. By mapping costs to retention outcomes over time, merchants often find that a consolidated approach offers better long-term value.

Choosing the right path requires verifying compatibility details in the official app listing to ensure the features align with your specific theme and order volume. Whether you choose the specialized depth of Rivo, the account-centric features of Flits, or the integrated efficiency of a platform like Growave, the priority should always be on creating a frictionless and rewarding experience for your most loyal customers.

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?

A specialized app focus on doing one thing, such as loyalty or reviews, with a high degree of depth. An all-in-one platform provides multiple modules that are natively integrated. While specialized apps might offer niche features, an integrated platform reduces the number of apps installed on your store, which often improves site speed and ensures that different retention tools, like loyalty and reviews, can share data and trigger automated workflows together without manual setup.

Which app is better for handling customer refunds?

Flits is particularly strong in this area due to its store credit functionality. Instead of issuing a cash refund to a customer's original payment method, merchants can issue store credit directly to the customer's account. This keeps the revenue within the store's ecosystem and encourages the customer to return for a future purchase. Rivo focuses more on points and rewards rather than a specific store credit/refund management system.

Do these apps work with Shopify POS?

Yes, both apps offer compatibility with Shopify POS, but the availability depends on the pricing plan. Flits explicitly mentions POS integration in its Established plan ($199/month), which allows for a unified loyalty experience between online and physical stores. Rivo also lists Shopify POS as a "Works With" partner, enabling merchants to drive loyalty across multiple sales channels.

Can I customize the look of the loyalty program to match my brand?

Both apps provide customization options, but the methods differ. Rivo offers custom CSS and font support on its $49 plan, making it highly flexible for brands with specific design requirements. It also offers a Developer Toolkit for even deeper customization. Flits provides onsite options and widgets that can be styled without code, focusing more on the account page layout and general branding elements. For most merchants, assessing app-store ratings as a trust signal and scanning reviews to understand real-world adoption can help reveal which customization process feels more intuitive for their team.