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

Introduction

Choosing the right Shopify apps can feel like navigating a complex maze. Merchants often seek solutions for specific needs, like enabling customer wishlists, to enhance engagement and drive future purchases. However, the sheer volume of options can lead to decision fatigue and an increasingly fragmented tech stack. Successfully retaining customers and encouraging repeat business requires careful selection of tools that align with a store's specific operational needs and growth objectives.

Short answer: WC Wishlist Club generally offers a more budget-friendly entry point with clear feature tiers, making it suitable for growing stores prioritizing core wishlist functionality and basic automation. Swish, on the other hand, provides a more premium experience with extensive customization, out-of-the-box integrations, and a free setup service, often fitting larger stores or those with ambitious branding and design requirements. Both apps aim to boost customer engagement, but their approaches to pricing, integration, and service differ significantly, underscoring why an integrated retention platform can offer a more cohesive and less costly long-term strategy for operational efficiency. This comparison provides a feature-by-feature examination of WC Wishlist Club and Swish (formerly Wishlist King) to assist merchants in making an informed selection for their storefronts.

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

Deep Dive Comparison

Customer wishlists are not merely a convenience; they represent a powerful mechanism for capturing purchase intent, nurturing leads, and ultimately increasing conversion rates. By allowing shoppers to save products for later, merchants gain insights into demand, re-engage customers with targeted communications, and reduce cart abandonment by addressing common buying frictions. Both WC Wishlist Club and Swish (formerly Wishlist King) offer solutions in this space, yet they cater to different merchant profiles and strategic priorities through distinct feature sets, pricing models, and service offerings.

Core Features and Workflows

Understanding the fundamental capabilities of each app is crucial for determining their fit within a store's operational strategy. Both apps provide the essential function of allowing customers to wishlist items, but they extend this core capability in different directions.

WC Wishlist Club Key Features:

WC Wishlist Club positions itself as a robust option for merchants looking to implement comprehensive wishlist functionality with an emphasis on automated re-engagement. Its offering includes:

• Diverse Wishlist Options: Enables guest wishlists for unregistered users, multiple wishlists for categorization, and shareable wishlists, which can serve as a powerful viral marketing tool by allowing customers to share their desired items with friends and family.
• Automated Alerts: A core strength lies in its notification system, offering:
  • Price Drop Alerts: Notifies customers when a wishlisted item's price decreases, directly addressing a common purchase barrier.
  • Re-stock Alerts: Informs customers when an out-of-stock item becomes available again, recapturing lost sales opportunities.
  • Back in Stock Alerts: Similar to re-stock, ensuring immediate communication for high-demand items.
• Email Automation: Provides automated email reminders for wishlisted products, a direct strategy for targeting buyers and generating orders. The ability to customize these emails (available across all plans) allows for brand consistency.
• Performance Tracking: Offers live updates of products and user wishlists, designed to help merchants identify popular items and understand customer preferences, thereby improving overall store performance.
• Import/Export: This feature, available from the Basic plan, is critical for data migration and management, ensuring flexibility in handling wishlist data.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) Key Features:

Swish, having evolved from Wishlist King, emphasizes a highly customizable and integrated approach, aiming to be a holistic solution for driving customer engagement through wishlists. Its key features include:

• Seamless Wishlist Functionality: Allows customers to wishlist items at any point in their shopping journey, integrating smoothly across the storefront.
• Free Setup and Customization Service: A significant differentiator, Swish offers to handle the entire setup and customization process across all its plans. This ensures the app seamlessly matches the store’s aesthetic and functions perfectly without requiring the merchant's technical intervention. This service commitment is a major draw for brands prioritizing a polished, integrated look and feel.
• Advanced Analytics and Curation: Beyond basic tracking, Swish provides "meaningful insights" through advanced analytics, helping merchants understand wishlist trends and customer preferences at a deeper level for strategic inventory and marketing decisions.
• Personalized Notifications: Focuses on highly personalized and automated wishlist notifications, designed to drive conversion at the "optimal moment" by tailoring messages to individual customer behavior and product interest.
• Comprehensive Integrations: Offers robust, out-of-the-box integrations with critical marketing and analytics platforms such as Klaviyo, GA4 (Google Analytics 4), and Meta (Facebook/Instagram), streamlining data flow and marketing efforts.

In terms of core features, WC Wishlist Club provides a strong foundation with immediate value through automated alerts and diverse wishlist types. Swish, while also offering essential wishlist capabilities, distinguishes itself with its commitment to seamless integration, advanced customization services, and sophisticated analytics/marketing platform integrations from the outset.

