Swish (formerly Wishlist King) vs. SE Wishlist Engine: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right Shopify apps can significantly impact a store's growth trajectory and customer retention. With a multitude of options available for every function, merchants often face the challenge of selecting tools that not only perform their intended purpose but also integrate smoothly and provide long-term value. Wishlist functionality, a crucial component for enabling customers to save desired items, plays a direct role in nurturing purchase intent and recovering potential sales.

Short answer: Swish (formerly Wishlist King) often suits larger, design-focused stores seeking extensive customization and advanced integrations, while SE Wishlist Engine offers a feature-rich solution with a robust free plan and tiered pricing ideal for various store sizes, emphasizing automated reminders. Both are effective, but their nuances highlight the potential benefits of considering integrated platforms for reducing operational overhead and streamlining retention efforts.

This article provides a detailed, feature-by-feature comparison of Swish (formerly Wishlist King) and SE Wishlist Engine. The goal is to equip merchants with a clear understanding of each app’s strengths, weaknesses, and ideal use cases, facilitating an informed decision that aligns with their specific business needs and strategic objectives.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) vs. SE Wishlist Engine: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Core Features and Workflows

Wishlist applications serve a fundamental purpose: allowing customers to save products they are interested in for future purchase. However, the execution and extended features vary significantly between platforms.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish positions itself as a feature-rich wishlist solution designed to unlock additional revenue by driving customer engagement. Its primary workflow focuses on enabling shoppers to wishlist items seamlessly throughout their entire shopping journey. This implies a smooth, unobtrusive experience for the end-user, ensuring that the wishlist feature doesn't disrupt the browsing flow. A key differentiator highlighted is the ability to gain meaningful insights through advanced analytics and wishlist curation, helping merchants understand customer preferences and tailor marketing efforts. The app emphasizes highly personalized and automated wishlist notifications, which, when combined with its Klaviyo integration, suggests a strong capability for re-engaging customers at optimal moments.

SE Wishlist Engine

SE Wishlist Engine offers a broad suite of features beyond simple product saving. It covers crucial aspects for e-commerce users, including product wishlists, wishlist reminders, auto-email sending, price drop alerts, restock alerts, low-stock alerts, and guest wishlists. The inclusion of guest wishlists is a notable advantage, as it removes a barrier to entry for casual browsers who may not wish to log in but still want to save items. The app's workflow is heavily geared towards converting wishlisted products into sales through proactive automated communication, leveraging analytics to identify popular products and follow up with customers effectively.

Feature Comparison Summary

• Wishlist Saving: Both apps allow customers to save multiple items.
• Guest Wishlist: SE Wishlist Engine explicitly supports guest wishlists, which can be a significant advantage for stores catering to new or non-logged-in visitors. Swish's description does not explicitly mention guest wishlists, though many modern apps provide this as a default or configurable option.
• Automated Notifications:
  • Swish: Offers "highly personalised + automated Wishlist notifications" often leveraging integrations like Klaviyo. The focus appears to be on general re-engagement.
  • SE Wishlist Engine: Provides a more granular and explicit set of automated alerts including price drops, restocks, and low-stock reminders, directly targeting specific buying triggers. It also offers "unlimited e-mails" in higher plans, indicating comprehensive control over this aspect.
• Analytics:
  • Swish: Mentions "advanced analytics and wishlist curation" for meaningful insights.
  • SE Wishlist Engine: Offers "reports that show which product is most on the wishlist and who saved it," along with "Advanced Insight" in higher tiers, indicating a focus on actionable data for sales.

Merchants prioritizing robust, automated sales recovery through highly specific alerts might find SE Wishlist Engine's explicit features more appealing. Those looking for deep integration with their existing marketing stack and relying on their ESP for advanced segmentation and personalized campaigns might lean towards Swish's broader "personalised + automated notifications" paired with its Klaviyo integration.

