SWishlist: Simple Wishlist vs Wishl Favorites Wishlist

Introduction

Choosing the right wishlist app is a common but consequential decision for Shopify merchants. A wishlist is more than a convenience; it captures purchase intent, reduces cart abandonment, fuels remarketing, and surfaces product demand signals. With hundreds of wishlist apps available, merchants must balance features, cost, design flexibility, analytics, and the risk of bloating a store's app stack.

Short answer: SWishlist: Simple Wishlist is a strong choice for merchants who want a lightweight, highly rated wishlist with generous free and low-cost tiers and simple visual customization. Wishl Favorites Wishlist is better suited to stores that need built-in price-drop tracking, wishlist email reminders, and slightly more advanced behavioral touches. For merchants who want to reduce tool sprawl and gain loyalty, referrals, reviews, and wishlist in one integrated platform, Growave presents a higher-value alternative.

This article provides an in-depth, feature-by-feature comparison of SWishlist: Simple Wishlist (SoluCommerce) and Wishl Favorites Wishlist (Golden Rule Ventures). It evaluates core wishlist functionality, customization, pricing and value, analytics, integrations, support, scalability, and ideal merchant profiles. The goal is to help merchants decide which single-purpose app matches their priorities—and when it makes sense to consider an all-in-one retention platform instead.

SWishlist: Simple Wishlist vs. Wishl Favorites Wishlist: At a Glance

Feature-By-Feature Comparison

The following sections compare both apps against practical merchant needs. Each section explains what merchants should watch for, then assesses how SWishlist and Wishl perform.

Core Wishlist Functionality

Merchants should evaluate the ease of adding items, persistence across sessions, variant handling, and whether wishlists are account-bound or guest-enabled. These aspects determine how many wishlists actually convert to purchases.

Adding Items & One-Click Usability

A frictionless add-to-wishlist experience increases usage.

• SWishlist: Focuses on clear, customizable "Add to wishlist" controls integrated into product grids and product pages. The app is designed to be visually consistent with themes, which reduces cognitive friction when customers browse. The add flow is described as seamless—priority for merchants who care about polish.
• Wishl: Emphasizes one-click wishlist creation—customers can start a wishlist quickly and sign up later to save it permanently. This reduces immediate friction and can increase first-time interactions, particularly on mobile.

Strengths and trade-offs:

• SWishlist’s approach is strong for brand consistency and polished UI. It can feel more like a native site feature.
• Wishl’s one-click flow is optimized for quick capture of intent, which may be better for stores with high mobile traffic or impulse browsing.

Persistence, Accounts, and Guest Users

Persistent wishlists influence repeat visits and remarketing.

• SWishlist: Offers standard persistence; account integration details rely on API and implementation. Multi-language and unlimited additions at the Premium tier help larger stores.
• Wishl: Encourages signup to save wishlists permanently but also supports temporary lists. It pairs persistence with automated reminders and price tracking.

Merchants should confirm whether wishlists are tied to customer accounts, cookies, or server-side storage. Server-side persistence (account-based) is more reliable across devices; cookie-based approaches can be lost when customers clear cookies or switch devices.

Variant-Level Support

Variant awareness (size, color) is important for apparel, footwear, and any item where variants matter.

• SWishlist: The app’s description highlights customizable wishlists and sharing, but variant-specific reporting is not emphasized.
• Wishl: Explicitly mentions the ability to surface the most coveted variants, which is useful for inventory planning and targeted marketing.

Stores selling multiple variants per SKU will benefit from variant-aware wishlists and reporting.

Sharing, Notes, and Social Features

Shared wishlists can drive referrals and holiday purchases.

• SWishlist: Lists sharing as a core capability, allowing customers to share lists with friends.
• Wishl: Also supports sharing and adds notes for items—useful for gifting contexts—and social sharing options.

Both apps provide sharing, but Wishl’s notes and explicit social sharing plus price tracking make it a slightly stronger option for gifting-focused merchants.

Price Tracking, Reminders, and Re-Engagement

These features convert wishlist interest into purchases by notifying customers.

