Smart Wishlist vs Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist

Introduction

Choosing the right tools to increase conversions and retain customers is one of the hardest decisions for Shopify merchants. The app ecosystem offers narrow, point solutions and broader platforms, and each path has trade-offs: simplicity versus scale, single-purpose speed versus integrated outcomes. This comparison looks at two commonly considered options: Smart Wishlist (a focused wishlist app by Webmarked) and Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist (an all-in-one retention platform).

Short answer: Smart Wishlist is a solid, streamlined wishlist tool for merchants who need a fast, simple wishlist with minimal setup and a low monthly cost. Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist is better suited for brands that want a unified retention stack—loyalty, referrals, reviews, VIP tiers, and wishlist—backed by deeper integrations, higher-rated support, and features built for scaling. For merchants aiming to increase lifetime value and reduce tool sprawl, Growave often delivers better value for money.

Purpose of this post: provide an in-depth, feature-by-feature comparison of Smart Wishlist and Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist so merchants can choose the right path for their growth stage, technical capacity, and retention goals.

Smart Wishlist vs. Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Overview: Product Positioning and Philosophy

Smart Wishlist: Focused and lightweight

Smart Wishlist markets itself as a "next generation wishlist" that emphasizes simplicity: one-click saving, guest wishlists, shareable lists, and a small code footprint. Its positioning targets merchants that want a wishlist with minimal configuration and no heavy technical requirements. The app highlights a lightweight payload and a clean uninstall experience so themes aren’t left broken.

Growave: Unified retention and growth

Growave positions itself as a retention platform that bundles loyalty, referrals, reviews/UGC, VIP tiers, and wishlist into one suite. The stated aim is to replace multiple single-purpose apps, offering an integrated user experience across website, checkout, and POS. Growave targets brands focused on increasing repeat purchase rates, building VIP segments, and amplifying social proof, including support for larger merchants and Shopify Plus stores.

Reviews, Ratings, and Credibility

• Smart Wishlist: 81 reviews with an average rating of 3.6. A smaller review base can indicate a niche user footprint or less market adoption. The rating suggests a mixed experience across installations.
• Growave: 1,197 reviews with an average rating of 4.8. The larger number of reviews and higher rating indicate broad adoption and high customer satisfaction.

Interpretation: Review count and rating matter because they reflect both product maturity and support quality. Growave’s volume of reviews and 4.8 rating is a strong signal of customer satisfaction and consistent performance at scale.

Feature Comparison

This section compares core capabilities and adjacent features important to merchants assessing wishlist functionality inside a retention strategy.

Wishlist Core Features

• Smart Wishlist
  • One-click wishlist save on product, collection, search, and cart pages.
  • Works for both guest and logged-in users.
  • Shareable lists so customers can send wishlists externally.
  • Unlimited wishlists per store.
  • Provides Javascript and REST APIs for custom integrations.
• Growave
  • Wishlist as part of an integrated suite: back-in-stock wishlist emails, wishlist items tied into loyalty and marketing flows, and account-facing wishlist UI.
  • Wishlist interacts with other modules—e.g., remind customers with review prompts or nudges tied to wishlisted products.
  • Built-in support for Shopify POS and checkout-level extensions on higher plans.

Analysis: For pure wishlist functionality, Smart Wishlist covers the essentials at a lower price point. Growave includes wishlist features but adds context and cross-product value by connecting wishlist data with loyalty, email flows, and review requests—turning a saved item into an actionable retention signal.

Loyalty & Rewards

• Smart Wishlist
  • Not offered. Smart Wishlist is strictly a wishlist app; loyalty requires a separate tool.
• Growave
  • Full loyalty program: points, redeemable rewards, advanced reward rules, VIP tiers, points expiration, POS loyalty QR, and checkout integrations on Plus plans.
  • Options to create custom reward actions and multi-channel campaigns.

Analysis: Growave eliminates the need to add another loyalty app because the feature set is native. Having loyalty natively means wishlist activity can feed loyalty incentives (e.g., reward points for wishlist actions or conversions from wishlist reminders), which boosts LTV.

