Swish (formerly Wishlist King) vs. Smart Wishlist APP: An In-Depth Comparison

Introduction

Choosing the right wishlist solution is one of many decisions Shopify merchants face when trying to increase conversion, recover interest, and improve lifetime value. Wishlist apps range from simple “save for later” widgets to analytics-driven, behavior-triggered engines that feed email and ad automation. Picking the wrong one can add technical debt, create a disjointed customer experience, and waste precious development and marketing budgets.

Short answer: Swish (formerly Wishlist King) is a full-featured wishlist platform aimed at merchants that want out-of-the-box analytics, automated notifications, and enterprise-grade integrations. Smart Wishlist APP is an ultra-lightweight widget that covers basic wishlist functionality for a low monthly fee but shows minimal social proof and integration maturity. For merchants seeking to reduce tool sprawl and centralize retention activities, an integrated solution like Growave is a higher-value option that combines wishlist capabilities with loyalty, referrals, and reviews.

This article provides an in-depth, feature-by-feature comparison of Swish (formerly Wishlist King) and Smart Wishlist APP so merchants can choose the tool that best matches their technical resources, growth stage, and retention priorities. The comparison covers core features, customization, integrations, pricing and value, analytics, support, and recommended use cases. After the direct comparison, there is a practical alternative: how an all-in-one retention platform can solve the limits of single-purpose wishlist apps.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) vs. Smart Wishlist APP: At a Glance

Deep Dive Comparison

Core Feature Set

Swish (formerly Wishlist King)

Swish positions itself as a complete wishlist platform: more than a button, it is a conversion tool. Core features highlighted by the developer include persistent wishlists across sessions, automated and personalized wishlist notifications, analytics and curation tools, and out-of-the-box integrations with major marketing platforms like Klaviyo, Google Analytics 4, and Meta.

Key functional points:

• Unlimited wishlists and saved items, enabling users to maintain multiple lists over time.
• Wishlist notifications that can be personalized and automated — important for time-based triggers (price drops, low stock, restock alerts).
• Advanced analytics and wishlist curation to identify popular items and show internal trends.
• Free setup and customization: sellers receive styling and implementation support that matches store themes, reducing the merchant’s implementation burden.
• Plus plan options for Shopify Plus merchants, including white-glove onboarding and Hydrogen/headless support.

These capabilities make Swish suitable when wishlist behavior should feed marketing automation that drives recovery and conversion.

Smart Wishlist APP

Smart Wishlist APP focuses on the most essential wishlist features: a button to add products to a wishlist for both logged-in and guest users, and basic administrative UI customization (button appearance and text). The app is straightforward by design; it’s a cost-focused option that delivers a wishlist interface without the bells and whistles.

Key functional points:

• Add-to-wishlist functionality for both logged-in and guest shoppers.
• Simple admin-side UI customization for buttons and text.
• An enable/disable toggle for UI elements.

The app lacks public claims about automated notifications, deep analytics, or marketing integrations. For stores that simply need an “add-to-wishlist” experience without extra data flows, Smart Wishlist APP covers the need at a low price.

Customization and Theming

Swish offers broad customization and theme integration. The developer highlights that the app “integrates with all themes to seamlessly match your store’s aesthetic” and provides free setup and customization support across plans. For stores that require pixel-perfect placement, or that run headless (Hydrogen), Swish provides Plus-level support and Hydrogen compatibility.

Smart Wishlist APP gives basic UI customization: merchants can choose button types and text and enable or disable UI elements. This covers quick styling changes but will likely require developer work for deep theme matching or custom UX flows.

Considerations:

• Merchants seeking a seamless brand experience and consistent UX across product lists, collection pages, and product pages should favor Swish for its setup service.
• Stores with limited customization needs and a tight budget might accept Smart Wishlist APP’s basic theming options.

Integrations & Ecosystem Connectivity

Swish has a clear integration story: Klaviyo, GA4, and Meta are specifically listed, along with workability in headless and Hydrogen stacks. That means wishlist events can be captured for email flows, ad audiences, and analytics — a major plus for merchants who rely on lifecycle marketing.

Smart Wishlist APP lists no integrations in the provided data. The lack of visible integration points indicates the app likely operates as a standalone widget without built-in connectors to marketing platforms.

Why integrations matter:

• Wishlist events are valuable behavioral signals. Without integration, wishlist actions remain isolated on the storefront and cannot trigger automated email flows, push campaigns, or audience segmentation.
• For merchants investing in lifecycle marketing, built-in integrations reduce engineering overhead and provide a faster path to measurable ROI.

Analytics & Reporting

Swish explicitly offers “advanced analytics and wishlist curation.” That implies reports on popular saved items, conversion from wishlist to purchase, and perhaps segmentation of users by wishlist behavior. These analytics are useful for merchandising (what to promote), inventory planning, and targeting win-back flows.

