Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards vs. 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right retention tools often feels like a balancing act between specific feature needs and the long-term health of a store’s technical infrastructure. When a merchant decides to move beyond basic discounts, the search usually leads to specialized applications that promise to increase repeat purchase rates. Two prominent names in this space are Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards and 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty. While both aim to solve the problem of customer churn, they approach the challenge from different angles—one focusing on a deeply specialized loyalty experience and the other blending gift card utility with reward mechanics.

Short answer: Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards is an ideal choice for merchants seeking a high-end, dedicated loyalty and VIP program with deep third-party integrations. 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty serves stores that need to combine gift cards, store credit, and loyalty into a single workflow. Selecting the right option depends on whether the priority is a specialized loyalty hub or a versatile gift card and refund management system, though both paths can lead to increased tool sprawl if not managed carefully within an integrated platform.

This article provides a feature-by-feature comparison of Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards and 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty to help merchants choose wisely. By examining core functionality, pricing, and integration capabilities, storefront owners can determine which tool aligns with their current growth phase and retention objectives.

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards vs. 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty: At a Glance

Comparative Analysis of Features and Functionality

Evaluating these two applications requires an understanding of how they impact the daily operations of a Shopify store. While both offer rewards, the underlying mechanics of how those rewards are delivered and managed differ significantly.

Loyalty Program Mechanics and Reward Types

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards is built around a traditional but highly refined points-based system. It allows merchants to reward various customer actions, such as making a purchase, celebrating a birthday, or following social media accounts. The application emphasizes the "Loyalty Hub," a dedicated space within the customer account where members can see their progress. This focus on the customer experience is supported by features like VIP tiers, which create a sense of exclusivity for high-value shoppers. By offering different perks—such as special pricing or exclusive access—based on a customer’s tier, Smile helps brands build a structured progression for their audience.

In contrast, 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty approaches rewards through the lens of store credit and gift card utility. While it does provide a loyalty program, its standout feature is the ability to launch a complete gift card program that includes both digital and physical options. This is particularly useful for omnichannel brands that operate both online and in physical retail locations. The loyalty aspect of 99minds allows for rewards to be triggered based on customer actions, but the output is often tied to store credit workflows. This approach makes the rewards feel more like currency, which can be a powerful motivator for repeat purchases, especially when managing returns and refunds.

Referral Programs and Customer Advocacy

Both applications include referral functionality, recognizing that word-of-mouth is one of the most cost-effective ways to acquire new customers. Smile focuses on the "sharing with friends" aspect, allowing merchants to thank their biggest fans with discounts or points when they successfully refer someone. The branding of these referral modules is highly customizable, ensuring that the pop-ups and emails match the store's aesthetic.

99minds provides a personalized customer referral program as well. Because 99minds integrates loyalty with store credit, the referral rewards can be funneled into a customer’s credit balance, simplifying the redemption process. This can be a significant advantage for merchants who want to automate the reward fulfillment process without managing complex coupon code configurations for every referral.

Returns, Refunds, and Store Credit Workflows

A major point of differentiation between the two apps is how they handle the post-purchase experience regarding returns. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards is primarily a marketing and conversion tool; it does not explicitly focus on the logistics of returns. If a customer returns a product, the merchant must manually or via integrations manage how points are deducted or rewards are handled.

99minds Gift Card & Loyalty offers a more robust solution for the "negative" side of the customer journey. It includes automated refund workflows that allow merchants to offer store credit instead of a traditional cash refund. This keeps the revenue within the business and encourages the customer to try a different product rather than leaving the brand entirely. By substituting multiple apps with one platform that handles gift cards, store credit, and loyalty, 99minds reduces the friction often associated with customer service inquiries regarding returns.

Customization and Brand Integration

For any growing brand, the ability to maintain a consistent visual identity across all touchpoints is mandatory. Customers are more likely to engage with a loyalty program that feels like a native part of the store rather than a third-party add-on.

Visual Branding and User Interface

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards places a high premium on branding. Even at the free tier, it offers full branding customization, allowing merchants to adjust colors, fonts, and images. The application supports 20 languages, making it a strong contender for international stores. The Loyalty Hub is designed to be embedded directly on product pages and at checkout for Shopify Plus merchants, providing a seamless experience where customers never feel like they are leaving the storefront.

