Smart Wishlist vs. Wishl Favorites Wishlist: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right wishlist app is one of the smaller decisions that can have a big impact on retention, cart recovery, and average order value. Shopify merchants choosing between focused, single-purpose tools often face a trade-off: pick a simple, lightweight wishlist or select a feature-rich option that costs more and adds complexity.

Short answer: Smart Wishlist is a straightforward, lightweight wishlist that fits merchants who want an easy, no-code installation and a low monthly cost. Wishl Favorites Wishlist adds email reminders, price-drop tracking, and more analytics for merchants who need engagement features beyond basic saving and sharing. For merchants who want to consolidate retention tools into one platform and minimize app bloat, an integrated solution like Growave offers better value for money by combining wishlist functionality with loyalty, referrals, and reviews.

This article compares Smart Wishlist (Webmarked) and Wishl Favorites Wishlist (Golden Rule Ventures) feature by feature, pricing by pricing, and integration by integration. The goal is to give merchants the context needed to choose the right tool for their store or to consider an all-in-one alternative that reduces tool sprawl while boosting customer lifetime value.

Smart Wishlist vs. Wishl Favorites Wishlist: At a Glance

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Core Functionality and Value Proposition

Smart Wishlist: Clear, focused, lightweight

Smart Wishlist positions itself as a "next-generation" wishlist that prioritizes speed, simplicity, and a small technical footprint. Its core promise is one-click saving even for guest users, shareable lists, and a minimal payload that won't break themes on uninstall. For merchants focused on a frictionless, reliable wishlist, Smart Wishlist delivers the essentials without a long feature list.

Strengths:

• Very low monthly cost ($4.99).
• One-click saving for guests and logged-in users.
• Lightweight, aimed at preserving theme performance.
• API options (Javascript and REST) for developers who want deeper control.

Trade-offs:

• Limited built-in marketing hooks (no native wishlist email reminders in the published description).
• Smaller review base and mid-range rating (81 reviews, 3.6 rating), which suggests varied merchant experiences.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist: Engagement-first wishlist

Wishl leans into engagement features that help convert wishlists into sales. It adds wishlist email reminders, price-drop tracking, notes, and analytics to show which products and variants are most wanted. That extra functionality is useful for stores that want to re-engage visitors and recover potential sales.

Strengths:

• Email reminders to bring customers back.
• Price-drop tracking increases conversion opportunities.
• Mobile-responsive UI and share options.
• Strong merchant rating (4.8) across 32 reviews indicating positive experiences among those reviewers.

Trade-offs:

• Higher price tiers relative to Smart Wishlist.
• Complexity and added features might be unnecessary for merchants who only need a basic wishlist.
• No explicit list of integrations in the published description, which could complicate marketing automations.

Wishlist Saving, Access, and Sharing

Both apps emphasize one-click wishlist creation, but the details matter.

Smart Wishlist

• Guest and logged-in saving ensures low friction for first-time visitors.
• Wishlist button available on product, collection, search result, and cart pages.
• Unlimited wishlists across stores — no hidden capacity limit.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• One-click wishlist creation and an option for shoppers to sign up to save their list permanently.
• Sharing is emphasized and notes allow shoppers to annotate items (useful for gift registries).
• Price-drop tracking and email reminders give merchants additional ways to re-capture interest.

Practical takeaway: If the priority is lowering friction and letting browsers save items quickly without signup, both apps fit, but Smart Wishlist may feel slightly leaner. If the priority is turning a saved list into a sale through reminders and price alerts, Wishl provides more mechanisms to do that.

Mobile Experience and Performance

Mobile responsiveness and performance are central to how wishlists affect conversion, because many shoppers browse and save on their phones.

Smart Wishlist

• Marketed as lightweight and low impact on theme performance. This suggests faster load times and fewer conflicts when uninstalling.
• Focus on a clean save flow across various pages indicates attention to mobile UX, though explicit mobile-specific features aren’t listed.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• Explicitly calls out mobile-responsive design.
• Price-drop and email reminder features are particularly useful on mobile because shoppers often prefer short, timed nudges back to the store.