Customization and Control

The ability to integrate a wishlist seamlessly into a store's design and brand identity is paramount for a consistent customer experience.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish places a strong emphasis on customization. It is described as a "fully customisable, feature rich Wishlist solution" that "integrates with all themes to seamlessly match your stores aesthetic." A significant selling point for Swish is its "Free setup & customisation service across all plans." This hands-on approach from the developer ensures that the wishlist functionality looks and works perfectly, tailored to the specific store’s design without requiring the merchant to have extensive coding knowledge. For merchants on Shopify Plus, this extends to "white glove onboarding," further cementing the focus on a polished, integrated experience. The mention of Hydrogen & headless stacks support also speaks to its adaptability for highly customized, modern storefront architectures.

SE Wishlist Engine

SE Wishlist Engine offers customization options primarily around the visual elements of the wishlist button and icon. Merchants can "Customize Button & Icon" and "Hide Branding" in the Basic Plan and above. While these are essential elements for maintaining brand consistency, the description does not suggest the same level of comprehensive, free design assistance or deep theme integration expertise as Swish. Its compatibility with page builders like PageFly suggests some flexibility in placement and appearance within pages built using these tools. The Premium plan also includes "Multi-Language & Multi-Currency" and "Multi-Language Email Template," offering robust control for internationalization.

Customization Comparison Summary

• Aesthetic Integration: Swish appears to offer superior, expert-guided aesthetic integration, with a free setup and customization service. This can be invaluable for brands with specific design requirements or those using complex themes.
• Branding Control: Both offer basic branding control (e.g., hiding branding for SE Wishlist Engine).
• Advanced Customization: Swish’s support for Hydrogen and headless setups points to a higher level of technical adaptability for custom storefronts, appealing to larger, more technically advanced merchants. SE Wishlist Engine's multi-language and multi-currency support in its Premium plan offers essential customization for global operations.

For merchants whose brand aesthetics are critical and who prefer a guided setup process to ensure perfect visual integration, Swish presents a compelling option. For those comfortable with more standard button and icon customizations, SE Wishlist Engine provides sufficient controls, particularly for internationalization.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

Evaluating pricing involves not just the monthly fee but also what features are included, how they scale, and the overall total cost of ownership.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish's pricing structure is tied directly to a merchant's Shopify plan tier:

• Basic Shopify Plan: $19 / month
• Shopify Plan: $29 / month
• Advanced Shopify Plan: $49 / month
• Shopify Plus Plan: $99 / month

All plans "Include all features," "Free setup and onboarding," "Unlimited wishlists & saved items," and "Unlimited sessions." The Shopify Plus plan adds "Free white glove onboarding," "Priority support," and a "Dedicated account manager," along with support for "Hydrogen & headless stacks."

This structure means merchants pay based on their Shopify platform tier, implying that the app's value scales with the complexity and size of the store. The "all features" inclusion across tiers simplifies decision-making, as merchants don't need to analyze feature matrices. The unlimited nature of wishlists, saved items, and sessions ensures no hidden costs based on usage volume.

SE Wishlist Engine

SE Wishlist Engine offers a tiered pricing model based on features and capabilities:

• Free Plan: Upto 100 Wishlist items, Customize Button & Icon, Variant change detection, Wishlist page & popup, Share wishlist, Language, Basic insights. This is a significant entry point for new or small stores.
• Basic Plan ($7.99 / month): Unlimited Wishlist, Customize Button & Custom Icon, Share wishlist, Hide Branding, Wishlist page & popup, Language, Basic Insights. This removes the item limit and branding.
• Advanced Plan ($14.99 / month): Everything in Basic, plus: Unlimited Wishlist, Wishlist reminder (Low stock, Price drop, Restock alerts), Product Recommendation, Import/Export Wishlist, Customize & Unlimited E-mails, Facebook pixel & Klaviyo Integration, Advanced Insight. This plan introduces the core automated marketing features.
• Premium Plan ($21.99 / month): Everything in Advanced, plus: Multi-Language & Multi-Currency, Multi-Language Email Template. This is for global operations.