99minds Gift Card & Loyalty also allows for the creation of gift card programs and loyalty workflows without coding skills. While its design flexibility is robust, the focus is more on the functional aspects of the gift card—ensuring it works across POS and online checkouts. The ability to create physical gift cards adds a layer of physical branding that Smile does not offer. For a merchant, this means the brand can exist in a customer's physical wallet, providing a constant reminder of the store.

Engagement Tools and On-Site Reminders

Maintaining participation in a loyalty program is often harder than the initial sign-up. Smile addresses this with "Nudges," which are on-site reminders that prompt customers to use their points or remind them of available rewards. These nudges help keep the loyalty program top-of-mind during the shopping journey. Additionally, Smile supports "Bonus events," such as 2x points weekends, which are highly effective for driving short-term conversion spikes.

99minds focuses engagement on the automation of workflows. Merchants can create triggers based on specific customer actions, ensuring that a reward or a gift card is delivered at the exact moment of highest impact. While it may not have the same "nudging" UI components as Smile, the utility of store credit and the versatility of gift cards often serve as their own form of engagement, as customers view them as tangible value rather than abstract points.

Pricing Structure and Total Cost of Ownership

The financial commitment required for these apps varies significantly based on the size of the store and the required feature set. Merchants must look beyond the monthly fee to understand the total cost of ownership, including integration costs and the potential for "app sprawl."

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards Pricing Tiers

Smile offers a structured pricing model that scales with the needs of the merchant:

• Free Plan: Includes points, rewards, referrals, and a dedicated loyalty page. It is a robust entry point for small stores that want to start with basic branding and 20 languages.
• Starter Plan ($49/month): Adds bonus events like 2x points weekends, analytics, and basic integrations with tools like Klaviyo and Judge.me. It also introduces on-site reminders (Nudges).
• Growth Plan ($199/month): This tier is designed for stores looking to maximize retention. It includes the Loyalty Hub for signed-in members, VIP tiers, points expiry, and advanced ROI insights. It also allows for unlimited integrations.
• Plus Plan ($999/month): Aimed at enterprise-level merchants and Shopify Plus stores. It includes priority support, API access, white-glove migration, and advanced reporting.

99minds Gift Card & Loyalty Pricing Considerations

According to the provided data, the specific pricing tiers for 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty are not specified. However, the application is positioned as a way to "substitute multiple apps with one powerful app." This suggests a value proposition centered on reducing the cost of multiple subscriptions for gift cards, referrals, and store credit. For many merchants, the consolidation of these functions can lead to a lower total cost of ownership compared to paying for three separate specialized applications.

Evaluating Value for Money

When comparing value, merchants should consider their primary goal. If the goal is a highly sophisticated VIP program with complex tier logic and specialized loyalty analytics, Smile’s $199 Growth plan provides a clear framework for ROI. If the goal is to solve the operational headache of refunds while simultaneously offering a gift card program and basic loyalty, 99minds provides a combination of features that is rare in a single app.

However, a common pitfall for merchants is paying for high-tier plans of multiple specialized apps. For example, a store might use Smile for loyalty, another app for reviews, and another for wishlists. This creates a "stacking" effect where the monthly bill grows alongside the complexity of managing data between these disconnected tools.

Integrations and Ecosystem Fit

The effectiveness of a retention tool is often determined by how well it "talks" to the rest of the tech stack. If loyalty data is siloed away from email marketing or customer support, its value is diminished.

Smile’s Integration Landscape

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards has a mature integration ecosystem. It works with Shopify POS, Shopify Flow, and over 30 other popular tools. The integration with Klaviyo is particularly deep, allowing loyalty data and events to be sent directly to the email platform for personalized automation. It also integrates with review apps like Judge.me and Loox, and customer service tools like Gorgias. This ensures that when a customer contacts support, the agent can see their loyalty status and reward them if necessary.