Practical takeaway: Both apps are mobile-friendly, but Smart Wishlist aims to keep the app footprint minimal, which can preserve store speed. Wishl focuses on functional mobile engagement features.

Customization and Developer Tools

Customizability matters for stores that run custom themes or want a bespoke experience.

Smart Wishlist

• Provides Javascript and REST APIs for advanced implementations. This is useful for developers who want to embed wishlist events into analytics or custom flows.
• Lightweight payload and a promise not to break the theme on uninstall reduce long-term maintenance risk.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• The public feature list does not emphasize developer APIs; focus is on out-of-the-box capabilities (email reminders, price-drop tracking).
• Merchants who need deep customization should verify API availability or contact the developer.

Practical takeaway: Smart Wishlist is better suited to merchants or agencies who want developer controls and theme safety. Wishl is more of a plug-and-play engagement tool with fewer developer-focused promises.

Analytics and Product Insights

Knowing which products are frequently wishlisted helps merchandising and inventory planning.

Smart Wishlist

• Basic wishlist tracking likely built-in (number of saves, etc.), but public description doesn’t emphasize robust analytics dashboards.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• Specifically mentions store stats — number of wishlists, items added, and most coveted variants.
• These insights paired with price-drop alerts and email reminders can create a closed-loop conversion funnel.

Practical takeaway: Wishl has a clearer data story for product teams seeking direct wishlist-derived signals. Smart Wishlist’s lighter approach may require supplementing with store analytics or custom event tracking.

Marketing and Re-Engagement Tools

How does each app help close the sale after a wishlist is created?

Smart Wishlist

• Prioritizes saving and sharing features, making it easy for customers to return organically or via social shares.
• No explicit email reminder or price-drop feature in the public description, which limits automated re-engagement.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• Built-in wishlist email reminders to bring customers back.
• Price-drop tracking notifies shoppers when a saved item hits a lower price, which is a proven conversion lever.
• Share and notes features create social proof and utility for gift buyers.

Practical takeaway: Wishl is purpose-built to turn saved items into purchases through timed nudges and alerts. Smart Wishlist focuses on the capture stage but leaves re-engagement to other tools.

Integrations and Ecosystem

Integrations determine how wishlist data flows into email, SMS, and loyalty systems.

Smart Wishlist

• Lists SendGrid and ShareThis integrations. SendGrid can be useful for email workflows, and ShareThis helps social sharing.
• REST and JS APIs allow custom integrations with platforms like Klaviyo, Omnisend, or a custom CRM, but merchants should plan integration work.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• No explicit third-party integrations listed in the public description. That doesn’t mean integrations are absent; merchants should ask the developer about native or API-based connections to email providers and analytics platforms.

Practical takeaway: Smart Wishlist signals integration potential via APIs and a couple of named services. Wishl offers strong engagement features but lacks clarity on native connections; confirm integration capabilities before committing.

Pricing and Value for Money

Pricing is a major consideration for many merchants. Instead of simply comparing sticker prices, this section evaluates cost relative to the value each app delivers.

Smart Wishlist

• Single plan listed: Standard at $4.99 / month.
• Low fixed cost makes Smart Wishlist attractive for small stores or merchants who only need wishlist capture and sharing.
• Value for money is high for shops that prioritize minimal cost and theme safety over engagement automation.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• Three plans:
  • Basic: $9.99 / month (up to 2,000 new wishlists per month + email reminders).
  • Premium: $17.99 / month (up to 4,000 new wishlists per month + 2,000 email reminders).
  • Premium Plus: $29.99 / month (up to 22,000 new wishlists per month + 6,000 email reminders).
• Pricing scales with capacity and includes email reminders, so merchants who expect a high volume of wishlists or who rely on reminders will find the tiered pricing aligned to scale.
• For stores where wishlist-driven re-engagement materially impacts conversion, Wishl can be a good value for money despite higher monthly fees.