Pricing Comparison Summary

• Entry Point: SE Wishlist Engine has a clear advantage with its robust Free Plan, allowing merchants to test functionality before committing financially. Swish starts at $19/month.
• Scaling: Swish scales with the Shopify plan, offering all features from the start. SE Wishlist Engine scales by adding more advanced features (like automated emails, multi-language) at higher price points.
• Value Proposition:
  • Swish: High value for stores on higher Shopify plans, as they get comprehensive features, expert setup, and dedicated support for a fixed price relative to their platform investment. The "all features" approach prevents feature gating.
  • SE Wishlist Engine: Excellent value for money, particularly the Advanced Plan ($14.99) which unlocks powerful sales recovery automation at a competitive price. The Premium plan offers strong capabilities for international stores without a massive price jump.
• Total Cost of Ownership: For a Basic Shopify store, SE Wishlist Engine is significantly more cost-effective, especially with its free and $7.99 plans. For a Shopify Plus store, Swish's $99 plan, with its dedicated support and headless capabilities, might offer better value if those specific needs are critical. Merchants need to consider their Shopify plan, feature requirements, and whether they prefer an upfront cost for all features or a tiered approach to unlock capabilities.

Integrations and "Works With" Fit

The ability of a wishlist app to integrate with other tools in a merchant's tech stack is vital for seamless operations and data flow.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish boasts a comprehensive list of integrations and "works with" capabilities:

• Checkout: Seamless operation within the checkout flow.
• Hydrogen & headless stacks: Crucial for modern, custom storefronts.
• Markets: Integration with Shopify Markets for international selling.
• Klaviyo: A leading email marketing platform, enabling advanced segmentation and automated campaigns.
• Customer Accounts: Essential for linking wishlists to customer profiles.
• Search & Recommendations: Potentially allowing wishlist data to inform these features, though not explicitly detailed.
• GA4 and Meta integrations: Out-of-the-box support for advanced tracking and advertising efforts.

This list indicates Swish's readiness for complex, high-growth, and international stores, especially those leveraging cutting-edge storefront technologies and sophisticated marketing analytics.

SE Wishlist Engine

SE Wishlist Engine lists the following integrations:

• Customer accounts: Standard for personalized wishlists.
• Klaviyo Integration: Available in the Advanced Plan and above, enabling email marketing automation.
• PageFly: A popular drag-and-drop page builder, indicating compatibility for easy embedding.
• Facebook pixel: Mentioned alongside Klaviyo integration in the Advanced Plan, for conversion tracking and advertising.

Integrations Comparison Summary

• Marketing Automation: Both integrate with Klaviyo, a key tool for email marketing. SE Wishlist Engine includes Facebook pixel integration explicitly in higher plans, similar to Swish's Meta integration.
• Storefront & Platform: Swish's support for Hydrogen, headless stacks, and Shopify Markets is a significant differentiator for enterprise-level or highly customized stores. SE Wishlist Engine's PageFly integration focuses on compatibility with common page-building tools for easier setup.
• Analytics: Swish explicitly mentions GA4 integration, which is crucial for comprehensive website analytics. While SE Wishlist Engine has "Advanced Insight," direct GA4 integration is not specified.

Merchants with an existing advanced marketing and analytics stack, or those planning to adopt headless commerce, will likely find Swish's broader and deeper integrations more suitable. Stores using page builders like PageFly and relying on Klaviyo and Facebook pixel for marketing can integrate SE Wishlist Engine effectively.

Analytics and Reporting

Understanding customer behavior around wishlisted items is crucial for optimizing product offerings, marketing campaigns, and inventory management.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish promises "meaningful insights with advanced analytics and wishlist curation." While the specifics of these analytics are not detailed, the term "advanced" combined with its broader integration capabilities (GA4, Meta) suggests a robust framework for tracking wishlist activity. This likely includes data on popular wishlisted items, customer segments interacting with wishlists, and potentially conversion rates from wishlist additions. The ability for "wishlist curation" could imply tools for merchants to influence or leverage these insights directly within the app.

