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

Introduction

Choosing the right wishlist solution is a small decision with an outsized impact on retention, customer experience, and growth. Merchants face thousands of apps that promise incremental gains. Picking a solution that fits the store’s goals—whether simplicity, scale, or integration—prevents wasted time, hidden costs, and technical debt.

Short answer: Ultimate Wishlist is a lean, budget-friendly wishlist for merchants who need a straightforward, customizable wishlist and basic analytics. Swish (formerly Wishlist King) targets merchants that want a polished, scalable wishlist with advanced analytics, integrations, and concierge onboarding. For merchants who want to avoid tool sprawl and focus on lifetime value, an integrated retention platform like Growave often delivers better value for money by combining wishlist functionality with loyalty, reviews, referrals, and VIP tiers.

This post compares Ultimate Wishlist and Swish feature by feature: design and customization, list management, notifications and email, analytics, integrations, pricing and support. The goal is to leave merchants with a clear view of which app fits specific stores—and when an all-in-one retention stack is a better strategic choice.

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

How to read this comparison

This analysis evaluates three merchant concerns that matter most when choosing a wishlist app:

• The customer experience: how wishlists look, behave, and sync across devices.
• Revenue impact & automation: features that recover sales (reminders, personalized nudges).
• Operational burden: integrations, maintenance, and the cost of stacking single-purpose apps.

Each section closes with practical recommendations for which app fits particular store profiles.

Headline differences in one sentence

Ultimate Wishlist is an economical, focused solution for merchants that want a simple wishlist with customizable appearance and basic analytics. Swish is built for brands that expect scale, automation, and integrations—and are willing to pay for concierge setup and enterprise-level support.

Feature Comparison

Wishlist creation and account behavior

Ultimate Wishlist

• Supports wishlists for both guests and registered users, enabling cross-device access when customers log in.
• Customers can create wishlists with or without registration—this lowers friction for first-time visitors.
• Focused on basic UX: add-to-wishlist buttons, collection-page wishlisting.

Swish

• Also supports guest and account-linked wishlists but emphasizes a fluid, cross-journey experience (product pages, collections, cart).
• Designed to be integrated across themes and headless storefronts (Hydrogen) so saved items persist across touchpoints.
• Adds segmentation-friendly signals (wishlisted products used for curation and analytics).

Practical takeaway

• If friction-free adding is the priority and a small team needs a simple implementation, Ultimate Wishlist is sufficient.
• If the brand runs multi-channel experiences or a headless front end, Swish’s support for headless/Hydrogen and session persistence is a meaningful advantage.

Customization and design

Ultimate Wishlist

• Offers full text and color customization to match store design.
• Non-English support is explicitly called out—good for multi-language storefronts.
• Appearance options are straightforward, useful for merchants who want brand-consistent UI without design investment.

Swish

• Emphasizes seamless integration with store aesthetic and provides a free setup and customisation service across all plans.
• More flexible for non-standard themes and headless setups; includes visual matching and onboarding support to ensure the wishlist looks native.

Practical takeaway

• For shops with standard themes or willing to tweak CSS, both apps provide customization. Swish has an edge for stores that need hands-off visual integration or complex theme setups because of its free setup service.

Notifications, email reminders, and automation

Ultimate Wishlist

• Provides customizable email templates and reminder capability.
• Email reminder volume depends on plan: Basic includes up to 500 reminders/month; Pro and Premium ramp this up to 2,000–5,000 reminders/month.
• Premium adds Facebook pixel integration to help connect wishlist behavior to ad attribution.

Swish

• Built to drive conversion with highly personalised and automated Wishlist notifications.
• Native integrations with Klaviyo, GA4 and Meta are available out of the box—this enables sophisticated segment-based flows and event tracking.
• Free setup helps configure automated notification strategies tailored to the merchant.

Practical takeaway

• Merchants that rely heavily on email marketing automation and want deep Klaviyo integration should favor Swish.
• Stores with modest email reminder needs can get adequate functionality with Ultimate Wishlist’s paid tiers.

Analytics and reporting

Ultimate Wishlist

• Offers a dashboard that reports wishlist adds, page views, and added-to-cart events.
• These basic signals are useful for identifying wishlist popularity and prioritizing promotions.

Swish

• Promotes advanced analytics and wishlist curation as a core benefit.
• Integration with GA4 and the ability to pipe events into marketing platforms allows for richer analysis and segmentation.