Practical takeaway: Small stores looking for an inexpensive, reliable wishlist will favor Smart Wishlist. Merchants who rely on wishlist-triggered email reminders and price-drop notifications will find Wishl’s tiers deliver clear, measurable utility and justify the higher cost.

Support, Reviews, and Trust Signals

App store reviews and active support channels offer insight into real-world merchant experiences.

Smart Wishlist

• 81 reviews with an average rating of 3.6.
• The larger review volume shows wider adoption but mixed satisfaction — investigate the cause of low ratings (support delays, feature gaps, bugs).
• Developer (Webmarked) appears to focus on performance and developer-friendly design.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• 32 reviews with a 4.8 average rating.
• Higher average rating suggests a strong satisfaction rate among reviewers, though sample size is smaller.
• Reputation for solid engagement features and responsive support is implied by the high rating.

Practical takeaway: High rating with fewer reviews (Wishl) may reflect a more recent, well-supported product. A larger but middling sample (Smart Wishlist) indicates varied experiences; ask for references or test the app thoroughly before committing.

Implementation, Maintenance, and Theme Safety

Uninstall safety and ongoing maintenance are practical concerns.

Smart Wishlist

• Explicitly claims a lightweight payload and that it won't break the theme upon uninstall. This reduces long-term technical debt and the need for developer fixes after removal.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist

• No explicit uninstall or theme impact claims in the public description. Merchants should test in a staging theme and confirm how the app cleans up after uninstall.

Practical takeaway: Smart Wishlist positions itself as low-risk from an implementation and maintenance standpoint. Wishl’s benefits may come with additional complexity, so plan testing and confirm uninstall behavior.

Pricing Comparison in Practical Terms

• Smart Wishlist: $4.99 / month — straightforward, predictable cost, best value for merchants who only need wishlist capture and sharing.
• Wishl Favorites Wishlist: $9.99–$29.99 / month — tiered pricing that scales with wishlist volume and includes email reminders and price-alert credits, delivering clear utility for stores that will use those features.

When evaluating value for money, consider the expected return on wishlist-driven conversions. If the store expects wishlist reminders to convert a meaningful number of visitors, Wishl’s higher price can pay for itself. If the wishlist is mainly a convenience feature, Smart Wishlist’s low cost is attractive.

Use Cases: Which App Fits Which Merchant?

Smart Wishlist Is Best For:

• Small stores with limited budgets that need a basic wishlist.
• Merchants who prioritize site speed and theme safety.
• Teams with development capability that want to use APIs to build custom flows.
• Stores that already have dedicated email or loyalty systems and prefer to keep wishlist simple.

Wishl Favorites Wishlist Is Best For:

• Merchants who want built-in re-engagement tools (email reminders, price-drop alerts).
• Stores that benefit from variant-level insights and expect high wishlist activity.
• Teams that want a plug-and-play solution with out-of-the-box engagement features and analytics.

When Neither Single-Function App Is Ideal:

• Stores that want a single integrated retention program (loyalty, referrals, reviews, wishlist) without relying on multiple apps.
• Merchants trying to reduce app fatigue and the complexity of stitching data across apps.
• High-growth or enterprise brands that need robust integrations with Klaviyo, Recharge, Gorgias, and headless/Plus capabilities.

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

Merchants face a practical problem often called "app fatigue": the overhead of managing multiple single-purpose apps that each require configuration, support, and data wiring. Installing separate wishlist, loyalty, referral, and review apps can lead to duplicated costs, inconsistent customer experiences, and data silos that weaken retention strategies.

Growave’s core proposition is "More Growth, Less Stack" — combining wishlist functionality with loyalty, referrals, reviews, and VIP tiers into one integrated suite. This reduces the number of apps a store must manage while improving the likelihood that wishlist activity translates into repeat purchases and higher lifetime value.

What App Fatigue Looks Like

• Multiple small monthly bills for apps that individually cost little but add up quickly.
• Fragmented customer data scattered across services, making it hard to run targeted campaigns.
• Integration work and ongoing maintenance when apps update or break.
• Inconsistent UX where customers see different messaging from loyalty, wishlist, and review modules.