SE Wishlist Engine

SE Wishlist Engine explicitly states it provides "reports that show which product is most on the wishlist and who saved it." The app's Advanced Plan offers "Advanced Insight," while the Free and Basic plans include "Basic insights." This indicates a clear progression in reporting capabilities. Knowing which products are most wishlisted is actionable for inventory planning, sales forecasting, and identifying high-demand items for promotions. Identifying who saved an item is critical for personalized follow-up campaigns.

Analytics Comparison Summary

• Specific Data Points: SE Wishlist Engine provides more explicit details about its reporting, focusing on "most wishlisted products" and "who saved it," which are highly actionable for sales and marketing teams.
• Depth vs. Breadth: Swish's "advanced analytics" coupled with GA4 integration suggests a broader, potentially more customizable approach to data analysis, allowing merchants to pull wishlist data into their existing analytics dashboards. SE Wishlist Engine offers direct, app-specific insights designed to drive sales recovery.

For merchants who need direct, actionable reports within the app itself to inform sales and inventory decisions, SE Wishlist Engine's described analytics are highly relevant. For those who prefer to consolidate and analyze data across multiple channels using tools like GA4, Swish's integration might offer greater flexibility for comprehensive analysis.

Customer Support Expectations and Reliability Cues

The quality of support and the overall reliability of an app are paramount for minimizing downtime and ensuring smooth operations. Review counts and ratings offer valuable signals.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish boasts a perfect 5-star rating from 272 reviews. This is an exceptional reliability cue, indicating high customer satisfaction and a consistently positive user experience. The "Free setup and onboarding service across all plans" is a strong indicator of proactive support, ensuring merchants get started correctly. For Shopify Plus merchants, the offer of "Priority support" and a "Dedicated account manager" underscores a commitment to high-touch service for larger clients. The statement "same great team and product!!" after rebranding from Wishlist King also suggests continuity in service quality.

SE Wishlist Engine

SE Wishlist Engine has a very strong 4.9-star rating from 249 reviews. This also signifies a highly reliable app with generally satisfied customers. While specific support channels (like live chat or phone) are not explicitly detailed, the high rating with a substantial number of reviews suggests that any support interactions are typically positive and issues are resolved effectively. The tiered pricing structure implies that support might vary, but the overall strong feedback points to a competent and responsive team.

Support & Reliability Comparison Summary

• Ratings and Reviews: Both apps have excellent ratings and a comparable number of reviews, demonstrating high levels of customer satisfaction and reliability.
• Proactive Support: Swish stands out with its explicit "free setup and onboarding service," which is a significant value-add, particularly for merchants who prefer a guided installation.
• Tiered Support: Swish offers specific enhanced support (priority, dedicated account manager) for Shopify Plus users, which is expected for enterprise-level clients. SE Wishlist Engine's support structure is not detailed in the provided data, but its high rating suggests general responsiveness.

Both apps appear to be highly reliable with strong customer satisfaction. Merchants prioritizing white-glove service and dedicated support, especially at higher Shopify plan tiers, might find Swish's offerings more reassuring.

Performance, Compatibility, and Operational Overhead

An app’s impact on store performance, its compatibility with themes and platforms, and the ongoing operational effort it requires are critical considerations.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish’s description highlights that it "integrates with all themes to seamlessly match your stores aesthetic," and offers a "Free setup & customisation service ensures everything looks and works perfectly." This suggests a commitment to ensuring the app functions optimally without negatively impacting store speed or visual integrity, especially given the developer's involvement in the setup process. The support for "Hydrogen & headless stacks" implies advanced engineering that caters to highly performant and complex storefront architectures. This readiness for modern tech stacks suggests a lower operational overhead for stores on these platforms, as it avoids compatibility issues. Compatibility with Checkout and Customer Accounts further reinforces its ability to integrate deeply into core Shopify functionalities.

