Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards vs. Lantern Loyalty & Rewards: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right retention tools for a Shopify store is a decision that impacts long-term profitability and customer lifetime value. Merchants often find themselves caught between different philosophies of software design: one that prioritizes rapid updates and developer-level customization, and another that focuses on seamless, no-code integration and unified customer accounts. Both Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards and Lantern Loyalty & Rewards offer compelling solutions for brands looking to move away from generic discounting and toward structured loyalty programs. However, the operational requirements and technical flexibility of these two apps differ significantly, making it essential to evaluate them through the lens of specific business goals and team capabilities.

Short answer: Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards is an excellent choice for fast-growing brands that require frequent product updates and a developer toolkit for deep customization. Lantern Loyalty & Rewards stands out for merchants seeking a no-code, design-forward approach that integrates customer accounts and loyalty into a single onsite experience. While both excel in their respective niches, brands looking to minimize tool sprawl may find that integrated platforms offer a more cohesive way to manage the entire retention stack.

The purpose of this comparison is to provide a feature-by-feature analysis of Rivo and Lantern. By looking at their core functionalities, pricing structures, and integration capabilities, merchants can determine which tool aligns with their current operational maturity and future growth plans. This analysis relies on available data to offer an objective perspective on how each app serves the modern Shopify merchant.

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards vs. Lantern Loyalty & Rewards: At a Glance

The following table provides a high-level summary of how these two apps compare across several critical dimensions.

Deep Dive Comparison

To understand which app fits a specific store, it is necessary to examine the nuances of their feature sets and how they handle the day-to-day realities of running a loyalty program.

Strategic Approach and Core Workflows

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards positions itself as a modern, agile solution for brands that have outgrown legacy loyalty apps. The developer emphasizes a commitment to weekly product updates, suggesting a roadmap that evolves alongside Shopify's latest technical changes. This approach is particularly beneficial for merchants who want to ensure their tech stack is always compatible with new Shopify features, such as the latest checkout extensions. Rivo focuses on the traditional pillars of retention: points programs, referral incentives, and VIP tiers. The workflows are designed to be customizable, allowing brands to define exactly how customers earn and redeem rewards, which is a fundamental requirement for maintaining healthy margins while encouraging repeat purchases.

In contrast, Lantern Loyalty & Rewards approaches retention from a design and user experience perspective. Founded by individuals with deep experience in Shopify’s own front-end development, Lantern prioritizes the "on-site" experience. Their philosophy treats loyalty not just as a points system, but as a core part of the customer account. By combining loyalty, referrals, and customer accounts for a single price, Lantern aims to create a more integrated feel for the shopper. Instead of having separate widgets or pages for different functions, the "promotion engine" embeds directly into the site. This creates a more cohesive journey for the user, who can manage their profile, view rewards, and access referrals all in one branded space without the merchant needing to write a single line of code.

Customization and Control

Customization is often the deciding factor for brands that have a specific aesthetic or unique operational requirements. Rivo offers a dual path for customization. On the basic plans, merchants can manage branding through standard settings. However, as a store moves into the higher tiers, Rivo provides a Developer Toolkit. This is a significant differentiator for Shopify Plus merchants or brands with in-house developers. It allows for deep, API-level integration and the ability to build entirely custom loyalty experiences that are not possible with a standard out-of-the-box app. This level of control ensures that the loyalty program feels like a native part of the brand rather than a third-party add-on.

Lantern focuses on "no-code" empowerment. The app uses intuitive preset blocks that allow merchants to craft branded accounts and loyalty displays without technical assistance. For many small to medium-sized teams, this is a major advantage because it reduces the reliance on external agencies or developers to make simple design changes. While Lantern does offer advanced options through Liquid, Metafields, and its own GraphQL API, the primary value proposition is that the "codeless" editor can achieve high-end results. This focus on ease of use extends to their promotion engine, which is designed to embed across the site seamlessly, ensuring that incentives are visible at the right moments in the buying journey.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

Analyzing the financial commitment of each app is crucial for understanding the total cost of ownership. Rivo offers a four-tier pricing structure that begins with a "100% Free Forever" plan. This plan is generous for small stores, allowing up to 200 monthly orders while providing access to the core points program and automated email campaigns. The first paid tier, "Scale," is priced at $49 per month and introduces VIP tiers, points expiry, and analytics. For high-volume merchants, the "Plus" plan at $499 per month provides the developer toolkit and checkout extensions. This structure allows a brand to start small and scale their costs in direct proportion to their order volume and technical needs.