• SWishlist: The app focuses on wishlist creation and sharing. Price tracking and native wishlist reminders are not prominent in the description.
• Wishl: Offers price drop tracking and wishlist email reminders, two direct mechanisms to nudge shoppers back to buy.

Practical impact:

• Email reminders and price alerts can materially increase conversion from wishlist to purchase, especially during sales or inventory markdowns.
• If reactivation and conversion are primary goals, Wishl has an advantage because it builds automated re-engagement into the wishlist experience.

Analytics, Reporting, and Merch Insights

Merchants need insight into what customers want—both to prioritize inventory and to personalize marketing.

• SWishlist: Premium plan advertises unlimited access to all statistics, making it useful for merchants who want visibility into wishlist activity and trends.
• Wishl: Offers shop stats, including number of wishlists, items added, and most coveted variants. This is useful for product-level insights.

Both apps provide merchant-level reporting, but SWishlist highlights unlimited statistics in its premium tier, while Wishl emphasizes variant analytics and actionable alerts.

Customization & Storefront Integration

Look, feel, and tight theme integration matter for conversion and brand perception.

Visual Customization & Theme Compatibility

• SWishlist: Promotes full customization to "perfectly match your store", offers free setup for up to 2 themes on the Free plan, and more support on paid tiers. Multi-language capabilities up to 20 languages make it suitable for international stores.
• Wishl: Emphasizes a mobile-responsive design and clean one-click flows. Customization details are less explicit in its listing.

If brand cohesion and multi-language storefronts are priorities, SWishlist’s focus on customization and language tiers is compelling.

Language Support & Localization

Localization helps conversion for multi-market stores.

• SWishlist: Offers multi-language support across plans (2 languages on Free, 7 languages on Basic, 20 on Premium).
• Wishl: Language support is not clearly specified.

For multi-market merchants or stores with high non-English traffic, SWishlist has a clearer multilingual advantage.

Pricing & Value

Assessing value requires more than price alone. Consider monthly usage ceilings, what features are gated, and the long-term fit as the store scales.

SWishlist Pricing Summary

• Free: $0 — 300 wishlist additions/month, 2 languages, setup up to 2 themes, support within 24–48 hours.
• Basic: $5 / month — 7,000 wishlist additions/month, 7 languages, faster support within 12–24 hours.
• Premium: $12 / month — Unlimited wishlist additions, 20 languages, access to all statistics, top-priority support.

Value considerations:

• SWishlist’s free tier is generous for hobby stores and early-stage shops. The jump to Basic provides large uplift in monthly additions at a very low price.
• Unlimited additions at $12 is competitively priced and provides clear scale for growing merchants.

Wishl Pricing Summary

• Basic: $9.99 / month — Up to 2,000 new wishlists/month + email reminders.
• Premium: $17.99 / month — Up to 4,000 new wishlists/month + 2,000 email reminders.
• Premium Plus: $29.99 / month — Up to 22,000 new wishlists/month + 6,000 email reminders.

Value considerations:

• Wishl has no free tier and begins at nearly $10/month. Price includes email reminders and price tracking, which SWishlist does not bundle.
• For merchants who rely on automated reminder and price alert volume, Wishl’s tiered reminder counts may be justified.
• For shops looking for raw wishlist additions per dollar, SWishlist’s Basic and Premium plans typically provide better value for money.

Overall pricing takeaways:

• SWishlist offers a better value proposition for merchants prioritizing low cost and multilingual UI.
• Wishl positions itself as a higher-value single-purpose wishlist that bundles engagement tools (alerts, reminders) into the subscription.

Integrations & Extensibility

Merchants should consider how wishlists plug into marketing, customer data platforms, and other systems.

• SWishlist: Works with API, which enables custom integrations with email platforms, CRMs, or analytics. API access is an advantage for development teams wanting deeper flows.
• Wishl: Integration details are not fully specified. It includes internal email reminders and reporting, but external integrations (e.g., Klaviyo, Omnisend) are unclear.

Practical implications:

• Stores with developer resources can extend SWishlist via API to feed wishlist data to email tools or CDPs.
• Stores that rely solely on built-in email reminders may find Wishl adequate, but those wanting to centralize customer signals into their marketing stack should confirm integration capabilities.