SE Wishlist Engine

SE Wishlist Engine's compatibility with Customer accounts and PageFly indicates standard integration practices for Shopify apps. The explicit mention of "Variant change detection on product page" shows attention to detail regarding how the wishlist interacts with product options, which is a good sign for accurate functionality. While the app does not explicitly mention optimizations for store performance or advanced headless capabilities, its broad adoption and high rating suggest it operates efficiently for most standard Shopify setups. The free plan and tiered pricing can reduce financial overhead, and its self-service model implies merchants manage the setup themselves, which is straightforward for most. The multi-language and multi-currency features in the Premium plan also reduce the need for separate localization apps, thus potentially lowering the overall app stack complexity for international stores.

Performance & Operational Overhead Summary

• Theme Integration: Swish's free setup and customization service ensures highly optimized and visually perfect integration, potentially leading to fewer performance or aesthetic issues post-installation. SE Wishlist Engine offers customization of buttons and icons, relying on standard theme integration.
• Advanced Architectures: Swish is explicitly designed for compatibility with advanced storefronts like Hydrogen and headless setups, making it suitable for high-performance and enterprise-level stores. This specialized support reduces operational concerns for such complex environments.
• Ease of Use/Maintenance: Both apps aim for ease of use. Swish’s managed setup reduces initial effort, while SE Wishlist Engine’s feature-rich tiered plans offer clear value, especially with its free plan. Multi-language support in SE Wishlist Engine reduces the operational overhead of managing translations across multiple apps for global stores.

For stores prioritizing cutting-edge performance, headless architecture, or those that simply want a hands-off, perfectly integrated solution, Swish appears to offer a more tailored approach. For standard Shopify stores, SE Wishlist Engine provides reliable functionality without significant performance concerns, especially given its robust feature set for the price.

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

Merchants often find themselves juggling a growing number of single-function apps to achieve various e-commerce goals—one for wishlists, another for loyalty, yet another for reviews, and so on. This phenomenon, often termed "app fatigue," leads to several challenges: tool sprawl, where managing numerous apps becomes cumbersome; fragmented data, as customer information is siloed across different platforms; inconsistent customer experiences due to disparate interfaces and functionalities; scaling complexity as each app requires separate updates and maintenance; and, ultimately, stacked costs that erode profitability.

The "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy aims to address these issues by consolidating essential retention functionalities into a single, integrated platform. Instead of disparate tools, an all-in-one solution brings together core features like loyalty programs, customer reviews, referrals, and wishlists under one roof. This approach not only streamlines operations but also fosters a more cohesive customer journey and provides a clearer view of total retention-stack costs. By integrating these functions, merchants can leverage a unified customer profile, ensuring that actions in one area (e.g., earning loyalty points) can influence others (e.g., leaving a review), leading to more impactful and holistic customer engagement strategies. If consolidating tools is a priority, start by choosing a plan built for long-term value.

Growave stands as a prominent example of this integrated philosophy. It combines loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases, robust review automation that builds trust at purchase time, referrals, and wishlists into a single, cohesive suite. This integration allows merchants to manage multiple facets of customer retention from one dashboard, reducing the administrative burden and technical overhead associated with managing several apps. For instance, customer actions across wishlists, loyalty programs that keep customers coming back, and review requests can all be managed and analyzed together.

The unified nature of Growave is particularly beneficial for creating a consistent brand experience. When a customer interacts with a wishlist feature, earns loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases, or submits a review, the experience feels consistent and integrated, rather than like jumping between different applications. This consistency builds trust and reinforces brand identity. Merchants can leverage these integrated capabilities to introduce VIP tiers and incentives for high-intent customers, create dynamic social proof that supports conversion and AOV, and foster a strong sense of community around their brand.

