Swish (formerly Wishlist King) vs. Likely ‑ Like Me Button: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right retention and engagement app can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Shopify merchants face hundreds of single-purpose tools that promise better conversions, higher average order value, or improved customer engagement—but each new app adds complexity, cost, and maintenance. This comparison focuses on two focused apps that aim to influence purchase intent through customer signals: Swish (formerly Wishlist King) and Likely ‑ Like Me Button.

Short answer: Swish (formerly Wishlist King) is a mature, full-featured wishlist solution designed for merchants that want deep wishlist functionality, analytics, and personalised notifications; Likely ‑ Like Me Button is a lightweight social-proof tool built around a simple “like” interaction and works for merchants aiming for minimal overhead. For merchants who want to reduce tool sprawl and get multiple retention levers from one integrated platform, an all-in-one solution like Growave is often a better value for money.

The purpose of this article is to provide a practical, feature-by-feature, and use-case driven comparison so merchants can choose the right app for their store or discover when a consolidated retention platform makes more sense.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) vs. Likely ‑ Like Me Button: At a Glance

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Product Purpose and Positioning

Swish: Wishlist Built for Conversion

Swish positions itself as a wishlist platform designed to convert product interest into purchases. It markets feature parity with enterprise wishlist solutions—personalisation, automated notifications, and deep analytics—while promising free setup and theme integration. The messaging emphasizes supporting non-linear shopping journeys and converting intent at key moments.

Likely ‑ Like Me Button: Social Proof, Minimalist

Likely focuses on adding a simple social proof mechanism: let customers "like" products and surface the most liked items. The offering is intentionally narrow, aimed at stores that want to nudge browsers with popularity signals and gather lightweight engagement data without investing in a full wishlist or loyalty program.

Core Functionality

Wishlist vs. Like Button

Swish delivers a true wishlist: users can save items, maintain multiple wishlists, and receive email or push reminders. This is designed to create persistent signals tied to a customer account and to drive eventual conversion.

Likely offers a single interaction (a like). Likes can highlight popular products and provide social validation on product pages, but they do not necessarily capture purchase intent or allow multi-item curation per customer in the same way wishlists do.

Key differences:

• Persistence: Swish stores wishlist entries per account/session and supports unlimited wishlists; Likely stores likes as a public counter rather than a shopper’s saved list.
• Conversion mechanics: Swish includes automated wishlist notifications that can remind customers about saved items; Likely relies on the visibility of like counts to influence decisions.
• Data richness: Swish provides analytics and wishlist curation; Likely provides exportable reports of most liked products.

Personalisation and Automation

Swish invests in personalised and automated communications tied to wishlist behavior (e.g., stock drops, price changes, abandoned wishlist reminders). These touchpoints are explicit conversion drivers and can be tied into ESPs like Klaviyo.

Likely’s automation is limited because a like is a lightweight action. It can inform merchandising and highlight trending products, but it lacks the user-level event data required for personalised lifecycle emails unless merchants export and stitch data into other tools manually.

Setup, Customisation & Design

Ease of Installation

Both apps advertise easy installation, but their approaches differ.

Swish:

• Free setup and customisation across plans.
• Explicit theme integration to match store aesthetics.
• White-glove onboarding and dedicated support for Shopify Plus.
• Works with headless storefronts and Hydrogen stacks (important for stores on modern frontends).

Likely:

• Simple installation focused on quick plug-and-play.
• Basic icon and color customisation to match branding.
• Smaller support footprint; priority support on the Basic plan.

Swish’s onboarding promises are meaningful for merchants that need the app to look and behave like a native part of the storefront. Likely is faster to install but may require merchants to invest time to integrate like data with other systems.

Visual Control

Swish offers deep customisation so wishlist buttons and widgets can be designed to match storefronts closely. For brands prioritising UI/UX consistency, that reduces friction and supports brand integrity.

Likely lets merchants customise icons and colors, which is sufficient if the requirement is merely to add an unobtrusive like button. It is not designed for complex UI demands.

Integrations & Data Flow

Native Integrations

Swish lists native integrations with Klaviyo, GA4, and Meta—out-of-the-box connectors that help turn wishlist events into marketing and analytics events. The app also supports Customer Accounts and Checkout, which enables smoother wishlist persistence across sessions.