Practical takeaway

• Ultimate Wishlist covers the fundamentals for small catalogs or stores that perform manual analysis.
• Swish is the better choice when the wishlist is part of a data-driven merchandising strategy and when teams want to push wishlist events into behavioral analytics pipelines.

Integrations and developer friendliness

Ultimate Wishlist

• Covers essential storefront use cases (guest and customer account syncing) and includes Facebook pixel in higher tiers.
• Simpler integration footprint; lower maintenance expectation for basic Shopify themes.

Swish

• Integrates with Checkout, Hydrogen, Markets, Klaviyo, and other platforms—positioned for modern stacks.
• Provides free setup and customization, which reduces developer overhead, and Plus plan includes Hydrogen & headless support.

Practical takeaway

• Stores on basic Shopify themes with minimal third-party tooling may prefer Ultimate Wishlist to keep things light.
• Stores that use Klaviyo, headless technologies, or more complex marketing stacks will find Swish saves engineering time and integrates cleanly.

Searchability, saved items, and product discovery

Ultimate Wishlist

• Offers wishlist on collection pages and basic sharing options (Facebook, Twitter, Email).
• Useful for straightforward discovery flows—customers can bookmark items and share them externally.

Swish

• Enables wishlisting throughout the shopping journey and supports wishlist curation—this can feed into product recommendations and promotional banners.
• Unlimited sessions and saved items mean no caps on user behavior correlate to product interest and can be used for recommendations.

Practical takeaway

• Stores that want to use wishlists as a formal part of product discovery or personalization workflows should prefer Swish’s flexibility.

Performance and reliability

Ultimate Wishlist

• Designed as a lighter-weight app; fewer moving parts can mean fewer points of failure, but performance depends on theme and implementation.

Swish

• Built for heavier usage and advanced sampling; includes priority support and dedicated managers on Plus.
• Free setup reduces the chance of misconfiguration that could harm speed or UX.

Practical takeaway

• Both apps can be performant; Swish’s onboarding support reduces the risk of misconfiguration for complex stores.

Pricing & Value

Ultimate Wishlist pricing structure (summary)

• Free plan (Free)
  • Up to 500 wishlists/month
  • Guest wishlist, collection page wishlist, sharing, customizable text/colors, non-English support, full reports
• Basic ($4.99/month)
  • Up to 1,000 items/month
  • Custom email templates
  • Up to 500 email reminders/month
• Pro ($9.99/month)
  • Up to 5,000 items/month
  • Send reminders to individual users
  • Up to 2,000 email reminders/month
• Premium ($14.99/month)
  • Up to 10,000 items/month
  • Up to 5,000 email reminders/month
  • Facebook pixel integration

Pricing analysis

• Very low entry cost and a generous free tier make Ultimate Wishlist attractive to new stores and low-volume merchants.
• Limits on wishlists and reminders are the mechanism to encourage upgrades; merchants should forecast monthly wishlist volume to pick the right tier.

Swish pricing structure (summary)

• Basic Shopify ($19/month) — for Shopify Basic plan stores; includes all features, free setup, unlimited wishlists/saved items.
• Shopify ($29/month) — for Shopify-plan stores; same features.
• Advanced Shopify ($49/month)
• Shopify Plus ($99/month) — includes white glove onboarding, priority support, dedicated account manager, Hydrogen & headless support.

Pricing analysis

• Swish’s pricing is higher than the cheapest wishlist apps, but the feature set includes unlimited usage, integrations, and concierge setup—this converts into faster time-to-value for busy merchants.
• For brands that expect wishlist data to feed marketing and personalization efforts, the unlimited allowance and integration support improve ROI.

Value for money comparison

• Ultimate Wishlist = Better value for money for stores that need a focused wishlist on a budget and can live with caps on monthly wishlist events.
• Swish = Better value for money for stores that need wishlist events to scale, to be part of advanced automation flows, or to support headless storefronts where implementation complexity would otherwise require developer hours.

Practical recommendation

• Calculate expected wishlist events and the role of wishlist signals in marketing automation before choosing. If wishlist behavior will be central to segmentation and retargeting, the higher cost of Swish can be justified by integration and onboarding savings.

Integrations & Ecosystem

Native and marketing integrations

Ultimate Wishlist

• Supports standard share channels and Facebook pixel at higher tier.
• Works well with typical Shopify themes; more advanced integrations usually require custom work.

Swish

• Ships with Klaviyo, GA4 and Meta integrations out of the box.
• Headless and Hydrogen support, making Swish fit modern tech stacks without custom engineering.