99minds’ Connectivity and POS Support

99minds also maintains a strong integration list, including Klaviyo, Omnisend, Hubspot, and Mailchimp. A significant advantage for 99minds is its focus on Shopify POS and checkout. Because it handles gift cards and store credit, the integration with the point-of-sale system is critical. This makes it a strong candidate for merchants with physical storefronts who need their gift cards and loyalty points to work seamlessly across both physical and digital environments.

Analytics and Operational Oversight

Data-driven decision-making is essential for any retention strategy. Merchants need to know if their loyalty program is actually driving repeat purchases or if it is just giving away margin to customers who would have bought anyway.

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards offers advanced analytics and reporting starting at the Starter tier. The Growth and Plus tiers provide deeper insights into loyalty ROI, performance benchmarks against top brands, and customer lifetime value (CLV) insights. With 30+ pre-built reports in the Plus tier, Smile provides a high level of clarity for data-hungry marketing teams.

For 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty, the provided data does not specify the depth of the analytics suite. It does mention efficient loyalty programs and "efficient" management, which implies a level of reporting on gift card usage and credit balances. Merchants focusing on gift cards will find value in tracking the liability of unredeemed cards and the frequency of store credit usage.

Customer Support and Trust Signals

Trust is built through reliability and the availability of help when something goes wrong. Review counts and ratings serve as the primary indicators of a developer's commitment to their users.

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards holds a 4.9 rating, though only 4 reviews are listed in the provided data. This is unusual for such a well-known app, but the developer, Smile.io, is a recognized leader in the Shopify ecosystem with a long history of supporting thousands of merchants. Their Plus plan even includes a dedicated launch plan and quarterly program monitoring, indicating a high-touch support model for large brands.

99minds Gift Card & Loyalty holds a perfect 5.0 rating across 33 reviews. This suggests a very high level of satisfaction among its user base. The reviews likely reflect the app's ability to solve multiple problems (gift cards, refunds, loyalty) without the complexity of managing multiple vendors. For a merchant, this perfect rating is a strong signal of reliability and effective customer support.

Performance and Technical Overhead

Every app added to a Shopify store can impact page load speeds and administrative complexity. Smile and 99minds both aim to minimize this impact, but they do so in different ways.

Smile offers a "Loyalty Hub" and embedded points on product pages, which are designed to be lightweight. The use of a modern loyalty page helps keep the customer account section clean. However, as merchants add more integrations (Klaviyo, Gorgias, etc.), the technical overhead of managing those connections increases.

99minds reduces overhead by consolidating features. Instead of managing the code snippets and scripts for a gift card app, a store credit app, and a loyalty app, the merchant only manages one. This can lead to a cleaner theme and fewer scripts running in the background, which is a significant consideration for stores prioritizing site performance.

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

While choosing between specialized tools like Smile and 99minds is a common path, many merchants eventually hit a wall known as "app fatigue." This occurs when the cost of individual subscriptions, the time spent managing disparate integrations, and the inconsistent user experience of multiple widgets begin to hinder growth rather than help it. When loyalty data lives in one app, reviews in another, and wishlists in a third, the merchant loses a unified view of the customer.

Growave offers a different path through its "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy. Instead of forcing merchants to stitch together various specialized tools, it provides an integrated platform where loyalty, reviews, referrals, wishlists, and VIP tiers coexist natively. This approach eliminates the data silos that often plague stores using multiple single-function apps. When a customer leaves a review, they can be immediately rewarded with loyalty points without an external integration needing to fire. This creates a cohesive journey that feels more professional to the customer and is easier for the merchant to manage.

For merchants concerned about the financial impact of multiple apps, comparing plan fit against retention goals often reveals that an integrated platform offers a significantly lower total cost of ownership. Instead of paying $199 for a growth loyalty plan and another $100 for a reviews app, merchants can access a full suite of retention tools for a single price. This consolidation not only saves money but also reduces the time spent on support tickets and technical troubleshooting.

By using loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases, brands can build complex incentive structures that are directly linked to other engagement metrics. For example, rewarding a customer for adding an item to their wishlist or for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews becomes a native part of the workflow. This level of synergy is difficult to achieve when using a specialized loyalty app alongside a separate reviews app.