Lantern’s pricing model is slightly different, focusing more on the breadth of features included at each level. They offer a "Free to develop" plan, which is primarily for testing. The "Starter" plan begins at $75 per month, which is a higher entry point than Rivo’s first paid tier. However, Lantern justifies this by including loyalty, referrals, and customer accounts in that single price. As merchants move to the "Momentum" ($325/mo) and "Growth" ($625/mo) plans, they gain more advanced support and account management. For a merchant who was planning to pay for a separate customer account app and a loyalty app, Lantern’s bundled pricing might offer better value for money by consolidating those costs into one bill.

Integrations and Tech Stack Compatibility

In the modern e-commerce environment, no app exists in a vacuum. A loyalty program must communicate with email marketing platforms, customer service tools, and subscription managers. Rivo is designed to integrate instantly with popular tools like Klaviyo, Gorgias, Postscript, and Attentive. These integrations are vital for lifecycle marketing, as they allow merchants to trigger emails or SMS messages based on loyalty events, such as a customer reaching a new VIP tier. Rivo also works with Shopify Flow, which enables complex automation across different apps in the store’s ecosystem.

Lantern similarly focuses on the Shopify ecosystem, offering compatibility with Klaviyo, Gorgias, and Recharge. One of Lantern’s notable strengths is its ability to integrate with any app that has a Shopify Flow connection. This opens up a wide range of automation possibilities even if a direct integration isn't listed. Furthermore, Lantern's focus on customer accounts means it must work harmoniously with Shopify’s native account system and the checkout process. By utilizing GraphQL APIs and Metafields, Lantern ensures that data is accessible and syncable across the store, which is essential for maintaining a single source of truth for customer data.

Support and Operational Reliability

When a loyalty program is responsible for a significant portion of a store's revenue, support becomes a top priority. Rivo emphasizes its "world-class live chat support" available 24/7. This is a critical feature for global brands operating across multiple time zones. The developer’s focus on shipping product updates every week also suggests a highly responsive team that is quick to fix bugs and adapt to merchant feedback. While Rivo currently has a limited number of reviews in the data provided, the rating of 4.8 indicates a positive reception among its early users.

Lantern’s support structure is also robust, offering email and live chat support across its paid plans. At the highest pricing tier, they provide a dedicated account manager. This level of personalized service is often a requirement for larger brands that need strategic guidance rather than just technical troubleshooting. With a 5-star rating from its initial reviews, Lantern has established a strong reputation for quality. The fact that the app was built by former Shopify employees provides an extra layer of trust, as it implies a deep understanding of the platform's architecture and the common pain points merchants face.

Performance and Compatibility

Operational overhead is a hidden cost that many merchants overlook. Every app added to a store can potentially slow down site speed or create data silos. Rivo addresses this by building with Shopify’s latest technology, ensuring that the app is lightweight and compatible with modern themes. Their use of checkout extensions in the Plus plan is a prime example of staying ahead of Shopify’s technical requirements, which helps maintain high performance during the final stages of the customer journey.

Lantern’s approach to performance is centered on its promotion engine and codeless blocks. Because it is designed to embed directly into the site, it avoids the "clunky" feel of older loyalty widgets. By consolidating customer accounts, loyalty, and referrals into a single app, Lantern also reduces the number of scripts that need to load on the storefront. This consolidation can lead to better site performance and a more stable environment, as there are fewer moving parts from different developers that could potentially conflict with one another.

