Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards vs. Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands Comparison

Introduction

Selecting the right retention tools is a pivotal decision for any Shopify store aiming to stabilize revenue and foster long-term customer relationships. The Shopify ecosystem offers a variety of specialized solutions, but understanding which one aligns with a specific business model requires a careful look at feature sets, pricing trajectories, and operational demands. This analysis focuses on two distinct approaches to retention: Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards, a traditional points-based loyalty system, and Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands, a modern delivery mechanism utilizing mobile wallet passes.

Short answer: Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards is a traditional, feature-rich loyalty platform centered on points, VIP tiers, and referrals, making it ideal for brands prioritizing structured incentive programs. Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands focuses on the delivery channel, using Apple and Google Wallet passes to provide direct mobile access and push notifications, which suits brands looking for high-visibility mobile engagement. Merchants seeking to avoid managing multiple disconnected tools may find that integrated platforms offer a more cohesive way to manage these functions without adding technical complexity.

The purpose of this comparison is to provide an objective, data-driven overview of both Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards and Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands. By examining their core workflows, customization options, and total cost of ownership, merchants can determine which tool—or combination of tools—best supports their growth objectives.

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards vs. Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Core Features and Engagement Workflows

The fundamental difference between these two apps lies in how they engage the customer. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards operates on a logic of accumulation and status. The primary workflow involves customers earning points for specific actions—such as making a purchase, following a brand on social media, or celebrating a birthday—and redeeming those points for discounts or free products. This creates a cyclical relationship where the value is tied to the points balance. Smile also offers VIP tiers, which allow merchants to create exclusive groups based on spend or engagement, providing a sense of progression and status for the most loyal customers.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands shifts the focus from the incentive itself to the communication channel. Instead of managing a point balance solely through a website widget, Novel places the brand inside the customer’s mobile wallet. This allows for push notifications that bypass crowded email inboxes and SMS filters. The core workflow here is the installation of a digital pass, which then acts as a persistent touchpoint on the customer's phone. Features like location-based push notifications allow brands to send alerts when a customer is near a physical store location, making it a powerful tool for omnichannel merchants.

While Smile focuses on the "what" (the rewards), Novel focuses on the "where" (the mobile wallet). Smile does provide mobile-friendly loyalty pages and works with Shopify POS, but it does not natively offer the specific mobile wallet integration that Novel provides. Conversely, Novel allows for referral revenue through QR codes and SMS, but it is not a comprehensive loyalty engine in the way Smile is; rather, it is a specialized tool that can integrate with existing loyalty apps to surface their data on a wallet pass.

Customization and Brand Control

Brand consistency is vital for building trust, and both apps provide tools to align the loyalty experience with the storefront’s aesthetic. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards offers full branding customization, including the ability to embed loyalty elements on product pages and at checkout for Shopify Plus users. The "Loyalty Hub" acts as a centralized home for rewards within the customer account, ensuring that the loyalty experience feels like a native part of the site. Smile also supports 20 different languages, which is essential for brands operating in international markets.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands provides a different type of customization. The branded wallet pass is designed to fit the standard look and feel of Apple and Google Wallet while incorporating brand colors and logos. This ensures that the pass looks professional and official within the mobile environment. Novel also facilitates "Automatic Storefront Login" for Shopify Plus merchants, which reduces friction for customers moving from a push notification to the store. This level of technical customization ensures that the transition between the mobile wallet and the web store is seamless.

The operational overhead for customization varies. Smile’s customization is primarily web-based, focusing on UI/UX elements within the Shopify store. Novel’s customization is focused on the mobile asset (the pass itself) and the logic of push notifications. Merchants must decide whether they want to invest time in designing a comprehensive web-based loyalty portal or a mobile-first digital asset.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

The cost of retention tools must be weighed against the expected lift in repeat purchase rates. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards uses a multi-tiered pricing model that scales with the complexity of the features required. The Free plan is quite generous, offering points, rewards, referrals, and basic branding. However, as a brand grows, moving to the $49/month Starter plan becomes necessary for analytics and integrations with tools like Klaviyo. The $199/month Growth plan introduces VIP tiers and advanced ROI insights, while the $999/month Plus plan is geared toward enterprise-level security and white-glove migration services.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands has a simpler pricing structure. It offers a "Gonna Try It" plan that is free for developer stores, allowing for testing and setup. The primary paid plan, "Gotta Have It," is priced at $299/month. This plan includes unlimited push notifications, unlimited QR code referrals, and location-based triggers. For a merchant focused heavily on mobile engagement, this flat fee may be easier to budget than a plan that scales based on orders or advanced feature access.