The benefits of this integrated approach are evident when seeing how other brands connect loyalty and reviews to drive long-term value. Rather than managing a fragmented tech stack, teams can focus on crafting a unified brand experience. When a store reaches a certain level of maturity, the complexity of managing five different apps for five different features becomes a liability. Moving to a platform that handles the core pillars of retention allows for better data accuracy and a more stable storefront.

Furthermore, VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers work most effectively when they are informed by all customer actions, not just purchase history. An integrated platform can track when a customer is highly engaged with reviews or frequently uses their wishlist, allowing the merchant to reward that engagement and move the customer into a higher VIP bracket more quickly. This comprehensive view of the customer journey is what drives sustainable growth without the overhead of app sprawl.

For stores that are scaling rapidly, review automation that builds trust at purchase time must work in tandem with the rewards program to maximize conversion. When these tools are under one roof, the merchant spends less time worrying about whether the "reward for review" integration is working and more time on high-level strategy. This shift in focus is often the catalyst for moving from a standard store to a market-leading brand.

Ultimately, looking at real examples from brands improving retention shows that the most successful stores are those that prioritize a frictionless experience for both the customer and the internal team. By reducing the number of apps in the stack, merchants can ensure that their site remains fast, their data remains clean, and their retention costs remain predictable through a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards and 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty, the decision comes down to the specific operational needs of the business versus the desire for a specialized marketing tool. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards is the superior choice for brands that want a high-visibility loyalty program with specialized VIP tiers and a deeply branded Loyalty Hub. It excels in stores where the primary goal is building a community of advocates through points and exclusive perks. On the other hand, 99minds Gift Card & Loyalty is the better fit for merchants who need a practical, multi-purpose solution that handles the complexities of gift cards, store credit, and returns alongside a loyalty program.

While both apps are excellent in their respective niches, they both contribute to the common challenge of app sprawl. As a store grows, managing a specialized app for every single retention feature becomes increasingly difficult and expensive. The total cost of ownership for a fragmented stack often exceeds the cost of an all-in-one retention platform, while also providing a less consistent experience for the end-user.

Strategic growth requires looking at the big picture of customer retention. Moving toward an integrated solution helps eliminate tool sprawl, providing a single source of truth for customer data and a unified interface for the shopper. This approach not only streamlines operations but also ensures that every retention tactic—from loyalty and referrals to reviews and wishlists—is working in harmony to drive lifetime value.

To determine the best path forward, merchants should begin by evaluating feature coverage across plans to see where the most value lies for their specific stage of growth. Running a retention strategy from a single place allows for more agility and a clearer understanding of ROI. 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 an international Shopify store?

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards is explicitly noted for its support of 20 languages, making it a strong choice for brands with a global customer base. While 99minds may support multiple languages, the specific count is not specified in the provided data. Smile’s focus on a branded loyalty hub that can be localized makes it a highly effective tool for internationalization.

Can I use both gift cards and loyalty points together?

99minds Gift Card & Loyalty is specifically designed for this combination. It allows merchants to launch a gift card program while also running a loyalty and referral system. This is particularly useful for managing store credit for refunds, as it keeps all "virtual currency" within a single system for the merchant to track.

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

Specialized apps like Smile or 99minds offer deep functionality in specific areas, such as VIP tiers or gift card management. However, an all-in-one platform provides a broader range of features—like wishlists, reviews, and loyalty—in a single package. This reduces the need for multiple subscriptions and complex integrations. While a specialized app might have a few more niche settings for one specific feature, an all-in-one platform offers better data synergy and a lower total cost of ownership by preventing tool sprawl.

Is Smile or 99minds better for Shopify POS?

Both apps specify compatibility with Shopify POS. Smile focuses on allowing customers to earn and redeem points in-store, maintaining the loyalty experience across channels. 99minds focuses on the utility of gift cards (both physical and digital) and store credit, which are often essential for physical retail environments handling returns and gift purchases. The choice depends on whether you prioritize the "reward" experience (Smile) or the "payment/credit" experience (99minds).

What are the main benefits of using store credit for refunds?

Using store credit via a tool like 99minds allows a merchant to retain the revenue from a sale even when a customer returns a product. It encourages the customer to remain within the brand's ecosystem and helps manage cash flow by avoiding outgoing cash refunds. This is a key retention strategy that balances customer satisfaction with business financial health.