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

While both Rivo and Lantern offer powerful features, they primarily focus on specific slices of the retention pie. For many merchants, the real challenge isn't just managing loyalty, but managing the entire suite of tools required to keep a customer engaged. This often leads to "app fatigue," a state where a store is burdened by too many different subscriptions, fragmented customer data, and an inconsistent user experience. When checking merchant feedback and app-store performance signals, it becomes clear that many brands are looking for a way to simplify their operations without sacrificing functionality.

If consolidating tools is a priority, start by comparing plan fit against retention goals. Growave provides a comprehensive alternative to the "single-function app" model by combining loyalty, rewards, referrals, reviews, and wishlists into a single, integrated platform. This "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy ensures that all retention data lives in one place, allowing for more sophisticated marketing strategies. For example, a merchant can use loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases in tandem with review automation that builds trust at purchase time. When these systems are disconnected, the merchant misses out on the synergy that comes from a unified data set.

The benefits of an all-in-one approach extend beyond just cost savings. When you use UGC workflows that keep product pages credible alongside VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers, the customer experience feels seamless. There is no friction between earning points for a review and seeing those points reflected in a loyalty dashboard. Furthermore, looking at real examples from brands improving retention shows that reducing the number of apps on a store often leads to improved site speed and a more stable technical environment.

Ultimately, the goal is to create a retention engine that runs autonomously and scales with the business. By seeing how other brands connect loyalty and reviews, merchants can visualize a future where they spend less time managing multiple app settings and more time focusing on brand strategy. Choosing a unified platform means that reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from is the first step toward a leaner, more efficient tech stack.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards and Lantern Loyalty & Rewards, the decision comes down to the specific needs of the business and the desired level of technical control. Rivo is a standout choice for those who value rapid innovation, weekly product updates, and a developer toolkit that allows for bespoke loyalty experiences. It is particularly well-suited for fast-growing DTC brands that want to stay on the cutting edge of Shopify’s technical capabilities. On the other hand, Lantern Loyalty & Rewards is the better fit for merchants who prioritize design and want a unified, no-code solution that integrates loyalty and referrals directly into the customer account experience.

While both apps are excellent in their own right, they represent a broader trend in e-commerce: the accumulation of specialized tools. Stacking individual apps for loyalty, reviews, and wishlists can lead to increased costs and operational complexity. Moving toward a unified platform can provide a clearer view of total retention-stack costs and help eliminate the data silos that often hinder growth. By integrating multiple retention modules, merchants can ensure that every touchpoint—from writing a review to referring a friend—is part of a cohesive strategy that maximizes 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

Which app is better for a brand with its own development team?

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards is generally better for brands with development resources because of its Rivo Developer Toolkit. This feature allows for deep customization and the ability to build unique experiences that go beyond standard app configurations. Lantern also offers an API, but its primary focus is on providing a high-quality no-code experience for design-conscious teams.

Can I use these apps with Shopify Plus?

Yes, both Rivo and Lantern are compatible with Shopify Plus. Rivo specifically highlights "Checkout Extensions" in its Plus plan, which is a key requirement for modern high-volume stores. Lantern’s focus on branded customer accounts and GraphQL APIs also makes it a strong contender for the sophisticated requirements of Plus-level merchants.

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

Specialized apps like Rivo and Lantern often provide very deep functionality in their specific niches, such as high-frequency updates or advanced account designs. However, an all-in-one platform like Growave offers a broader range of integrated features—including reviews, wishlists, and loyalty—under one roof. This reduces the need to manage multiple subscriptions and ensures that different parts of the retention program (like loyalty points and review requests) work together seamlessly without manual integration effort.

Is there a free plan available for small Shopify stores?

Rivo offers a "100% Free Forever" plan for stores with up to 200 monthly orders, making it highly accessible for new businesses. Lantern has a "Free to develop" plan, but its core paid features begin at $75 per month. Merchants should evaluate their current order volume and growth trajectory when deciding which pricing model offers the best initial value.