How an Integrated Platform Helps

• Consolidates retention features into a single admin and customer experience.
• Ensures wishlist activity feeds into loyalty and referral triggers without custom wiring.
• Reduces monthly overhead through bundled value rather than multiple single-purpose apps.
• Simplifies reporting so merchants can measure how wishlists, rewards, and referrals contribute to lifetime value.

Growave combines key retention tools in one platform:

• Merchants can build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases alongside wishlists rather than managing separate apps.
• Growave helps merchants collect and showcase authentic reviews that reinforce wishlist-driven purchase intent.
• To see how brands apply these features in real stores, review customer stories from brands scaling retention.

Growave is also available for merchants to try or install:

• Merchants can add an integrated retention suite to their store via the Shopify App Store.
• For pricing details and plan comparison, review options to consolidate retention features.

Book a personalized demo to see how an integrated retention stack accelerates growth. (This is a hard CTA that offers a direct, actionable next step.)
Link: book a personalized demo

Feature Mapping: How Growave Replaces Multiple Apps

• Wishlist: Native wishlist module that saves items and can trigger loyalty points or automated nudges.
• Loyalty & Rewards: Create point-based programs, referral incentives, and VIP tiers to increase repeat purchases.
• Reviews & UGC: Automate review collection and display social reviews next to wishlist items to boost conversion.
• Referrals: Turn wishlist shares into referral opportunities and rewarding customers for successful referral actions.
• Integrations: Built to integrate with common commerce and marketing tools such as Klaviyo, Omnisend, Recharge, and Gorgias.

Growave provides multiple administrative benefits:

• Unified reporting to measure how wishlists influence repeat purchases and lifetime value.
• One integration layer that reduces the need for custom API work across separate apps.
• Support and onboarding that align with a consolidated platform rather than mixing vendor SLAs.

How Growave Compares on Trust Signals and Scale

Growave has a larger merchant base and review footprint compared to the two standalone wishlist apps in this article:

• 1,197 reviews with a 4.8 rating shows strong merchant satisfaction and a mature product.
• Growave's plans scale from entry-level to enterprise, covering stores with 500 monthly orders up to Plus and headless setups.

Merchants evaluating Growave will find it listed on Shopify’s app directory and can review pricing and plans to assess cost versus value:

• Review plan details to see how Growave consolidates multiple functions and replaces the need for separate wishlist, loyalty, review, and referral apps by visiting the pricing options to consolidate retention features.
• For a quick install option that brings an integrated suite, merchants can add an integrated retention suite.

When to Consider Switching to an All-in-One

• If multiple single-purpose apps are increasing monthly costs and causing integration headaches.
• If wishlist data is not reaching email or loyalty systems in a way that turns saves into purchases.
• If the store needs enterprise-level features such as checkout extensions, headless support, or a dedicated customer success manager.

Using a single vendor like Growave reduces friction and improves execution speed for campaigns that span reviews, loyalty, and wishlist signals. Merchants can evaluate plans and feature fit at the pricing page to determine which plan aligns with monthly order volume and desired features: consolidate retention features.

Migration and Practical Steps for Merchants

If a merchant decides to move from a single-purpose wishlist app to an integrated platform or to choose between Smart Wishlist and Wishl, here are practical next steps to minimize risk.

Evaluating Smart Wishlist or Wishl

• Test in a staging theme to ensure no conflicts and to verify uninstall behavior.
• Confirm email provider and analytics integrations: check if the wishlist can trigger a Klaviyo flow or send events to Google Analytics.
• For Wishl buyers, verify quota limits (wishlists per month) and how email reminder credits are consumed.
• For Smart Wishlist buyers, confirm API documentation if the intent is to integrate wishlist events into the existing marketing stack.

