Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards vs. Kivly ‑ Fidelización Comparison

Introduction

Selecting the right retention tools is a pivotal decision for any merchant aiming to build a sustainable customer base. The choice often comes down to specific operational needs: some stores require a traditional points-based system that connects deeply with their existing marketing technology, while others prioritize modern, mobile-first engagement through digital wallets. The right selection helps bridge the gap between a first-time purchase and a lifelong customer relationship.

Short answer: Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards is ideal for fast-growing brands that need a highly customizable, integration-rich platform with developer-level control. Kivly ‑ Fidelización serves merchants focused on mobile accessibility, utilizing digital passes and push notifications to drive repeat visits. Brands seeking to avoid tool sprawl may find higher value in integrated platforms that consolidate these functions alongside reviews and wishlists.

The following analysis provides a feature-by-feature comparison of Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards and Kivly ‑ Fidelización. By examining their technical capabilities, pricing structures, and ideal use cases, this comparison helps merchants determine which tool aligns with their current growth stage and long-term retention goals.

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards vs. Kivly ‑ Fidelización: At a Glance

Core Features and Retention Capabilities

Retention strategies are rarely one-size-fits-all. The functional differences between Rivo and Kivly reflect two distinct philosophies regarding how a brand should interact with its customers post-purchase.

Points and Rewards Mechanics

Rivo provides a traditional yet highly flexible loyalty framework. It allows merchants to define specific ways to earn points—such as following on social media, making a purchase, or celebrating a birthday—and multiple ways for customers to redeem those points for discounts or products. This structure is built on Shopify's latest tech stack, ensuring that the rewards experience feels native to the storefront and the checkout process.

Kivly approaches rewards through the lens of habitual use. While it also offers points per purchase and exclusive discounts, its delivery method is what sets it apart. By focusing on digital cards, Kivly attempts to reduce the friction of finding reward balances or discount codes. The system is designed to convert occasional buyers into regulars by making the rewards program as accessible as a credit card in a digital wallet.

Referral Marketing and Growth

The ability to turn existing customers into brand advocates is a cornerstone of the Rivo platform. Its referral system is designed to move metrics by incentivizing word-of-mouth marketing. This is often a critical growth lever for DTC brands that want to lower their customer acquisition costs.

Kivly’s provided data does not explicitly detail a robust referral engine comparable to Rivo’s. Instead, Kivly focuses on the direct relationship between the merchant and the individual customer through personalized updates and push notifications. For merchants where growth is driven more by repeat foot traffic or frequent app engagement than by social sharing, Kivly’s focus on the individual user experience might be more relevant.

Mobile Integration and Customer Experience

As mobile commerce continues to dominate, the way a loyalty program appears on a smartphone can dictate its success. Both apps recognize this but choose different technical paths to achieve it.

Digital Wallets and Push Notifications

Kivly’s primary differentiator is its deep integration with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. This allows customers to carry a digital loyalty card without needing to download a separate brand app. This approach is particularly effective for brands that also have a physical presence or a strong local following, as the passes can be easily scanned via Shopify POS. Furthermore, Kivly allows for push notifications sent directly to the customer's device, bypassing the crowded email inbox.

Rivo, while not emphasizing wallet passes in the provided data, focuses on mobile responsiveness and seamless integration with SMS marketing tools like Attentive and Postscript. By connecting loyalty data to these communication channels, Rivo ensures that rewards information reaches customers where they are most active. This is a more decentralized approach compared to Kivly’s "wallet-first" strategy, but it allows for more sophisticated segmentation and messaging workflows.

Branding and Storefront Customization

For a brand to maintain a premium feel, every customer touchpoint must be visually consistent. Rivo offers significant branding capabilities, including custom CSS and fonts on its mid-tier plans. For enterprise-level merchants, the Rivo Developer Toolkit provides a path to full customization, allowing teams to build completely unique loyalty experiences that match a bespoke storefront.

Kivly offers a dashboard to configure rewards and monitor card usage, but the degree of storefront customization is less clear in the provided data. Its focus is on the digital pass experience, which by its nature follows the standardized design language of Apple and Google Wallet. This provides a familiar and clean experience for the user but offers less room for the brand to showcase its unique visual identity compared to Rivo’s web-based loyalty pages.