When comparing plan fit against retention goals, merchants should consider the total cost of their retention stack. If a merchant uses Smile at the $199 level and adds Novel at $299, the monthly overhead for retention increases significantly. This "stacked" cost is a common challenge for Shopify brands that rely on multiple specialized apps to achieve their goals.

Integrations and Tech Stack Compatibility

A loyalty app that operates in a silo is significantly less effective than one that talks to the rest of the tech stack. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards excels in this area with over 30 pre-built integrations. It works seamlessly with Klaviyo, Judge.me, Gorgias, and Recharge, allowing loyalty data to be used in email flows, help desk tickets, and subscription management. For example, a merchant can use Smile data to send a Klaviyo email when a customer is close to reaching a new VIP tier.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands also prioritizes connectivity. It lists an extensive "Works With" section including Klaviyo, Attentive, Recharge, Yotpo, and Okendo. Novel’s strategy is to act as the mobile interface for these other apps. By integrating with a loyalty app like Yotpo or Influence.io, Novel can display a customer's point balance directly on their wallet pass. This turns Novel into a distribution layer rather than a standalone database of loyalty points.

For Shopify Plus merchants, both apps offer advanced capabilities. Smile provides checkout extensions and API access on its higher plans, while Novel offers automatic storefront login and deeper checkout integration. The choice between them often depends on which existing tools a merchant is already committed to. If a brand is already heavily invested in a loyalty platform but lacks a mobile presence, Novel is a logical add-on. If they are starting from scratch, Smile provides the foundational loyalty logic.

Analytics, Reporting, and Reliability

Data-driven decision-making is the hallmark of a successful growth strategy. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards provides a robust analytics suite, particularly at the Growth and Plus levels. Merchants can access performance benchmarks, loyalty ROI calculations, and insights into Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). The Plus plan adds 30+ pre-built reports and a dedicated launch plan, which is a strong trust signal for larger brands. Smile’s rating of 4.9 from 4 reviews (within the provided dataset) suggests a high level of satisfaction among its users, although the review volume is relatively low compared to some market veterans.

Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands carries a rating of 5 from 14 reviews. While the dataset provided does not specify the exact nature of its reporting dashboard, it highlights the ability to track referral revenue and conversion through push notifications. The focus is likely on engagement metrics—how many passes are installed and how many notifications lead to a purchase. The location-based push feature also provides a unique data point: how physical proximity to a store influences online or in-store buying behavior.

Reliability is also a factor of support. Smile offers priority support and a customer success manager at the enterprise level. Novel’s support structure is not detailed in the provided data, but its focus on "white-glove" style mobile pass setup suggests a high-touch onboarding experience for brands. Merchants should verify compatibility details in the official app listing to ensure that whichever tool they choose will scale with their traffic spikes during peak seasons like Black Friday.

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

While specialized tools like Smile and Novel offer powerful features, they also contribute to a growing problem in ecommerce: app fatigue. This occurs when a merchant's tech stack becomes so fragmented that managing it takes more time than actually growing the business. Every new app added to a Shopify store introduces another monthly subscription, another dashboard to learn, and another potential point of failure for site performance. Data silos often form, where loyalty data lives in one place, review data in another, and wishlist data in a third, making it nearly impossible to get a clear, unified view of the customer.

By choosing a plan built for long-term value, merchants can move away from this fragmented approach. Growave provides a unified platform that replaces up to five or six specialized apps. Instead of paying for a separate loyalty engine and a separate mobile engagement tool, brands can manage loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases alongside their reviews and wishlists. This integration ensures that the customer experience is consistent across every touchpoint, whether the user is earning points for a review or adding a product to their wishlist for later.