Likely’s integration surface is far smaller. It supports exporting like counts and delivers real-time reports through the app interface, but there are no explicit native connectors for popular ESPs or analytics platforms in the provided data.

Implications:

• If a merchant uses Klaviyo, Swish can directly fire wishlist events for lifecycle campaigns.
• Likely requires manual exports or custom development to push like events into other systems.

Headless and Advanced Stacks

Swish explicitly supports Hydrogen and headless architectures and provides a Shopify Plus plan tailored to enterprise needs, including dedicated account managers and headless support. Likely’s offering does not list headless or modern frontend support.

For merchants running headless or planning to scale with complex frontends, Swish provides a more compatible solution.

Analytics and Reporting

Actionable Signals vs. Popularity Counts

Swish focuses on behaviour-level signalling: who saved what, when, and how that converts over time. Advanced analytics and wishlist curation are core selling points, enabling merchandising decisions and targeted re-engagement campaigns.

Likely offers straightforward counts of likes per product and exportable reports. This is useful to identify trending items but does not automatically provide shopper-level signals for remarketing or lifecycle programs.

How each supports merchandising:

• Swish: Enables segmentation based on wishlist interest, tracking wishlist-to-checkout rates, and automated re-targeting.
• Likely: Helps highlight “most liked” products in collections or homepages but does not inherently support follow-up marketing.

Pricing and Value for Money

Swish Pricing Structure

Swish’s pricing scales with the Shopify plan:

• Basic Shopify: $19/month
• Shopify: $29/month
• Advanced Shopify: $49/month
• Shopify Plus: $99/month (adds white-glove onboarding, priority support, dedicated account manager, Hydrogen & headless support)

All plans include free setup and customisation, unlimited wishlists and saved items, and unlimited sessions.

Value considerations:

• The free setup and customisation lower implementation costs and reduce design friction.
• Integration with Klaviyo, GA4, and Meta reduces the need for developer time to wire events into analytics and marketing tools.
• The Plus plan’s dedicated support and headless capabilities justify the premium for enterprise-grade merchants.

Likely Pricing Structure

Likely’s pricing is intentionally low-cost:

• Starter: $1.99/month — simple installation, unlimited likes, variety of icons, customizable icons.
• Basic: $2.99/month — adds “Get Most Liked Products,” priority support.
• No higher-tier plans provided in the data.

Value considerations:

• Extremely low subscription cost makes Likely an attractive trial option.
• If a merchant only wants social proof without ongoing maintenance, Likely provides clear value for money.
• The low price comes with limited native integrations and a thinner feature set, which may force manual work or additional tools to monetise the engagement data.

Which Is Better Value?

Value depends on the merchant’s goal:

• For merchants who need measurable wishlist-driven revenue and automation, Swish is better value for money because it reduces manual work and integrates with marketing/analytics tools.
• For stores constrained by budget and wanting to test a simple social proof display, Likely is a low-cost way to prove concept before investing in broader retention tech.

Support, Maintenance & Onboarding

Swish Support Model

Swish advertises free setup and customisation for all plans, with elevated white-glove onboarding and a dedicated account manager for Shopify Plus clients. That model reduces implementation friction and shifts the burden from the merchant to the vendor. For merchants without developer resources, this is a significant advantage.

Likely Support Model

Likely offers priority support on its Basic plan. The app is built to be simple to install and maintain, but merchants requiring more than basic configuration may need to handle custom integrations themselves.

Long-Term Maintenance

Swish’s ongoing integrations and onboarding support align with merchants who need a long-term, robust solution. Likely’s minimal maintenance needs make it suitable for stores that prefer an "install and forget" approach, but collecting and acting on like data at scale will require additional tools or manual processes.

Use Cases & Merchant Fit

Ideal Scenarios for Swish

• Mid-market and enterprise merchants who want to capture product interest and convert it through automated notifications.
• Stores using Klaviyo or GA4 that want wishlists to feed behavioural campaigns and analytics.
• Brands with designer-led storefronts that require theme-level integration and UI consistency.
• Shopify Plus stores or headless storefronts that need dedicated onboarding and advanced technical support.