Technical Infrastructure and Ecosystem Fit

A Shopify app does not exist in a vacuum. Its value is often determined by how well it communicates with the rest of a merchant's software stack, including email marketing, customer support, and shipping platforms.

Integration Stack and API Access

Rivo is built to be a central hub for retention data. Its "works with" list is extensive, including Klaviyo for email, Gorgias for support, and Shopify Flow for automation. These integrations allow loyalty events—like a customer reaching a new VIP tier—to trigger actions in other apps. For example, a merchant could use Rivo data to send a personalized "thank you" video via an email flow or prioritize a high-value customer’s ticket in their helpdesk.

Kivly’s integration list is more targeted, focusing on the core Shopify environment (POS, Checkout, Customer accounts) and the mobile wallet ecosystem. This makes it an excellent choice for merchants who want a focused, standalone solution for mobile loyalty but may be less suitable for those who need their loyalty data to power a complex, multi-app marketing machine. Merchants should consider seeing how the app is positioned for Shopify stores when evaluating how different tools handle ecosystem connectivity.

Performance and Operational Overhead

Every app added to a Shopify store carries a potential cost in terms of site speed and management time. Rivo emphasizes its use of Shopify’s latest technology, such as checkout extensions, which are designed to be performant and stable. The promise of weekly product updates suggests a platform that stays ahead of technical debt, though it requires a merchant or agency that can keep up with new features and configurations.

Kivly markets itself as a solution that "works from day one" without requiring external apps. This plug-and-play nature is a significant advantage for smaller teams who do not have the bandwidth to manage a complex implementation. The operational overhead is likely lower with Kivly, but this comes at the cost of the deep customizability found in Rivo.

Pricing Analysis and Long-Term Value

The cost of a loyalty program should be viewed as an investment in customer lifetime value (LTV). Both apps offer tiered pricing, but they scale based on different metrics.

The Entry-Level Entry Point

Rivo offers a "100% Free Forever" plan, which is highly attractive for new stores or those testing the waters of loyalty marketing. This plan is limited to 200 monthly orders but includes the core loyalty points program and automated email campaigns. It allows a store to grow its customer base without immediate financial pressure.

Kivly’s entry point starts at $29 per month for the Starter plan. While not free, it offers a generous limit of 1,000 customers and 1,000 wallet pases. This plan is clearly aimed at stores that already have a small but active customer base and want to professionalize their mobile engagement immediately. When a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows is considered, merchants must weigh the initial cost against the potential for rapid customer acquisition.

Scaling to Enterprise Requirements

As a store moves into high-growth territory, the requirements change. Rivo’s $499 Plus plan is a significant jump in price but introduces enterprise features like the Developer Toolkit, custom integrations (e.g., Klaviyo events), and priority support. This plan is built for brands that have moved beyond basic rewards and are now building a sophisticated retention engine.

Kivly’s Scale plan, at $99 per month, is much more affordable for the average merchant. It offers unlimited customers, unlimited wallet pases, and a custom domain. For many mid-sized businesses, this cap on pricing provides a predictable cost structure. However, it lacks the advanced API and developer-centric features that Rivo offers at its highest tier.

Customer Support and Reliability

In the world of e-commerce, a technical glitch in a loyalty program can lead to frustrated customers and lost sales. Support quality is a major factor in choosing a partner.

Rivo highlights its "world-class customer success team" and 24/7 live chat support. With a rating of 4.8 from its available review data, there is a clear signal that the team is responsive. For Plus users, the addition of concierge support suggests a high-touch experience tailored to complex needs.

Kivly offers 24/7 support on its Growth and Scale plans. However, with 0 reviews and a 0 rating in the provided data, there is less public evidence of their support performance. This does not necessarily indicate poor service, but it does mean a merchant must rely more on their own initial interactions with the team during the trial phase to gauge reliability.

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

While specialized apps like Rivo and Kivly offer powerful features, they often contribute to a broader problem known as "app fatigue." As a brand grows, the tendency is to install one app for loyalty, another for reviews, another for wishlists, and yet another for referrals. This leads to tool sprawl, where a merchant is managing multiple subscriptions, multiple dashboards, and multiple scripts that can slow down the storefront. Fragmented data across these apps makes it difficult to get a clear picture of customer behavior.