Furthermore, an integrated platform like Growave is often built with scalability in mind. It supports a growing store's needs from the ground up, avoiding potential conflicts that can arise when stacking multiple apps from different developers. For businesses operating on https://www.growave.io/shopify/plus, the platform offers capabilities designed for Shopify Plus scaling needs, including features aligned with enterprise retention requirements and an approach that fits high-growth operational complexity. This means fewer integration headaches and a more stable foundation for long-term growth. When evaluating feature coverage across plans, considering a platform that integrates multiple functionalities can offer greater long-term value and reduce the reliance on a fragmented app ecosystem. This comprehensive strategy empowers merchants to nurture customer lifetime value, reduce churn, and drive sustainable growth through a connected and intelligent retention engine.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Swish (formerly Wishlist King) and SE Wishlist Engine, the decision comes down to a balance of budget, customization needs, and the specific sales recovery features desired. Swish, with its emphasis on deep aesthetic integration, free setup service, and support for advanced storefront architectures like Hydrogen, is often an ideal fit for larger brands and Shopify Plus merchants who prioritize a highly polished, bespoke experience and have advanced marketing and analytics stacks. Its pricing model, tied to Shopify plans, offers all features from the start, simplifying choice for those already investing in higher Shopify tiers.

Conversely, SE Wishlist Engine offers compelling value, particularly for small to mid-sized stores, with its generous free plan and competitively priced tiers that unlock powerful automated sales recovery features like price drop, restock, and low-stock alerts. Its guest wishlist functionality and explicit reporting on top wishlisted products provide actionable insights for a broader range of merchants focused on direct sales conversion. Its multi-language and multi-currency support in the Premium plan also offers significant value for international operations.

However, the increasing complexity of managing multiple single-function apps often leads merchants to explore more comprehensive solutions. While both Swish and SE Wishlist Engine excel in their specialized areas, an integrated platform like Growave offers a strategic alternative by consolidating loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlists into one unified system. This approach eliminates app fatigue, streamlines data, and ensures a consistent customer experience across all retention touchpoints, offering a clearer view of total retention-stack costs. By providing a single source of truth for customer interactions, Growave empowers businesses to build stronger customer relationships and drive sustainable growth, making it an attractive option for those looking to optimize their entire retention strategy and supporting advanced storefront and checkout requirements. To reduce app fatigue and run retention from one place, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ

How do wishlist apps contribute to sales and customer retention?

Wishlist apps help customers save products they desire but are not ready to purchase immediately. This reduces abandoned carts, captures purchase intent, and allows merchants to re-engage customers through automated reminders (e.g., price drop, low stock, restock alerts). By providing a way for customers to curate their interests, these apps nurture long-term relationships and increase the likelihood of future purchases, directly contributing to repeat sales and customer lifetime value.

Can wishlist apps work with custom-built Shopify themes or headless setups?

Yes, some wishlist apps are specifically designed to work with custom-built Shopify themes and even headless commerce architectures. Swish (formerly Wishlist King), for example, explicitly supports Hydrogen and headless stacks, indicating its compatibility with these advanced setups. Merchants using highly customized themes or headless solutions should always verify the app's technical compatibility and developer support for such environments to ensure seamless integration and performance.

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

An all-in-one platform integrates multiple e-commerce functionalities (like wishlists, loyalty, reviews, referrals) into a single solution, whereas specialized apps focus on one specific function. The main advantages of an all-in-one platform include reducing app sprawl, preventing data fragmentation, ensuring a consistent customer experience across different touchpoints, and potentially lowering overall costs by consolidating subscriptions. Specialized apps, however, can sometimes offer deeper, more niche features for their specific function and may be preferred by merchants who only need one particular tool and want maximum control over that specific feature set.

What are the key considerations when choosing between a feature-tiered and a Shopify-plan-tiered pricing model?

When choosing between pricing models, merchants should consider their current Shopify plan, their budget, and their immediate and future feature requirements. A Shopify-plan-tiered model, like Swish's, can simplify decisions for merchants already on higher Shopify plans, as all features are typically included regardless of the tier. This offers predictability as store size grows on the Shopify platform. A feature-tiered model, like SE Wishlist Engine's, offers a lower entry cost, often with a free plan, allowing merchants to pay only for the advanced features they need as their business scales. This can be more cost-effective for smaller businesses or those who want to gradually unlock capabilities.