Ideal Scenarios for Likely

• Small stores testing simple social proof without committing to a larger retention strategy.
• Stores on tight budgets that want popularity signals on product pages for minimal cost.
• Merchants who plan to rotate merchandising manually based on like counts rather than automated lifecycle marketing.

Performance & Store Impact

Page Weight and Speed

Every additional widget has a performance cost. Swish’s richer feature set could increase page weight more than Likely’s lightweight like button. However, Swish’s team claims theme-level integration to optimize load and appearance, and Shopify Plus/Headless plans indicate attention to performance for enterprise setups.

Likely’s simple button is less likely to materially affect page speed, which is a practical advantage for stores focused on Core Web Vitals and mobile performance.

Conversion Uplift Potential

• Swish’s wishlist-to-purchase flows and automated notifications can directly drive conversions; this is a commonly reported retention lever across wishlist platforms.
• Likely’s uplift comes from social proof and the psychological impact of seeing popular items, which can influence purchase decisions but is harder to measure directly without A/B testing.

Compliance, Data Ownership & Privacy

Data Ownership

Swish’s integration with analytics and ESPs implies data flows to merchant-owned systems like Klaviyo or GA4, enabling merchants to retain event-level data. For retailers concerned with data portability, this is advantageous.

Likely provides exportable reports for like counts, but it appears to be centered on aggregated popularity metrics rather than rich user-level tracking.

Privacy Considerations

Both apps should follow Shopify app store policies and relevant privacy laws. Merchants should confirm how each app stores personal data, how long it retains it, and how it can be exported or deleted—especially if wishlists capture email addresses or accounts.

Reviews, Reputation & Maturity

Swish: High Rating, Larger Review Base

Swish: 272 reviews with a 5.0 rating. That volume and rating indicate a mature product with strong merchant satisfaction. A high rating across hundreds of reviews suggests reliability, responsiveness, and a product that meets expectations.

Likely: Small Sample, Mixed Feedback

Likely: 10 reviews with a 3.6 rating. The lower review count and rating indicate a newer or less widely adopted product with mixed feedback. For risk-averse merchants, fewer reviews and a lower rating warrant cautious testing.

Migration & Exit Strategy

If a Merchant Wants to Change Later

Swish’s richer export options and native integrations should make it easier to migrate wishlist data or continue using wishlist event data in other systems if the merchant decides to switch. The free onboarding may also help with data exports if requested.

Likely’s aggregated exports will let merchants export popularity data, but moving to a wishlist-driven lifecycle approach will require additional implementation work.

Real-World Decision Criteria: Which App Should a Merchant Choose?

Below are practical decision points to help merchants match needs to the right tool.

• Priority on automation and lifecycle marketing: Swish.
• Need for headless / Shopify Plus support: Swish.
• Very small budget and need for minimal change: Likely.
• Want to capture shopper intent and re-engage: Swish.
• Want to test whether “popularity” influences conversions before investing in a wishlist: Likely.

Use these guiding questions when evaluating:

• Does the store need shopper-level persistence (per-account lists) or just public popularity metrics?
• Is tight integration with Klaviyo, GA4 or Meta critical?
• Are developer resources available to implement manual flows if integrations are absent?
• Is long-term support and onboarding important, or is a quick test preferred?

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

Merchants who install one single-purpose app after another eventually face app fatigue. App fatigue happens when the operational cost of multiple small apps—overlapping features, incremental monthly fees, duplicated event wiring, and multiple dashboards—starts to outweigh the value each app provides. Fragmented stacks make it harder to run coherent retention programs, slow down data flow between marketing and analytics, and increase technical debt.

An alternative is to consolidate common retention and engagement needs into a single platform that covers loyalty, wishlists, referrals, reviews, and VIP tiers. This reduces tool sprawl and creates unified data that drives more powerful, automated campaigns.

More Growth, Less Stack: Growave’s Value Proposition

Growave presents itself as a flexible retention platform that combines loyalty, referrals, reviews & UGC, wishlist, and VIP tiers into one suite. The value proposition—"More Growth, Less Stack"—focuses on reducing the number of third-party apps and centralising retention workflows. That approach can save merchants time and provide consistent customer experiences across touchpoints.