Success in the Shopify ecosystem requires more than just installing a single-purpose tool. By utilizing loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases, merchants can begin to see the benefits of a structured retention strategy. However, as stores grow, evaluating feature coverage across plans becomes a necessity to avoid overpaying for fragmented features. When loyalty is disconnected from social proof, the customer journey feels disjointed. An integrated approach ensures that a customer who leaves a review can be instantly rewarded with loyalty points, all within the same system.

The "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy advocates for a unified platform that handles multiple retention functions. This reduces the total cost of ownership by eliminating stacked subscription fees and minimizes the technical overhead of managing separate integrations. For example, collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews is much more effective when those reviews are directly tied to a customer's VIP status or loyalty profile.

Merchants who move away from single-function apps often find that their team spends less time troubleshooting and more time on strategy. By looking at real examples from brands improving retention, it becomes clear that a cohesive customer experience is a significant competitive advantage. Instead of forcing the customer to interact with three different widgets on a product page, an integrated platform provides a single, polished interface.

If consolidating tools is a priority, start by comparing plan fit against retention goals. Moving to an integrated model allows for a more holistic view of the customer lifecycle, from the first wishlist item added to the tenth referral sent to a friend. This synergy is what ultimately drives sustainable growth without the friction of a bloated tech stack.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards and Kivly ‑ Fidelización, the decision comes down to the specific goals of the retention program and the desired technical depth. Rivo is the stronger contender for DTC brands that require a robust, highly customizable infrastructure that can scale into the enterprise space with developer tools and deep marketing integrations. Its weekly updates and focus on Shopify’s latest tech make it a future-proof choice for those with the budget to support its higher tiers.

Conversely, Kivly ‑ Fidelización offers a unique and highly practical approach for merchants who want to leverage the ubiquity of mobile wallets. Its focus on Apple and Google Wallet passes, combined with an affordable and predictable pricing model, makes it an excellent fit for businesses looking for a streamlined, mobile-first loyalty solution that is easy to manage.

However, as a business matures, the limitations of specialized apps can manifest as operational friction. Choosing a platform that offers VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers alongside other essential features like reviews and wishlists can significantly simplify the merchant experience. By checking merchant feedback and app-store performance signals, brands can see the value of a more unified approach.

When loyalty programs are seamlessly connected to review automation that builds trust at purchase time, the result is a more cohesive brand experience. Learning from customer stories that show how teams reduce app sprawl can help a merchant avoid the common pitfalls of a fragmented tech stack. Ultimately, choosing a plan built for long-term value means looking beyond just points and rewards to the total customer experience.

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

FAQ

Which app is better for a brand with both an online and a physical store?

Kivly ‑ Fidelización may have an edge for businesses with physical locations because of its native support for Apple and Google Wallet. These digital passes are designed to be easily accessible on a customer's phone and can be scanned at a physical point of sale (POS). While Rivo also works with Shopify POS, its focus is more heavily weighted toward the digital DTC experience and integration with other online marketing tools.

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

Yes, but the methods differ. Rivo offers extensive customization through its Scale and Plus plans, including custom CSS and fonts, as well as a Developer Toolkit for complete control. Kivly allows for configuration through its dashboard, but since it relies heavily on the standardized interface of mobile wallets, the visual customization of the "card" itself is governed by Apple and Google's design standards.

Is there a significant difference in the pricing models?

Rivo offers a free entry point for stores under 200 orders but scales up to $499 for enterprise features. This makes it accessible for beginners but potentially expensive for high-volume stores. Kivly does not have a free plan but starts at a more moderate $29 per month and caps its Scale plan at $99. This makes Kivly more predictable for mid-market merchants who don't need enterprise-level API access.

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

An all-in-one platform combines several retention tools—such as loyalty, reviews, and wishlists—into a single interface. This reduces the number of apps a merchant needs to manage and often lowers the total cost. Specialized apps like Rivo or Kivly may offer deeper functionality in one specific area (like Kivly’s wallet integration or Rivo’s developer tools), but an all-in-one solution provides better data synergy and a more consistent experience for the customer across the entire store.