The operational benefits of this "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy are significant. When a single platform handles multiple retention functions, the data flows naturally between them. For instance, collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews can automatically trigger loyalty points, without the need for complex third-party API connections. This reduces the risk of integration errors and ensures that the site remains fast and responsive.

Furthermore, for high-growth brands, having capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs within a single app reduces the governance burden on the development team. Instead of managing five different API keys and five different support contracts, the team has one point of contact and one source of truth for retention data. This streamlined approach allows teams to focus on strategy and creative execution rather than troubleshooting app conflicts.

If consolidating tools is a priority, start by selecting plans that reduce stacked tooling costs. By moving to an integrated platform, merchants can implement VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers while simultaneously review automation that builds trust at purchase time. This holistic view of the customer journey is what ultimately drives sustainable growth. For merchants who require features aligned with enterprise retention requirements, an all-in-one platform provides the necessary depth without the typical sprawl of a multi-app stack.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards and Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands, the decision comes down to the primary goal of the retention strategy. Smile is the superior choice for brands that want to build a traditional, points-based loyalty ecosystem with deep VIP structures and a focus on rewarding various customer actions. Its long-standing reputation and extensive integration list make it a safe and powerful choice for structured rewards. On the other hand, Novel is best for brands that want to prioritize mobile-first communication and bypass traditional channels like email and SMS. Its ability to place a brand directly in the customer’s mobile wallet provides a unique level of visibility and convenience.

However, the cost and complexity of maintaining multiple specialized apps cannot be ignored. Every addition to the tech stack adds a layer of operational friction. Strategic growth often requires a shift from "app collecting" to "platform thinking." By consolidating loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists into a single system, merchants can evaluate feature coverage across plans more effectively and ensure a higher return on investment. This approach not only saves money on subscriptions but also improves the customer experience by providing a unified, cohesive journey.

When a brand reaches a certain level of maturity, the goal is no longer just to add features, but to refine the efficiency of the entire operation. An integrated platform allows for more sophisticated automations, better data clarity, and a faster storefront. 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 omnichannel brand with physical stores?

Both apps offer omnichannel features, but they serve different purposes. Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards works with Shopify POS, allowing customers to earn and redeem points in person just as they would online. Novel: Wallet Pass for Brands offers location-based push notifications and scan-in-store redemptions via the mobile wallet. If the goal is managing points, Smile is the primary tool; if the goal is driving foot traffic and mobile engagement, Novel provides a more specialized mobile-first solution.

Can Smile and Novel be used together?

Yes, these apps are often complementary rather than competitive. Novel specifically lists "Retention Integrations" as a core feature, meaning it can connect with loyalty apps to display rewards data on a mobile pass. A merchant might use Smile to manage the logic of their rewards program and use Novel as the distribution channel to put that loyalty information into a customer's Apple or Google Wallet. However, this does result in paying for two separate subscriptions.

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

Specialized apps often provide deep, niche features that a broader platform might not focus on (such as Novel's location-based wallet triggers). However, an all-in-one platform offers better value for money by combining multiple essential tools—like loyalty, reviews, and wishlists—into one dashboard. This reduces the "app tax" of multiple subscriptions, prevents data silos, and typically results in better site performance since there are fewer external scripts to load. For most growing stores, the convenience and data synergy of an all-in-one tool outweigh the benefit of highly specialized niche features.

Does Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards support international stores?

Yes, Smile is well-suited for international merchants as it is available in 20 languages. This allows brands to offer a localized loyalty experience to customers in different regions, which is a significant advantage for global Shopify stores. Novel also works globally since it utilizes the native wallet apps found on smartphones worldwide, but the language customization for the pass itself should be verified within the app's settings.

What are the main benefits of using mobile wallet passes for retention?

The primary benefit is visibility. Unlike emails, which can be buried or sent to spam, or SMS, which some customers find intrusive, wallet passes provide a non-intrusive but persistent presence on the mobile device. They allow for push notifications that appear on the lock screen, and they are incredibly convenient for customers to access during checkout, both online and in-store. This reduces the friction of the loyalty experience significantly.