Key benefits of consolidating include:

• Unified customer profiles that combine wishlist signals, loyalty activity, review submissions, and referral events.
• Centralised reporting to see how retention tactics interact and compound one another.
• Fewer integrations to maintain, which reduces ongoing development overhead.

Merchants can explore consolidated pricing tiers to see how an integrated suite compares to the combined cost of multiple single-purpose apps by reviewing Growave’s plans and pricing options. For many merchants, consolidating into one platform yields better long-term value for money.

How Growave Replaces the Need for Multiple Apps

Growave includes wishlist functionality alongside loyalty and review features, which helps merchants capture intent and reward behaviour without adding extra apps. This means wishlist events can be tied directly to loyalty actions, referral incentives, and review campaigns without manual wiring.

Examples of what a consolidated platform enables:

• Rewarding wishlist creation or wishlist-driven purchases through loyalty points automatically.
• Turning wishlist items into personalised incentives (discounts, reminders, VIP access) that are tracked on a single customer profile.
• Using reviews and UGC collected via the same platform to feed social proof modules without a separate tool.

See how merchants consolidate retention features and compare plans to evaluate if consolidation reduces overall complexity and cost by visiting the Growave pricing page and the Growave Shopify listing. The comparison of features and plans helps merchants understand whether moving to an integrated suite is justified based on current retention goals and order volume.

Integrations and Enterprise Support

Growave supports a wide range of integrations across analytics, email, helpdesk, and commerce systems, which simplifies feeding combined engagement signals into marketing stacks. For merchants on Shopify Plus or headless setups, Growave offers tailored solutions for enterprise-grade deployments. Learn about solutions for high-growth Plus brands and headless deployments.

Feature Highlights Compared to Single-Purpose Apps

• Loyalty & Rewards: Create point-based programs and VIP tiers tied to wishlist activity so that saving items can earn points toward rewards.
• Reviews & UGC: Collect and showcase authentic reviews alongside product popularity data to build social proof more holistically.
• Wishlist: Native wishlist functionality with integration into loyalty and referral programs, eliminating the need for a separate wishlist app.
• Referrals: Turn wishlists and likes into referral triggers to accelerate acquisition through existing customers.

Merchants can explore how loyalty programs and wishlist activity combine to drive repeat purchases by reviewing examples of loyalty and reviews that drive repeat purchases and how brands use these features to scale acquisition and retention.

Cost, Support, and Scalability

Growave’s tiered pricing is designed for different stages:

• Entry plans start at an affordable point for growing stores and include basic suite features.
• Growth and Plus plans scale with order volume, offering advanced customisation, checkout extensions, headless support, and a customer success manager for larger merchants.

For merchants evaluating total cost of ownership, comparing the combined monthly fees and development time of multiple single-purpose apps to a single integrated platform is essential. The Growave pricing page outlines plan boundaries and helps merchants decide whether consolidation leads to better value for money.

Real Merchant Examples and Inspiration

Examining customer stories can help merchants visualise how consolidated retention stacks behave in the wild. Case studies and inspiration from brands that switched from multi-app stacks to integrated platforms reveal the concrete benefits: fewer integration headaches, improved campaign coordination, and often higher repeat purchase rates. Merchants looking for such examples can review customer stories from brands scaling retention.

When Not to Consolidate

There are scenarios where specialised apps still make sense:

• Very small stores that absolutely must minimise monthly spend and only need a one-off social proof widget.
• Situations where a merchant already heavily customised a specific single-purpose app and migration costs would outweigh consolidation benefits in the short term.
• Very specific technical constraints where an enterprise’s stack requires a bespoke solution.

However, for most merchants who expect to scale retention efforts beyond single-touch tactics, a unified approach reduces friction and accelerates sustainable growth.

Explore Options and Next Steps

Merchants evaluating whether to keep a single-purpose wishlist/like app or consolidate into a platform should:

• Audit current app costs and overlapping capabilities.
• Map retention goals (increase first-time conversion, increase repeat purchase rate, grow LTV) and identify which features support those goals.
• Compare the combined cost and maintenance of current tools to a single platform’s pricing and support model.