Referrals & Viral Growth

• Smart Wishlist
  • No native referral functionality. Shareable wishlists provide a minimal viral aspect but not programmatic referral incentives.
• Growave
  • Built-in referral program with fraud protection and referral rewards that can be tied to loyalty accounts.

Analysis: Growave gives merchants tools to turn wishlist shares and satisfied customers into acquisition channels, something a single-purpose wishlist app cannot do.

Reviews & User-Generated Content

• Smart Wishlist
  • Not part of the feature set.
• Growave
  • Reviews & UGC module: review collection automation, review request email series, Google Shopping Reviews (on growth/plus), and tools to showcase UGC across the storefront.

Analysis: Reviews and UGC are direct conversion drivers. Growave’s ability to collect and display reviews alongside wishlist and product pages can amplify purchase intent for wishlisted items.

VIP Tiers and Segmentation

• Smart Wishlist
  • No native VIP tiering or membership programs.
• Growave
  • VIP tiers with custom rules, member-only rewards, and dedicated loyalty pages for higher plans.

Analysis: For merchants that want to reward repeat buyers and segment customers for personalized campaigns, Growave provides a full toolkit.

Integrations & Ecosystem

• Smart Wishlist: Works with Sendgrid, ShareThis. Lightweight focus means fewer out-of-the-box integrations.
• Growave: Wide integration support including Klaviyo, Omnisend, Gorgias, Recharge, Shopify POS, Page builders, and more.

Analysis: Growave’s broader integration set enables deeper automation across email, support, subscription billing, and the storefront. For merchants using common marketing and support tools, this reduces the complexity of connecting signals across systems.

Implementation, UX, and Performance

Setup and Configuration

• Smart Wishlist
  • Marketed as easy, no coding required. Quick to install and configure for basic use cases.
  • Lightweight payload is an advantage for stores that prioritize site speed.
  • APIs available for advanced customization.
• Growave
  • More configuration required because of the breadth of features. Entry-level use is straightforward, but deeper customizations (VIP tiers, checkout extensions, headless APIs) demand more setup.
  • Dedicated onboarding and higher-tier support is available for Growth and Plus plans.

Analysis: Smart Wishlist wins for speed of initial setup for a single feature. Growave requires a larger setup investment but yields a richer, cross-functional system once configured.

Front-End Experience and Theme Compatibility

• Smart Wishlist
  • Emphasizes not breaking themes and a light footprint. Offers wishlist buttons across product, collection, search, and cart pages.
• Growave
  • Built to integrate with many themes and page builders, plus dedicated support for Shopify Plus and headless implementations on Plus plans.
  • Additional components (points widget, loyalty pages, review widgets) add front-end elements that can be customized.

Analysis: Both apps are designed to fit into storefronts, but Growave adds more UI elements by design. That extra UI is an advantage for engagement but requires thoughtful placement to avoid UI clutter.

Site Speed and Technical Overhead

• Smart Wishlist
  • Lightweight payload is a core promise and a distinct advantage for performance-sensitive stores.
• Growave
  • Because Growave provides multiple front-end widgets and real-time features, merchants should monitor performance and optimize asset loading. Growave’s architecture and integrations are designed to scale, and higher-tier plans offer technical support for performance tuning.

Analysis: If minimal technical overhead is the primary concern, Smart Wishlist may be better. If business impact from multi-channel retention is the priority, the additional assets from Growave are often justified.

Pricing and Value for Money

Smart Wishlist Pricing

• Single known plan: Standard — $4.99 / month.
• Focused, low-cost option that covers only wishlist functionality.

Value proposition: Low recurring cost and simple billing make it accessible for small merchants who only need wishlists.

Growave Pricing

• Free plan: Limited (100 orders/month, basic loyalty, wishlist, reviews, Growave branding).
• Entry: $49 / month — advanced rewards, referrals, review series, POS support, +1 integration, customizable emails.
• Growth: $199 / month — VIP tiers, dedicated loyalty page, Google Shopping Reviews, back-in-stock wishlist emails, priority onboarding.
• Plus: $499 / month — checkout extensions, headless API & SDK, unlimited integrations, customer success manager, 24/7 support, launch plan.