Practical takeaway

• If Klaviyo segmentation or precise GA4 event tracking is important for wishlist-triggered flows, Swish saves integration time.
• Ultimate Wishlist remains practical when merchants rely on manual exports or simple pixel events.

Platform compatibility and advanced stacks

Ultimate Wishlist

• Built mainly for Shopify themes; no explicit headless/Hydrogen listing.

Swish

• Explicitly lists Compatibility with Checkout, Hydrogen, Markets and customer accounts—suitable for merchants using Shopify’s advanced features.

Practical takeaway

• Merchants moving toward headless, multi-market or advanced Checkout customizations should prefer Swish for easier integration.

Support, Implementation & Onboarding

Ultimate Wishlist

• Typical app support model—documentation and developer-level setup mostly handled by merchant or developer.
• Small team, and support scope is proportional to app simplicity.

Swish

• Free setup and customization service across all plans.
• Onboarding and free customization reduce time-to-launch; Plus plan adds white-glove onboarding and dedicated account manager.

Practical takeaway

• For teams with limited developer time, Swish’s onboarding can justify the monthly cost by reducing launch timelines and implementation errors.
• Ultimate Wishlist is possible to deploy quickly for those comfortable with theme edits or who have developer hours available.

Analytics, Data Ownership & Privacy

Ultimate Wishlist

• Tracks wishlist adds, page views, and added-to-cart events in its dashboard.
• Facebook pixel in Premium allows for ad attribution; data flow needs merchant setup.

Swish

• Integrates with GA4 and sends event data to analytics and marketing platforms.
• Easier to incorporate wishlist signals into analytics pipelines and audiences.

Common considerations

• Both apps rely on merchant consent and store privacy settings to collect first-party events; merchants should document how wishlist data is used in privacy policies.
• Ensure wishlist emails comply with local spam and privacy regulations (e.g., opt-in rules).

Practical takeaway

• For GDPR-sensitive stores or those with strict data protocols, Swish’s enterprise-level support helps set up compliant flows.

Operational Tradeoffs and App Fatigue

Implementing a single-purpose wishlist app seems simple, but cumulative costs and integration headaches can add up:

• Each single-function app increases the technical stack, creates another vendor to manage, and can produce overlapping features with other tools (e.g., email marketing, analytics).
• Data fragmentation is a risk when wishlist events are not synchronized with loyalty or review platforms, making it harder to act on signals.
• Development and theme maintenance time rises with each additional integration.

These tradeoffs inform why some merchants eventually prefer consolidated platforms that combine wishlist with loyalty, reviews, referrals, and VIP tiers.

Use Cases & Recommendations

When to choose Ultimate Wishlist

• New or low-volume stores that need a simple wishlist and want to start with a free plan.
• Merchants who need strong non-English support with minimal configuration.
• Stores that want low monthly costs and can tolerate caps on wishlist events and reminders.

Choose Ultimate Wishlist if:

• Budget and simplicity are top priorities.
• Wishlist is a small experiment, not yet core to marketing automation.

When to choose Swish

• Brands that plan to use wishlist data in advanced marketing automation (Klaviyo flows, GA4 analysis, ad retargeting).
• Stores on Shopify Plus, headless platforms, or those that require concierge onboarding to ensure the wishlist behaves and looks native.
• Merchants who value unlimited saved items and session counts and want an enterprise-level support path.

Choose Swish if:

• Wishlist behavior is a key signal for segmentation, and time-to-live and integration costs must be minimized.
• The store expects higher volumes or needs bespoke integration without in-house engineering.

Pros & Cons (Side-by-side)

Ultimate Wishlist — Pros

• Very low entry price and a capable free tier.
• Clear text and color customization; non-English support.
• Useful basic analytics for small catalogs.

Ultimate Wishlist — Cons

• Caps on wishlist items and reminders may force an upgrade.
• Limited integrations compared to enterprise tools.
• Less onboarding support.

Swish — Pros

• Strong integration set (Klaviyo, GA4, Meta), unlimited wishlists, and free setup.
• Concierge onboarding and Plus-plan account management for enterprise merchants.
• Designed for modern stacks including Hydrogen and headless.

Swish — Cons

• Higher monthly price than ultra-basic wishlist apps.
• More features can mean an overkill for merchants who only need a simple wishlist.