Support & Onboarding

Timely support and setup affect how quickly a wishlist app delivers ROI.

• SWishlist: Offers support within 24–48 hours on Free, 12–24 hours on Basic, and top priority support on Premium. Free setup for up to 2 themes is explicit.
• Wishl: Support details are less prescriptive; the product includes email reminders and reporting but does not disclose specific support SLA.

Merchants who expect hands-on onboarding or need theme-level adjustments without development resources will appreciate explicitly stated setup support found in SWishlist.

Scalability & Operational Limits

As stores grow, they may hit plan limits or need higher-touch support.

• SWishlist: Premium plan removes addition limits, supports up to 20 languages, and promises priority support—features that fit scaling stores.
• Wishl: Offers larger quota in the top tier (22,000 wishlists/month) and significant email reminder counts—useful for high-traffic stores that expect many wishlists and reactivation emails.

Merchants with predictable high volumes should forecast wishlist additions and reminder counts against each app’s tiers to avoid sudden overage issues.

Privacy, Data Ownership & Compliance

Wishlist data can be sensitive: who owns it, and how easily can merchants export or migrate it?

• SWishlist: API access implies merchants can extract data, but merchants should confirm export and data portability options with the developer.
• Wishl: Export and ownership details are not explicit in marketing descriptions; merchants should verify retention policies, export formats, and GDPR/CCPA compliance if applicable.

Before selecting an app, confirm the ability to export wishlist data, webhook/event availability, and retention/deletion options to maintain compliance and avoid vendor lock-in.

Performance, Load, and Theme Impact

Apps that inject JavaScript or modify DOM can affect storefront speed.

• SWishlist: Promotes tight visual integration and lightweight design, but merchants should test in staging environments to verify front-end performance.
• Wishl: Mobile-responsive design suggests optimized layouts, though performance impact depends on implementation.

Run speed audits (e.g., Lighthouse) with the app installed before deploying to production. Keep an eye on network requests, bundle size, and DOM mutations.

Strengths & Weaknesses Summary

To help merchants scan strengths and weaknesses quickly, the following bullets summarize each app.

• SWishlist: Simple Wishlist (SoluCommerce)
  • Strengths:
    • Excellent user rating (4.9 from 106 reviews) signaling strong merchant satisfaction.
    • Clear and affordable pricing tiers, including a useful free plan.
    • Strong multi-language support and theme setup assistance.
    • Unlimited additions on Premium plan and unlimited statistics.
    • API access for custom integrations.
  • Weaknesses:
    • Limited native re-engagement tools like price drop alerts or email reminders in base description.
    • Single-purpose app—merchants will likely need additional tools for loyalty, reviews, and referrals.
• Wishl Favorites Wishlist (Golden Rule Ventures)
  • Strengths:
    • Built-in price-drop tracking and wishlist email reminders to drive conversions.
    • Variant-level insights and social sharing with note support for gifting scenarios.
    • Mobile-first, one-click wishlist flows that favor SERPs and mobile users.
  • Weaknesses:
    • No free tier and higher starting price.
    • Fewer public reviews (32) and slightly lower sample size for reliability in the app store.
    • Integration details are less explicit, which may be limiting for merchants wanting to route data elsewhere.

Which App Is Best For Which Merchant?

The right choice depends on priorities, budget, and growth plans.

• Choose SWishlist: Simple Wishlist if:
  • The store needs a polished, affordable wishlist that aligns with brand design.
  • Multi-language storefronts are important.
  • Merchant prefers a predictable, low-cost plan and developer-friendly API access.
  • Reducing cost and retaining straightforward wishlist functionality is primary.
• Choose Wishl Favorites Wishlist if:
  • Automated remarketing through price-drop alerts and email reminders is a priority.
  • The store is gift-oriented or benefits from notes, social sharing, and variant-level popularity data.
  • Mobile-first one-click capture is strategically important.
  • Merchant is comfortable starting without a free tier and wants built-in engagement features.
• Consider an all-in-one retention platform if:
  • The merchant wants to minimize the number of single-purpose apps and centralize loyalty, reviews, referrals, and wishlist into one integrated system.
  • The goal is to increase customer lifetime value, reduce app maintenance, and use cross-feature automation (e.g., reward customers for adding wishlist items or leaving reviews).