Value proposition: Higher monthly investment relative to a single-feature app, but the suite replaces multiple subscriptions and provides deep features that drive retention and LTV.

Analysis: Compare two scenarios:

• Merchant A needs only a wishlist and has a tight budget. Smart Wishlist at $4.99/month is a clear value for that narrow need.
• Merchant B wants to run loyalty programs, ask for reviews, operate referrals, and use wishlist signals in email automation. Stitching separate apps together often costs more than Growave’s plans, increases integration work, and introduces maintenance overhead. For that merchant, Growave provides better value for money by consolidating features and centralizing customer data.

Integrations and Ecosystem Compatibility

Smart Wishlist

• Integrations listed: Sendgrid, ShareThis.
• API: Javascript and REST APIs for advanced needs.

Implication: Smart Wishlist allows custom integrations via API but lacks a broad out-of-the-box integration library.

Growave

• Integrates with email, SMS, subscription, helpdesk, and page-builder tools: Klaviyo, Omnisend, Gorgias, Recharge, Postscript, Pagefly, LayoutHub, GemPages, Shopney, PushOwl, and more.
• Shopify POS, Checkout, and Flow support on applicable plans.

Implication: Growave’s integrations enable automation across the customer lifecycle: wishlists triggering abandoned-wishlist emails via Klaviyo, loyalty status visible at POS, review prompts tied to order data, etc.

Contextual link: Merchants that want to consolidate retention features into a single system can review Growave’s pricing options and plan limits to compare what integrations and order thresholds match their needs.

Support, Documentation, and Enterprise Readiness

Smart Wishlist

• Documentation and support model not extensively published in the dataset. As a single-feature app, support expectations are usually simpler—installation, theme compatibility, and bug fixes.

Growave

• Publicly stated support includes 24/7 technical support on certain plans, dedicated customer success managers for Plus customers, and onboarding services.
• Documentation covers onboarding, integrations, and headless implementations.

Analysis: Larger merchants or teams looking for SLA-backed support, priority onboarding, and dedicated account management will likely prefer the support structure available at Growave’s higher tiers.

Security, Data Portability, and Uninstall Behavior

• Smart Wishlist explicitly advertises a lightweight payload and that it "doesn’t break your theme upon uninstall." That’s valuable for merchants worried about orphaned code.
• Growave, as a larger platform, should be assessed on uninstall behavior, data export capabilities, and GDPR/CCPA compliance. Growave provides data import/export tools and has enterprise compliance features on advanced plans.

Recommendation: Before installing any app, merchants should test uninstall in a staged environment and confirm data export options match retention and reporting needs.

Measuring Impact: KPIs and Attribution

Merchants should evaluate wishlist and retention tools using clear metrics:

• For wishlist-only installs:
  • Wishlist-to-conversion rate (percentage of wishlisted items that convert within X days)
  • Email open/click rate on wishlist reminders
  • Average order value (AOV) on wishlisted conversions
• For integrated installs:
  • Repeat purchase rate (RPR)
  • Customer lifetime value (LTV)
  • Referral conversion rate
  • Review conversion lift and impact on organic conversion

Growave’s combination of loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist makes it easier to attribute changes in RPR and LTV to specific programs because data is centralized. Smart Wishlist requires stitching external analytics and automations to measure broader retention impacts.

Migration Considerations

If moving from a wishlist-only app to an integrated platform:

• Data export: Confirm wishlists and customer associations can be exported from the existing app.
• Mapping: Ensure wishlisted items, timestamps, and guest-to-customer associations map into the new system.
• Email flows: Recreate reminder and back-in-stock flows using the new platform’s capabilities.
• Theme adjustments: Replace old widgets and remove orphaned scripts.