For merchants ready to see an integrated retention stack in action, consider reviewing plan options and the Shopify App Store listing to understand the onboarding steps and capabilities in context. These resources help merchants make an apples-to-apples comparison between isolated tools and an integrated platform.

Migration & Implementation Guidance

If Choosing Swish or Likely

• Verify that the chosen app supports the store’s theme or headless architecture before installing.
• For Swish, take advantage of free setup and customisation. Plan design reviews and ensure wishlist widgets match the store’s UI.
• For Likely, test how like counts are surfaced across collections and homepages; plan manual exports if integration with ESPs or analytics is needed.

If Consolidating with Growave

• Audit loyalty rules and wishlist triggers before migration to avoid double-rewarding customers during the transition.
• Plan the migration window to move wishlist data and configure loyalty tiers. A consolidated migration reduces duplication in the long term.
• Use available documentation and success resources to train marketing teams on unified campaigns that leverage wishlist, loyalty, and reviews together.

Pricing Comparison Summary

• Swish: $19–$99/month depending on Shopify plan, with free setup and customisation; suited for stores that want wishlist capabilities plus onboarding support.
• Likely: $1.99–$2.99/month for a simple like button; suited for low-cost social proof.
• Growave: Tiered plans starting with a free trial/entry plan, scaling to growth and Plus tiers. Pricing balances multiple retention tools in a single platform and may reduce total stack cost when compared to equivalent single-purpose tools combined.

Merchants should run a simple cost comparison: sum the monthly fees of chosen single-purpose apps plus estimated developer hours for wiring integrations, and compare that to a single-platform subscription with built-in integrations and dedicated support.

Practical Checklist: Selecting the Right Option

• Focus on outcomes: Is the goal to increase immediate conversions, grow lifetime value, or both?
• Data needs: Do marketing and analytics teams require event-level wishlist data?
• Budget & runway: Is there flexibility in monthly spend for a robust lifecycle platform?
• Technical stack: Does the store run headless/Hydrogen or Shopify Plus?
• Implementation capacity: Will the merchant use vendor onboarding or internal developer resources?

If the primary goal is to build persistent retention flows and increase LTV with less overhead, consolidation tends to offer better long-term returns.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Swish (formerly Wishlist King) and Likely ‑ Like Me Button, the decision comes down to required depth and long-term retention strategy: Swish is best for merchants who need a robust wishlist with integrations, onboarding, and headless support; Likely is best for merchants seeking a minimal, inexpensive social proof widget. Both tools serve clear niches, but each has trade-offs in integrations, automation, and long-term scalability.

For merchants who want to reduce app fatigue and build a coherent retention strategy across loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlist, consolidating into an integrated platform is often better value for money. Growave combines wishlist capabilities with loyalty and reviews so merchants can consolidate retention features and reduce technical complexity. Compare plans and see how an integrated retention approach can replace multiple single-purpose apps by reviewing the available pricing tiers and the Shopify App Store listing. Learn how loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases and ways to collect and showcase authentic reviews can be combined into a single program, and explore customer stories from brands scaling retention.

Start a 14-day free trial to evaluate how a unified retention stack simplifies operations and accelerates growth.

FAQ

What are the main practical differences between Swish and Likely?

Swish is a full wishlist platform with personalised notifications, analytics, and native integrations (e.g., Klaviyo, GA4, Meta). Likely is a lightweight like button providing popularity counts and simple reports. Choose Swish for lifecycle-driven conversions; choose Likely for minimal cost social proof.

Which app is better for Shopify Plus or headless setups?

Swish explicitly supports Hydrogen and headless stacks and offers Shopify Plus plans with white-glove onboarding and dedicated account management. Likely does not advertise headless support in the provided details.

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

An all-in-one platform combines multiple retention tools (wishlist, loyalty, referrals, reviews) into one integrated system, reducing app sprawl, simplifying integrations, and creating unified customer profiles. This consolidation often leads to better long-term value and fewer technical touchpoints than maintaining several single-purpose apps.

If a store is on a tight budget, which option makes sense?

For absolute minimal monthly cost and a quick test of popularity signals, Likely’s low-price plan is attractive. For stores prioritising automation, integration, and long-term retention, investing in a consolidated platform that covers wishlist and loyalty may offer better value for money as the store scales.