Smart Wishlist APP does not advertise analytics features. This absence suggests that merchants using it will not gain built-in insights into wishlist-driven intent or the ability to surface high-intent items for marketing.

Decision point:

• If the plan includes using wishlist behavior to refine campaigns and merchandising strategies, an analytics-capable solution like Swish is preferable.
• For stores that only need a simple save-for-later capability, analytics may not be necessary.

Pricing & Value

Pricing comparison is a practical, outcome-focused exercise: what does each app cost versus the business value it unlocks?

Swish Pricing Overview:

• Basic Shopify: $19 / month — all features, free setup.
• Shopify: $29 / month — all features, free setup.
• Advanced Shopify: $49 / month — all features, free setup.
• Shopify Plus: $99 / month — white-glove onboarding, priority support, dedicated account manager, Hydrogen & headless support.

Swish’s pricing is tiered by the merchant’s Shopify plan rather than usage caps. Each tier includes unlimited wishlists and unlimited sessions, which simplifies budgeting for businesses with variable traffic.

Smart Wishlist APP Pricing:

• Basic: $4.99 / month.

Smart Wishlist APP is significantly cheaper, reflecting its limited feature set. The trade-off is the loss of integrations, analytics, and premium onboarding.

Value considerations:

• Swish’s higher price includes free setup and advanced features that can accelerate time to value, especially for teams without dedicated front-end developers.
• Smart Wishlist APP is low-cost and may be attractive to very small stores or sellers testing wishlist demand with minimal investment.
• For merchants measuring LTV and retention, the presence of integrations and automation in Swish often results in better incremental revenue per month despite the higher subscription cost.

Avoid saying “cheaper”; frame the decision around "better value for money." For many growth-minded merchants, Swish is better value for money because it converts wishlist behavior into measurable revenue via automated notifications and integrations. For budget-constrained stores prioritizing cost over integrated growth, Smart Wishlist APP may be the better value.

Support, Onboarding, and Documentation

Swish:

• Free setup and customization across all plans — a noteworthy operational benefit for merchants without in-house dev resources.
• Shopify Plus plan includes white-glove onboarding, priority support, and an assigned account manager.
• Developer-provided integrations reduce the chance of misconfigured event tracking.

Smart Wishlist APP:

• Publicly available details show admin customization but do not mention onboarding services or priority support.
• With zero reviews visible, support responsiveness cannot be assessed from user feedback.

Merchant risk:

• The level of onboarding and support can determine how quickly a wishlist app becomes productive. Swish reduces friction with free setup; Smart Wishlist APP likely requires merchants to self-implement or hire a developer for advanced configuration.

Performance & Reliability

Performance considerations include page load impact, asynchronous loading, and compatibility with Shopify themes or headless architectures.

Swish claims theme compatibility and Hydrogen support. Paid setup often includes performance tuning, which can mitigate page speed issues.

Smart Wishlist APP’s minimal feature set suggests lighter weight, which may translate to lower performance overhead. However, the lack of stated optimization or performance guarantees requires merchants to test the app in their environment.

Testing recommendation:

• Evaluate both apps on a staging or UAT store, measure first contentful paint (FCP) and total blocking time, and verify that wishlist scripts are loaded asynchronously.
• For high-traffic stores, prefer solutions that offer performance tuning and headless compatibility.

Security & Data Handling

Wishlist apps capture customer behavior and potentially email addresses when users opt into notifications. Security, data retention practices, and how wishlist events are stored matter for privacy compliance (GDPR, CCPA) and merchant trust.

Swish integrates with marketing platforms and supports customer accounts and checkout workflows, implying an architecture designed to handle customer data within standard marketing stacks.

Smart Wishlist APP does not list integrations or data handling specifics. Merchants should confirm whether wishlist data is stored in Shopify, the app’s servers, or both, and whether the vendor supports data export and deletion to comply with privacy requests.

Action for merchants:

• Ask both vendors for their data processing policies, including retention periods and deletion procedures.
• Confirm whether wishlist event webhooks or server-side exports are available for internal analytics or compliance workflows.

Use Cases & Merchant Profiles

To make the decision practical, align app strengths to merchant needs.

Swish is best for:

• Merchants who want wishlist behavior to feed marketing automation (emails, ad retargeting).
• Stores that need analytics to inform merchandising and promotional planning.
• Brands that value white-glove setup and theme-consistent UI without in-house dev resources.
• Shopify Plus merchants and headless implementations (Hydrogen).

Smart Wishlist APP is best for:

• Small or new stores that want a low-cost wishlist button and minimal setup.
• Merchants testing whether wishlist demand exists before committing to a more integrated solution.
• Stores with the technical ability to build their own marketing connectors and analytics if needed.