Customization and Control

The ability to tailor an app's appearance and behavior to match a brand's specific identity and operational needs is paramount for a consistent customer experience. Both apps offer customization, but their approaches differ.

WC Wishlist Club offers "Customize Emails" across all plans, ensuring that automated communications align with brand voice. For more in-depth visual customization or bespoke functionality, the "Custom Design" and "Custom Feature build" options are exclusively available under its Enterprise plan. This structure implies that basic branding can be maintained affordably, but significant aesthetic or functional deviations require a higher investment. For merchants keen on evaluating feature coverage across plans, this tiered access to deep customization is a key consideration.

Swish takes a more proactive stance on customization. Its "Free setup & customisation service" for all plans is a compelling offer, guaranteeing that the wishlist feature integrates seamlessly with any theme to match the store’s aesthetic from day one. This service minimizes the technical burden on merchants and ensures a professional, on-brand look without additional cost or effort. This commitment positions Swish as a strong contender for brands where visual consistency and a premium user experience are non-negotiable from the outset.

Pricing Structure and Value for Money

Pricing is often a decisive factor, and both apps present different models that appeal to varying budget and scale requirements. Merchants focused on selecting plans that reduce stacked tooling costs will find careful evaluation of these models particularly insightful.

WC Wishlist Club Pricing:

WC Wishlist Club follows a tiered pricing model that incrementally adds value, but primarily by bundling existing features rather than unlocking fundamentally new capabilities until the top tier.

• Basic ($4.99 / month): Offers unlimited wishlists, back in stock, price drop, restock alerts, wishlist reminders, import/export, guest, share & multi-wishlist, and customized emails. This is a very competitive entry point, providing a comprehensive set of core wishlist features for a low monthly fee.
• Pro ($9.99 / month): Includes the same feature set as Basic. The description implies that the value difference might lie in priority support or other operational benefits not explicitly detailed in the provided data.
• Advance ($14.99 / month): Also lists the same core features. Similar to the Pro plan, the added value beyond the Basic tier is not immediately apparent from the descriptions provided, suggesting potential service-level differences or higher usage limits.
• Enterprise ($24.99 / month): This plan significantly expands capabilities. It includes "Advance Plan+" features, plus "Headless Integration," "Back in Stock Import/Export," "Klaviyo/Mailchimp Integration," "Custom Design," and "Custom Feature build." This tier is clearly aimed at larger operations or those with specific technical needs, justifying the higher price with advanced functionality and bespoke services.

The pricing structure of WC Wishlist Club suggests a strategy of making core features highly accessible and then layering on advanced capabilities for enterprise-level demands. For businesses that are budget-conscious but still require robust wishlist functionality and automated alerts, the Basic plan offers excellent value.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) Pricing:

Swish employs a pricing structure tied directly to a merchant's Shopify plan, indicating a deliberate alignment with the store's overall scale and potential revenue. The claim "Includes all features" for its first three plans simplifies decision-making, as merchants aren't forced to choose between feature sets.

• Basic Shopify ($19 / month): Targeted at stores on the Shopify Basic Plan. Includes all features, free setup and onboarding, unlimited wishlists & saved items, and unlimited sessions.
• Shopify ($29 / month): For stores on the Shopify Plan. Includes the same comprehensive feature set as the Basic Shopify plan.
• Advanced Shopify ($49 / month): Designed for stores on Shopify Advanced Plan. Also includes all features.
• Shopify Plus ($99 / month): Caters to Shopify Plus merchants with additional exclusives: free white-glove onboarding, priority support, a dedicated account manager, and support for Hydrogen & headless stacks. This plan acknowledges the complex needs of enterprise-level operations, offering bespoke service and advanced technical compatibility.

Swish's pricing model, while starting at a higher base cost than WC Wishlist Club, aims to provide full feature access regardless of the Shopify plan (up to Advanced Shopify). The consistent inclusion of a "free setup and onboarding" service across all plans adds significant value by reducing implementation effort and ensuring optimal integration. For merchants on Shopify Basic, the $19/month plan includes a robust set of features with white-glove setup. This positions Swish as a premium, hands-off solution with a clear value proposition centered around comprehensive features and service. When considering a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows versus one that scales with Shopify plan tier, merchants need to assess their current and projected scale.