Implementation Checklist Before Installing

• Define wishlist objectives: sales recovery, product interest signals, or social sharing.
• Estimate monthly wishlist events and required email reminders.
• Confirm theme and stack (headless, Hydrogen, Plus) to determine integration needs.
• Plan how wishlist events connect to email flows and ad audiences.
• Budget for monthly fees and potential developer time.

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

Many merchants hit the same inflection point: several single-purpose apps each solve one problem (wishlist, loyalty, reviews, referrals), but together they create complexity, recurring costs, and fragmentation of customer signals. This is app fatigue.

What is app fatigue?

App fatigue arises when adding new tools continuously increases:

• Monthly software spend with marginal incremental benefits.
• Integration complexity as signals live in different systems.
• Operational overhead: multiple dashboards, multiple invoices, and multiple support vendors.
• Lost opportunities, because cross-signal strategies (e.g., rewarding customers for adding items to a wishlist) are difficult to implement across siloed apps.

Instead of stringing together multiple single-purpose tools, many merchants are consolidating retention functions into one platform.

Growave’s approach: More Growth, Less Stack

Growave’s platform bundles loyalty, wishlist, reviews & UGC, referrals, and VIP tiers into a single integrated suite. This reduces technical debt and aligns retention signals in one place so merchants can build strategies that increase repeat purchases and customer lifetime value.

• Combine wishlist behavior with loyalty triggers and referral incentives so customers are rewarded for engagement.
• Route reviews and UGC into the same customer profile to drive trusted social proof at checkout.
• Use a single integration hub instead of many point-to-point connectors.

For stores ready to evaluate consolidation, it’s practical to compare the total cost and opportunity of multiple apps versus a unified solution that includes wishlist functionality.

What Growave combines (and why that matters)

• Loyalty and rewards: Build and automate programs that turn wishlists into repeat purchases by offering points or discounts when customers act on saved items. See how merchants build loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.
• Reviews & UGC: Collect, moderate, and display reviews from customers whose wishlist behavior signals high interest. Merchants can collect and showcase authentic reviews without another vendor.
• Wishlist: A built-in wishlist eliminates the need for a separate wishlist app and keeps wishlist signals connected to rewards and reviews.
• Referrals & VIP tiers: Turn wishlist engagement into referral incentives and VIP progression, all managed in one platform.
• Enterprise & Plus support: Growave supports solutions for high-growth Plus brands with API/SDK options for headless setups.

By centralizing these retention tools, merchants reduce friction, improve analytics consistency, and capture more LTV from the same customers.

Operational benefits of consolidation

• Single installation and fewer theme edits—install Growave in seconds from the Shopify App Store to handle multiple retention channels install Growave in seconds.
• Unified customer profiles: wishlist behavior, loyalty points, and review history live together, enabling targeted offers and better segment definitions.
• Fewer vendor relationships: one contract, one dashboard, and one support team.
• Reduced risk of conflicting JavaScript and faster troubleshooting when problems arise.

Integration and migration considerations

• Movements from single-purpose wishlist apps to an integrated platform require mapping event flows (e.g., wishlist-add events) and validating that automations (email reminders, rewards triggers) behave as expected.
• Growave offers onboarding and migrations; merchants can Book a personalized demo to see migration paths and integration options.
• Comparing cumulative costs: adding a wishlist app, a loyalty app, and a reviews app often exceeds a single-platform plan, especially as the store scales. Merchants can compare plans and pricing to evaluate total cost of ownership.

Proof points and social validation

• Growave’s app listing and customer base show broader adoption: the Growave app listing on the Shopify marketplace is a practical place to confirm fit and installation steps install Growave in seconds.
• Customer stories show how combined strategies—loyalty coupled with wishlist triggers—drive repeat purchases and higher average order value. Explore practical examples in merchant case studies and inspiration customer stories from brands scaling retention.

How the feature mapping compares practically

• Wishlist function: Ultimate Wishlist and Swish deliver core wishlist features; Growave includes wishlist as a native part of a retention suite, connecting saved-item behavior to rewards and referrals.
• Analytics: Swish provides powerful wishlist-specific analytics; Growave surfaces wishlist signals alongside loyalty and reviews metrics, enabling richer cross-signal strategies.
• Notifications: Swish integrates well with Klaviyo; Growave provides built-in workflows to trigger rewards and emails based on wishlist behavior and can integrate with Klaviyo or other ESPs as needed.
• Onboarding: Swish’s free setup focuses on wishlist customisation; Growave’s onboarding covers multiple retention features at once, reducing the number of vendors to onboard.