Pros and Cons

Swish — Pros

• Robust integrations (Klaviyo, GA4, Meta).
• Advanced analytics and wishlist curation.
• Free setup and customization across plans.
• Enterprise features for Plus and headless stores.
• High social proof: 272 reviews with a 5.0 rating.

Swish — Cons

• Higher monthly price than ultra-basic widgets.
• Some stores may not need full analytics or management features.

Smart Wishlist APP — Pros

• Very low monthly price point ($4.99).
• Simple to deploy for basic wishlist needs.
• Basic UI customization for buttons and text.

Smart Wishlist APP — Cons

• No visible integrations or analytics.
• No public social proof (0 reviews).
• Limited onboarding and support claims.

Implementation, Migration, and Technical Considerations

Swish Implementation:

• Free setup reduces time-to-launch. Expect vendor-driven theme integration to match brand styling.
• If a merchant wants wishlist events pushed into Klaviyo or GA4, Swish provides direct connectors, reducing custom development.

Smart Wishlist APP Implementation:

• Quick install and basic configuration via Shopify admin.
• For advanced integrations (email triggers, segmentation), merchants will need custom events or third-party middleware.

Migration considerations:

• Moving from a basic wishlist to an integrated solution requires data migration if the original app stores wishlist items externally. Confirm with the vendor how export/import is handled.
• Swish’s free setup may include migration help; Smart Wishlist APP likely requires manual export/import or bespoke scripts.

Return on Investment (ROI) & KPIs to Track

Wishlist features are tools to capture purchase intent. The right metrics for evaluating ROI include:

• Conversion rate for wishlist-to-order within a defined time window.
• Click-through rate and conversion on wishlist-triggered emails.
• Incremental revenue attributed to wishlist flows.
• Average order value (AOV) lift when wishlist items are bundled into campaigns.
• Retention and repeat purchase rates influenced by wishlist-driven re-engagement.

Swish’s analytics and integrations make it easier to attribute these metrics directly. Smart Wishlist APP will require additional tooling to measure the same KPIs.

When to Choose Which App

Choose Swish if:

• The goal is to turn wishlist behavior into automated revenue through email and ad flows.
• There is a need for analytics and merchandising insights.
• Limited in-house developer capacity makes vendor setup attractive.
• The store plans to scale and may move to Plus or headless architectures.

Choose Smart Wishlist APP if:

• The priority is cost minimization and simple wishlist functionality.
• The merchant is experimenting with wishlist demand and expects to pivot quickly.
• The team will handle any integrations or analytics manually.

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

Merchants commonly experience app fatigue: every desired feature requires another app, each with its own billing, installation, and maintenance cycle. Single-purpose apps like Swish or Smart Wishlist APP can address a narrow need well, but they also create friction when retention requires multiple touchpoints — loyalty programs, referral incentives, reviews, and wishlists all working together. Fragmented solutions increase the stack, amplify integration complexity, and raise long-term costs.

An integrated retention platform addresses these issues by combining related features into one system so merchants can manage customers and retention tactics from a unified interface. Growave is positioned as such a platform: a retention suite that bundles loyalty and rewards, referrals, product reviews and user-generated content, wishlist, and VIP tiers. This combination reduces the number of vendors, eliminates repetitive integration work, and consolidates customer data for clearer insights.

How an integrated platform changes the game:

• Centralized customer profiles allow wishlist behavior to inform loyalty scoring, referral outreach, and review invites.
• Cross-feature automations let a wishlist event trigger rewards or referral prompts without stitching together separate apps.
• Fewer apps simplify billing, reduce possible theme conflicts, and cut down on maintenance time.

Growave’s “More Growth, Less Stack” approach emphasizes reducing tool sprawl while keeping enterprise-grade features accessible. Merchants considering consolidation should look at three practical advantages:

• Unified data flow: wishlist saves, reward redemptions, and referral conversions all live in the same platform, supporting better segmentation and richer campaigns.
• Operational simplicity: a single support channel and integrated onboarding reduce onboarding friction and the time to value.
• Cost predictability: subscription tiers are incremental and bundle multiple tools, often delivering better value for money than subscribing to separate single-purpose apps.

For merchants who want to consolidate retention features, it’s worth evaluating how easy it is to replace standalone tools with an integrated suite. A quick step is to compare the incremental costs of running separate apps versus a bundled platform and map the key integrations required for current marketing stacks.

Compare subscription and consolidation options by looking at plans that let merchants consolidate retention features and reduce overhead through predictable monthly pricing. For a hands-on look at how Growave bundles retention tools and pricing tiers, merchants can explore options to consolidate retention features. For merchants who prefer installing through Shopify and testing directly, it is also possible to install an integrated retention suite from the Shopify marketplace by choosing to install an integrated retention suite.