Growave provides data import/export features, making migration from a single-purpose wishlist to an integrated stack less painful, particularly on Growth/Plus plans with onboarding support.

Cost of Complexity: App Sprawl vs. Single Platform

A single-purpose app like Smart Wishlist reduces complexity at the outset. But over time, merchants often add loyalty, reviews, and referrals—each adding subscription costs, integration work, and data fragmentation. An integrated platform trades initial simplicity for consolidation, which can reduce long-term operational overhead and improve cross-channel automation.

Pros and Cons Summary

Smart Wishlist — Pros

• Very low monthly cost ($4.99/month).
• Quick install and minimal configuration.
• Lightweight payload and safe uninstall messaging.
• Guest wishlists and shareable lists.

Smart Wishlist — Cons

• Limited integrations and features outside wishlists.
• No loyalty, referrals, or review tools.
• Mixed user ratings (3.6 across 81 reviews).
• Scaling beyond wishlists requires additional apps.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist — Pros

• High-rated (4.8) with broad adoption (1,197 reviews).
• Integrated suite: loyalty, referrals, reviews, VIP tiers, wishlist.
• Rich integrations with Klaviyo, Recharge, Gorgias, and others.
• Enterprise-ready features: POS, checkout extensions, headless APIs, and dedicated support.
• Centralized data that improves attribution and lifecycle automation.

Growave — Cons

• Higher monthly cost compared to a single-purpose wishlist (but better value for consolidated features).
• More setup and configuration required.
• More front-end assets to manage (requires performance attention).

Use-Case Recommendations

• If the merchant’s only requirement is an inexpensive, non-intrusive wishlist with quick install: Smart Wishlist is suitable.
• If the merchant plans to run loyalty programs, referrals, request reviews, create VIP tiers, or scale to POS/checkout customizations: Growave is the better long-term choice.
• If the merchant wants to keep tool count low and make wishlist activity actionable across marketing and retention: Growave provides better integration and value for money.

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

App fatigue is real. Many merchants discover that adding a series of single-purpose apps—wishlist, loyalty, reviews, referrals, VIP tiers—creates maintenance overhead, inconsistent data, and duplicated costs. Each app often uses different event models and requires separate integrations to email and analytics platforms. The operational cost of managing multiple vendors quickly erodes time and margins.

"More Growth, Less Stack" addresses this problem by consolidating retention tools into a single platform that shares data, reduces redundant integrations, and simplifies reporting. With one system, wishlist actions can automatically trigger loyalty incentives, review requests, or referral nudges without custom glue code.

Key benefits of consolidation:

• Unified customer profile: Wishlist saves, points balances, referrals, and review history live in one place.
• Reduced integration count: One integration to email or CRM is simpler than many.
• Faster experimentation: Launch a loyalty or referral campaign without sourcing a new vendor.
• Lower long-term overhead: Less troubleshooting across vendors and fewer subscription fees in aggregate.

Growave’s product and pricing structure is built around this consolidation idea. Merchants can compare plan features and thresholds on the pricing page to see which tier matches order volume and desired functionality. The suite includes a native loyalty engine, referrals, review automation, wishlist, and VIP tiers, making it possible to replace several standalone apps with a single integrated product.

Contextual links to feature pages:

• For merchants seeking to build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases, Growave’s loyalty module is core to the platform’s retention strategy.
• To collect and showcase authentic reviews that improve conversion, Growave integrates review collection with order events and email automation.
• For brands on Shopify Plus or planning to scale with checkout and headless requirements, Growave lists solutions tailored for high-growth Plus brands.

Practical next steps for merchants experiencing app fatigue:

• Audit current apps and list the features that overlap (e.g., popups, widgets, loyalty points).
• Map data flows: identify where wishlist data, loyalty balances, and reviews are stored.
• Compare combined subscription costs of current apps to an integrated platform’s price to evaluate long-term value.
• Trial a consolidated platform on a test store, focusing on a single outcome (e.g., increase repeat purchase rate by X% in 90 days).