Early next steps for merchants considering consolidation

• Map the retention outcomes desired: higher repeat purchase rate, increased lifetime value, or more UGC.
• Audit monthly app spend and overlap in features between current apps.
• Book a demo to see how an integrated approach would combine wishlist signals with loyalty and reviews: Book a personalized demo.
• Compare total cost and projected ROI over 6–12 months by combining subscription costs and expected lift from integrated campaigns. Merchants can compare plans and pricing to model potential savings.

Implementation Scenarios (Actionable Roadmap)

Below are practical steps for three merchant archetypes:

Small shop testing wishlists

• Install a light wishlist to test interest. Ultimate Wishlist’s free plan is an ideal sandbox.
• Track wishlist adds and top wishlisted SKUs for three months.
• If wishlist becomes a key signal, plan to integrate it into email flows or promotions.

Growing brand adding automation

• If wishlist events are needed in Klaviyo/GA4, evaluate Swish for the out-of-the-box integrations and concierge setup to save engineering time.
• Use wishlists to trigger abandoned wishlist flows, and measure conversion rates.

Scaling merchant focused on retention

• Consolidate wishlist into a broader retention stack to combine rewards, reviews, and referrals.
• Evaluate total cost of separate apps vs. an integrated platform. Consider the operational savings of one vendor and coherent customer profiles.
• For a tailored walkthrough, merchants can Book a personalized demo.

Migration considerations: from single apps to integrated stacks

• Data export: Confirm how to export existing wishlist data to preserve user history.
• Event mapping: Map wishlist-add events to the integrated platform’s event schema.
• Automations: Recreate email triggers and reward actions in the target platform.
• A/B testing: Run parallel experiments for a short period to validate equivalence before fully switching off legacy tools.
• Evaluate the time and resources saved by onboarding via concierge services versus internal engineering.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between Ultimate Wishlist and Swish (formerly Wishlist King), the decision comes down to scope and scale. Ultimate Wishlist is an excellent choice for merchants who need a simple, focused tool that’s budget-friendly and easy to deploy. Swish suits brands that require advanced integrations, unlimited usage, and concierge onboarding—especially those using Klaviyo, GA4, or headless storefronts.

For merchants who want to go beyond a single feature and build long-term retention, adopting an integrated platform reduces tool sprawl while enabling richer, cross-signal strategies. Consolidating wishlist, loyalty, reviews, referrals, and VIP tiers into one platform can reduce cost, simplify operations, and unlock higher lifetime value per customer. See how consolidating retention features can simplify tech and boost results by comparing plans and pricing on Growave’s site. consolidate retention features

Start a 14-day free trial to explore how a single retention platform combines wishlist with loyalty, reviews, and referrals and replaces multiple single-purpose apps. Start a 14-day free trial

FAQ

Q: Which app has better reviews and social proof?

• Swish has a larger sample of reviews (272 reviews at a 5.0 rating) compared with Ultimate Wishlist (34 reviews at a 4.9 rating). Larger review counts can indicate broader adoption and maturity in varied merchant contexts, while both apps show high satisfaction among their user bases.

Q: Is a dedicated wishlist app necessary, or should a merchant choose an all-in-one retention platform?

• A dedicated wishlist app makes sense for merchants who need a lightweight, low-cost solution or who are testing wishlist utility. An all-in-one retention platform becomes more efficient when wishlist signals are part of broader loyalty, referral, and review strategies, reducing vendor overhead and enabling integrated campaigns. See how loyalty and wishlist can work together to raise repeat purchase rates loyalty and rewards that drive repeat purchases.

Q: How do integrations differ between the two wishlist apps?

• Swish provides built-in integrations with Klaviyo, GA4 and Meta and supports headless/Hydrogen setups; this makes it easier to push wishlist events into marketing and analytics flows. Ultimate Wishlist focuses on core wishlist features with basic analytics and a Premium pixel integration. Merchants needing immediate integration to marketing stacks typically find Swish more turnkey.

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

• An all-in-one platform centralizes data and reduces the number of vendors and integrations to manage. Rather than moving wishlist events across multiple apps, it keeps wishlist behavior tied to loyalty, referrals, and reviews. This reduces friction for cross-signal campaigns, simplifies analytics, and often provides better value for money as the store scales. Merchants can also see examples of how combined features drive retention by exploring how merchants showcase results and campaigns customer stories from brands scaling retention.