Migration & Exit Considerations

Switching apps or consolidating features is common as stores scale. Before installing any wishlist app, merchants should plan for:

• Data export: Confirm if wishlists and associated customer/email data can be exported cleanly.
• Redirects & UX continuity: Ensure new wishlist components are installed without breaking existing flows.
• Integration mapping: Understand how wishlist events map to upstream marketing systems like email or analytics.
• Deactivation impact: Verify what happens to existing wishlists when the app is uninstalled and how to migrate them.

Both SWishlist and Wishl should be vetted on these points, and merchants should request documentation or export tests prior to committing.

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

As stores grow, reliance on several single-purpose apps often leads to "app fatigue": rising maintenance costs, overlapping functionality, multiple billing lines, and fractured customer data. App fatigue can produce these negative outcomes:

• Fragmented customer data across tools, making personalization and lifecycle automation harder.
• Compounding support overhead: multiple vendors to contact when an issue spans features.
• Increased theme and performance risk from layering multiple scripts on the storefront.
• Higher total cost of ownership as each new capability requires another subscription.

An integrated retention platform reduces these problems by centralizing loyalty, referrals, reviews, wishlists, and VIP tiers into a single, coordinated stack that shares a customer identity and unified reporting.

Growave’s "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy is built to address app fatigue by consolidating the most common retention tools into one platform. Merchants can reduce the number of installed apps while unlocking cross-feature automation and consolidated analytics.

• For merchants evaluating consolidation, it helps to review and compare plans to see whether combining wishlist plus loyalty or reviews into one solution improves long-term ROI. Merchants can easily compare Growave plans to estimate consolidation benefits.

How Growave maps to typical wishlist needs:

• Wishlist capture and sharing are native, but they sit within a broader retention context—wishlists can be tied to loyalty points or used to segment customers for referral invites.
• Price drop and reminder workflows can be achieved through integrated automation that blends wishlists with email and push tools.

Benefits of moving from single-purpose apps to an integrated platform:

• Consolidated customer profiles let merchants target customers who saved items, redeemed rewards, wrote reviews, or referred friends—without syncing between vendors.
• Fewer script loads and a single maintenance point reduce front-end technical risk.
• Centralized support and onboarding streamline launches and troubleshooting.

Explore how Growave centralizes features:

• Merchants looking to design and run rewards programs can build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases and connect them to wishlist behavior.
• Those who want to collect social proof can use Growave to collect and showcase authentic reviews, leveraging the same customer base that interacts with wishlists.
• To see examples of how brands use an integrated retention stack to scale, merchants can review customer stories from brands scaling retention.

Practical examples of consolidation value:

• Rather than paying for a wishlist app and a separate loyalty app, one integrated subscription can enable conditional rewards when customers add high-margin items to wishlists or when friends purchase via a shared wishlist. This kind of cross-feature automation is difficult when features live in separate apps.
• Centralized reporting across loyalty and wishlist activity surfaces the true value of wishlist-driven conversions—metrics that are often undertracked when tools are separate.

Why technical teams appreciate an integrated platform:

• Growave supports multiple integrations with popular marketing and service tools, so merchants can still connect to their favorite stacks without installing many single-purpose apps. Integrations include widely used platforms such as Klaviyo and Omnisend for email, and customer service tools like Gorgias.
• For enterprise merchants, Growave offers solutions designed for high-growth stores and headless setups; those evaluating scale can look at Growave’s enterprise-focused offerings for solutions for high-growth Plus brands.

Consolidation caveats to consider:

• All-in-one platforms can sometimes be overkill for very small stores that truly need only a simple wishlist. The added value comes from cross-feature usage—if a merchant plans to extend into loyalty, referrals, or review collection, consolidation pays off faster.
• Evaluate trial periods and plan comparisons carefully. Merchants can compare Growave plans to calculate the break-even point versus maintaining multiple single-purpose subscriptions.