Migrating to an Integrated Platform Like Growave

• Map out required retention flows (e.g., wishlist save -> email reminder -> loyalty point -> purchase).
• Export wishlist data if needed and ask the platform about migration assistance.
• Start with a phased rollout: enable wishlist and reviews first, then enable loyalty and referral programs.
• Monitor key metrics: wishlist to purchase conversion, repeat purchase rate, LTV, and average order value.

Merchants can evaluate platform-level features and sign-up options directly:

• To compare plans and start a trial that demonstrates consolidated value, visit the pricing page to consolidate retention features.
• If the merchant prefers to install first and explore, they can add an integrated retention suite from the Shopify App Store.

Final Considerations

• Long-term retention depends on converting saved intent into purchase. Wishlist capture is necessary but not sufficient — re-engagement tools (email reminders, price alerts) and incentives (loyalty points, discounts) close the loop.
• For merchants who already rely on strong email automation and loyalty systems, a lightweight wishlist like Smart Wishlist may be enough and will minimize costs and technical overhead.
• For merchants that want built-in automation to re-engage wishlist users without wiring multiple apps together, Wishl provides more engagement features out of the box.
• For brands looking to grow sustainably and reduce tool sprawl, an integrated platform that combines wishlist features with loyalty, reviews, and referrals can deliver higher ROI and less maintenance overhead.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Smart Wishlist and Wishl Favorites Wishlist, the decision comes down to the balance between simplicity and out-of-the-box engagement. Smart Wishlist is an excellent choice for brands that need a fast, no-friction wishlist with minimal monthly cost and a developer-friendly API. Wishl Favorites Wishlist is better for stores that want built-in email reminders, price-drop notifications, and product-level insights that actively convert saved items into sales.

For merchants ready to go beyond single-purpose tools and reduce app fatigue, Growave presents a compelling alternative. With a combined suite that includes wishlist, loyalty, referrals, and reviews, Growave helps merchants increase retention while managing fewer apps and avoiding data silos. To review plan tiers and understand how consolidating features can reduce monthly costs and integration work, merchants can consolidate retention features or add an integrated retention suite.

Start a 14-day free trial to explore Growave’s integrated retention stack and see whether consolidating wishlist, loyalty, and reviews improves repeat purchases and lifetime value. (Hard CTA)

FAQ

Q: Which app has better merchant satisfaction ratings?
A: Wishl Favorites Wishlist shows a higher average rating (4.8) across 32 reviews, while Smart Wishlist has a larger review volume (81) but a lower rating (3.6). A higher rating indicates strong satisfaction among reviewers, but merchants should evaluate recent reviews and consider sample sizes when interpreting these signals.

Q: If a store only needs a wishlist and nothing else, which app is better value for money?
A: For pure wishlist capture and the lowest monthly outlay, Smart Wishlist at $4.99 / month provides strong value for money. It emphasizes a lightweight install and theme safety. If the store later needs reminders or price alerts, upgrading to a feature-rich solution or integrating another tool should be weighed against switching to an integrated platform.

Q: How does an all-in-one platform compare to specialized wishlist apps?
A: An all-in-one platform like Growave reduces the number of vendors, unifies customer data, and enables cross-feature campaigns (e.g., awarding loyalty points when a wishlist item is purchased). This consolidation reduces integration overhead and often yields better ROI because wishlist signals can immediately trigger loyalty or review workflows.

Q: Can Wishl or Smart Wishlist integrate with email providers and analytics platforms?
A: Smart Wishlist advertises REST and Javascript APIs and lists integrations like SendGrid, which makes integration feasible. Wishl emphasizes email reminders and analytics but does not list specific third-party integrations publicly; merchants should contact the developer to confirm native or API-based connections to platforms like Klaviyo or Omnisend.

Q: What are the first practical steps when switching from a single-purpose wishlist to a broader retention suite?
A: Export wishlist data if needed, test migrations in a staging environment, enable features incrementally (wishlist, then loyalty, then referrals), and monitor key metrics—wishlist-to-purchase conversion, repeat rate, and AOV—during the migration. For guided assistance and onboarding, merchants can book a personalized demo.