Hard CTA (1 of 2): Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated stack improves retention and reduces vendor complexity. Book a personalized demo

Note on links and next steps: Merchants evaluating consolidation can also review Growave’s plan details for order thresholds and included features on the pricing page. For quick validation, the Growave Shopify listing provides real-store examples and installation guidance via the app store listing at the Growave app listing.

How Growave Operationalizes "More Growth, Less Stack"

• Centralized workflows: Rewards, referral incentives, and review campaigns can all reference the same customer identity. This reduces logic duplication and provides clearer attribution for LTV improvements.
• Cross-feature triggers: Wishlist saves can send a "Back in Stock" or "Price Drop" email, which is augmented with loyalty nudges to encourage conversion.
• POS and checkout continuity: Points and reward logic are available at physical checkouts and online checkouts for coherent omnichannel loyalty.
• Scalable integrations: Built-in connectors to email, SMS, and subscription tools allow one-time configuration to serve multiple retention flows.

Contextual links revisited: To evaluate how loyalty and reviews combine for growth, merchants can explore how to collect and showcase authentic reviews and how to build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases. For growth-stage merchants considering Plus capabilities, review the solutions for high-growth Plus brands.

Final Considerations Before Choosing

When deciding between Smart Wishlist and Growave, the following non-technical questions help clarify the choice:

• What is the primary objective? If the goal is to add a simple wishlist today, cost and speed favor Smart Wishlist. If the objective is to increase retention, repeat purchases, or create a branded VIP program, Growave is more aligned.
• How mature is the marketing stack? If the store already uses Klaviyo, Recharge, or a page builder, the integration benefits of Growave reduce friction.
• What is the expected lifespan of the solution? For long-term growth and fewer vendors, integrated platforms typically win on total cost and speed-to-experimentation.
• Who will manage the solution? Teams with limited bandwidth may prefer fewer vendors even if the monthly cost is higher.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Smart Wishlist and Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist, the decision comes down to scope and ambition. Smart Wishlist is an efficient, low-cost option for stores that only need wishlist functionality and want a speedy, lightweight install. Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist is better for brands that want a comprehensive retention platform: loyalty, referrals, reviews, VIP tiers, and wishlist all working together. The higher per-month investment often yields better long-term returns by consolidating tools, improving attribution, and enabling cross-channel automation.

For merchants who are ready to move beyond multiple single-purpose apps and reduce tool sprawl, Growave offers a practical alternative aligned to retention-led growth. Compare plan tiers and find the right fit by viewing the pricing options and inclusions. Start the transition by reviewing Growave’s integration capabilities and store case studies available on the app listing at the Growave app listing.

Hard CTA (2 of 2): Start a 14-day free trial to test the benefits of an integrated retention stack and see whether consolidation increases repeat purchases and LTV. Start a 14-day free trial

FAQ

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

An all-in-one platform consolidates data and workflows—points, referrals, reviews, and wishlist actions live in one system—reducing integration work and improving attribution. Specialized apps can be lighter and cheaper initially but often introduce maintenance overhead, data fragmentation, and duplicated integration costs when growth requires additional features.

Is Smart Wishlist sufficient for growing brands that want loyalty and referrals later?

Smart Wishlist is a good short-term solution for wishlist capabilities. However, if a merchant anticipates needing loyalty, referrals, or review automation soon, adding those features as separate apps later can be more expensive and complex than starting with a unified platform.

Can Growave replace existing loyalty or review apps without losing data?

Growave provides data import and export tools designed to migrate customers, points, and review history. Merchants should verify migration steps and test on a staging store. Higher-tier plans include onboarding support and customer success planning to ensure a smoother transition.

How should merchants evaluate value for money between a $4.99 wishlist and a $49+ integrated plan?

Compare the combined cost of the standalone apps needed to meet business goals against the integrated plan price. Factor in reduced development and maintenance time, consolidated reporting, and potential LTV improvements from cross-feature workflows. For many merchants, the incremental cost of an integrated solution is offset by increased efficiency and better retention outcomes.