Tools and resources for merchant evaluation:

• Review feature demos and ask for specific examples of wishlist-triggered automations. For a guided walkthrough of how an integrated retention stack works, merchants can book a personalized demo to see cross-feature examples in action.

Reducing tool sprawl is both a technical and strategic decision. Consolidation through an integrated platform like Growave can unlock better customer lifetime value metrics, fewer moving pieces, and more reliable reporting—especially for merchants planning growth beyond simple wishlist usage.

Implementation Considerations and Migration Checklist

Before switching or adopting an integrated stack, consider the following practical steps:

• Inventory current apps and map overlapping features.
• Estimate monthly cost across current single-purpose tools versus consolidated plans. For a quick check, merchants can compare Growave plans.
• Test data export from existing wishlist apps to ensure wishlist history and customer identifiers can be migrated.
• Confirm any required integrations (Klavyio, Omnisend, Recharge) are supported; Growave lists a range of integrations for common stacks, which simplifies migration.
• Plan a staged rollout: enable wishlist features first, then loyalty and referrals once wishlist UX is validated.
• Track KPIs pre- and post-migration: wishlist-to-order conversion rate, email open/click-to-purchase, repeat purchase rate, and average order value.

Costs, ROI, and Long-Term Value

Short-term subscription cost is only part of ROI. Consider these drivers when comparing single-purpose apps vs. an integrated platform:

• Incremental revenue from price alerts and reminders.
• Net new revenue from loyalty-driven repeat purchases.
• Savings from reduced app maintenance and fewer support interactions.
• Higher-quality customer data enabling better segmentation and higher LTV.

For many stores, paying a slightly higher single subscription that includes wishlists plus loyalty and reviews can deliver a better long-term return than renewing multiple single-purpose apps.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between SWishlist: Simple Wishlist and Wishl Favorites Wishlist, the decision comes down to priorities. SWishlist is an excellent fit for merchants who want a highly rated, affordable, and customizable wishlist with multilingual support and developer-friendly API access. Wishl is better for merchants who prioritize automated re-engagement—price-drop tracking and wishlist email reminders—and mobile-first, one-click capture.

However, single-purpose wishlist apps only solve part of the retention equation. Stores that want to increase repeat purchases, boost lifetime value, and reduce app sprawl should consider consolidating wishlist, loyalty, reviews, and referrals under a unified platform. Growave’s "More Growth, Less Stack" approach bundles these capabilities, simplifying maintenance while enabling cross-feature automation and unified customer data. Merchants interested in comparing consolidation economics can compare Growave plans and see how a single platform changes the calculation.

Start a 14-day free trial to see how consolidating wishlist, loyalty, and reviews into one platform streamlines operations and improves retention: Start a 14-day free trial.

For those who prefer to evaluate the app listing first, Growave is also available to try directly via the Shopify App Store.

FAQ

Q: Which app is better for international or multilingual stores?

• A: SWishlist explicitly tiers language support and offers up to 20 languages on Premium, which makes it a clearer choice for multi-market stores. Wishl’s language support is not clearly specified, so merchants with multilingual needs should request details or prefer SWishlist for built-in language tiers.

Q: Which app will likely drive more conversions through notifications?

• A: Wishl includes built-in price drop tracking and wishlist email reminders, which directly drive conversions from saved items. SWishlist focuses more on core wishlist UX; conversion-focused notifications would need to be added via integrations or another tool.

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

• A: An all-in-one platform consolidates customer identity, reporting, and automation across wishlists, loyalty rewards, reviews, and referrals. That reduces maintenance, removes redundant scripting, and enables cross-feature campaigns that specialized apps cannot coordinate without additional integrations. For merchants planning growth or wanting to increase LTV, consolidation often delivers better value for money over time.

Q: If a store only needs a wishlist and nothing else, which option is recommended?

• A: For stores that truly only need wishlist functionality and want minimal monthly cost, SWishlist’s free or low-cost tiers offer clear value. If the store anticipates using reminders or price alerts to convert wishlist activity, Wishl may be the better single-purpose fit. If expansion into loyalty or reviews is likely, consider an integrated solution early to avoid migration complexity.