Growave’s platform aligns loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist in one product. A few feature highlights:

• Loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases — configurable programs, points, and reward actions.
• Collect and showcase authentic reviews to build social proof and improve conversion.
• Wishlist functionality built into the same profile system, allowing wishlist data to increase loyalty points or trigger review campaigns.
• VIP tiers and custom reward actions to elevate high-value customers.

For merchants focused on growth without multiplying vendors, book a personalized demo to see how an integrated retention stack improves retention.

How Growave Solves Common Wishlist App Limitations

• Integration overload: Instead of wiring wishlist events into Klaviyo, a review app, and a loyalty app separately, Growave enables cross-feature rules in a single place, reducing engineering time.
• Attribution complexity: With a central data store, attribution for wishlist-driven purchases becomes straightforward, making it easier to compute ROI.
• Data silos: Centralized profiles prevent duplicate or inconsistent customer states when multiple apps maintain their own records.

Growave also supports specific merchant needs:

• For merchants on Shopify Plus and enterprises, Growave offers features and support to match higher-scale requirements and headless implementations.
• For stores that want to showcase user-generated content and reviews alongside wishlist items, Growave combines tools so that wishlist-driven purchases can prompt review requests automatically.
• For brands that want loyalty mechanics tied to wishlist actions (reward points for saving items or points for purchasing items saved), Growave supports these cross-feature workflows.

Merchants can examine pricing tiers and the practical cost of consolidating multiple retention tools against a single subscription that bundles them. To assess pricing and plan fit, merchants can compare subscription options and see which tier maps to monthly order volume and required feature sets.

Practical Migration Checklist When Consolidating

• Inventory existing wishlist data: export wishlists from the current app and confirm the format for import.
• Map existing automations: list all email flows, retargeting audiences, and loyalty rules dependent on wishlist events.
• Identify overlaps: determine which features from other apps (reviews, referrals, loyalty) can be shut down once consolidated.
• Test in staging: verify that wishlist saves translate into expected loyalty tiers and email triggers.
• Roll out phased: consider moving wishlist first while keeping other apps live to reduce risk, then migrate reviews/referrals in phases.

For merchants who want to try an integrated retention stack without long-term commitment, Start a 14-day free trial to see how Growave replaces multiple single-purpose apps.

Practical Recommendations

• If a store’s immediate need is a polished wishlist experience that feeds email and ad automation with minimal dev time, Swish is a strong candidate. Its 272 reviews and perfect rating suggest it’s well-tested in production.
• If the priority is keeping recurring costs very low while testing wishlist demand, Smart Wishlist APP delivers baseline functionality at $4.99/month. Be prepared to invest in custom integrations later if wishlist data needs to feed marketing.
• If the objective is to reduce app sprawl and build a retention stack that spans loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlist, evaluate an integrated solution that bundles these features and supports centralized reporting.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Swish (formerly Wishlist King) and Smart Wishlist APP, the decision comes down to scope and ambition. Swish is the better option when merchants require advanced wishlist workflows, analytics, and integrations that convert saved intent into measurable revenue. Smart Wishlist APP is a practical, budget-minded pick for stores that simply need a straightforward save-for-later button without additional integrations.

Beyond a single wishlist, many merchants will find more sustained growth by reducing tool sprawl and adopting an integrated retention platform that combines wishlist, loyalty, reviews, and referrals. Growave’s suite addresses that need by centralizing customer data and retention mechanics, enabling cross-feature automations and simpler operations. Merchants can compare subscription and consolidation options or install an integrated retention suite directly if they prefer to test the platform quickly.

Start a 14-day free trial to see how Growave replaces multiple single-purpose apps.

FAQ

How does Swish compare to Smart Wishlist APP in terms of reliability and social proof?

Swish has extensive social proof with 272 reviews and a 5.0 rating, indicating widespread adoption and positive merchant experiences. Smart Wishlist APP shows no visible reviews, which makes it harder to judge real-world reliability and support responsiveness.

Which app is better if the goal is to trigger automated marketing from wishlist events?

Swish is better suited because it lists integrations with Klaviyo, GA4, and Meta and supports automated wishlist notifications. Smart Wishlist APP lacks advertised integrations, so merchants would need to build custom connectors or middleware to trigger automations.

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

An all-in-one retention platform centralizes wishlist behavior with loyalty, referrals, and reviews. This reduces integration work, avoids data silos, and enables cross-feature automations that single-purpose apps require multiple connectors to accomplish. For merchants seeking operational simplicity and consolidated analytics, an integrated suite often provides better long-term value for money.

If a merchant is on a tight budget, is Smart Wishlist APP acceptable?

Yes — Smart Wishlist APP is a low-cost way to add wishlist functionality for $4.99/month. It’s a reasonable short-term solution for testing demand. However, if wishlist events will be used for marketing automation or merchandising insights, budget for eventual migration to a more integrated or analytics-capable solution.