Comparing the two, WC Wishlist Club provides a more granular, feature-driven pricing progression that allows smaller businesses to access core wishlist features at a very low cost. Swish, with its higher starting price, offers a "set it and forget it" solution with maximum features and significant service benefits (free setup) from its lowest tier, appealing to businesses that prioritize ease of implementation and a complete feature set over the lowest possible price point.

Integrations and “Works With” Fit

Integrations are critical for ensuring that an app fits smoothly into an existing tech ecosystem, preventing data silos and streamlining workflows.

WC Wishlist Club explicitly states it "Works With: Customer accounts Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS Mailchimp Email Marketing." The Enterprise plan further specifies "Klaviyo/Mailchimp Integration," suggesting that robust or advanced integration with these email platforms is reserved for the highest tier. This means that for basic plans, the integrations might be more fundamental, primarily focusing on email reminder functionality.

Swish boasts a broader list of "Works With" integrations: "Checkout Hydrogen Markets Klaviyo Customer Accounts Search Recommendations." Crucially, it highlights "Leverage our Klaviyo, GA4 and Meta integrations - all available out of the box." This indicates that advanced, pre-built connections with these key marketing and analytics platforms are standard across its plans. The mention of Hydrogen and Markets also signals its readiness for modern Shopify development stacks and internationalization strategies, offering significant advantages for scaling and global brands. The ability for merchants to leverage existing marketing investments through seamless data flow is a powerful argument for Swish.

For stores heavily reliant on Klaviyo for email marketing and retargeting, Swish's "out of the box" integration offers a more immediate and potentially deeper level of connectivity. WC Wishlist Club offers Klaviyo/Mailchimp integration, but it appears to be a premium feature.

Analytics and Reporting

Actionable data is essential for optimizing any e-commerce strategy. Both apps claim to offer insights, though the depth and accessibility of these analytics may vary.

WC Wishlist Club's description mentions gaining "valuable insights through our insightful analytics to effectively manage products and user wishlists" and "Track live update of products and users wishlist to improve performance." This implies monitoring of wishlisted items and user activity, enabling merchants to identify popular products, gauge demand, and understand customer intent. The focus appears to be on direct operational improvements based on wishlist data.

Swish states it provides "meaningful insights with advanced analytics and wishlist curation." While specific metrics are not detailed, the term "advanced" suggests a more sophisticated level of data analysis, potentially including segmentation, trend analysis, or even predictive insights, going beyond simple tracking. The ability for "wishlist curation" might involve features that help merchants actively manage or respond to wishlist trends. Its "out of the box" integration with GA4 (Google Analytics 4) also implies that wishlist data can be seamlessly fed into a broader, more comprehensive analytics framework, allowing for cross-channel analysis. This integration could be particularly valuable for comprehensive marketing reporting and attributing sales back to wishlist engagements.

For basic insights into popular products and user interest, both apps appear to provide sufficient data. However, for businesses requiring deeper, more integrated analytics to inform complex marketing and inventory strategies, Swish's "advanced analytics" and GA4 integration seem to offer a more robust solution.

Customer Support Expectations and Reliability Cues

The quality of customer support and the perceived reliability of an app are often reflected in its reviews and overall app store ratings.

WC Wishlist Club has garnered 142 reviews with an impressive 4.9 rating. This indicates a high level of satisfaction among its user base, suggesting that the app generally performs as expected and that the developer, WebContrive, provides effective support. While specific support channels (email, chat, phone) are not detailed in the provided data, the strong rating speaks to a positive overall experience for merchants.

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) boasts a perfect 5 rating from 272 reviews. This is an exceptional achievement, reflecting widespread merchant satisfaction and confidence in the app's performance and the developer's support. The higher number of reviews (272 compared to 142 for WC Wishlist Club) also suggests a larger user base and perhaps a more established presence in the market. A key aspect of Swish's support offering, particularly for its Shopify Plus plan, includes "free white glove onboarding," "priority support," and a "dedicated account manager." Even for its lower tiers, the "Free setup and onboarding" service indicates a strong commitment to ensuring customers get started successfully. This proactive support and hands-on approach contribute significantly to its high user satisfaction.

Both apps demonstrate high reliability through their strong ratings. Swish, with its perfect 5-star rating and explicit service offerings like free setup and priority support for Plus users, signals a potentially higher level of customer care and engagement, which can be invaluable for merchants who prefer a guided, supportive implementation process.

Performance, Compatibility, and Operational Overhead

The technical aspects of an app, including its performance, compatibility with various Shopify themes and development approaches, and its impact on the overall store's operational overhead, are critical considerations.

WC Wishlist Club's description mentions displaying wishlist icons on Home, Collection & Product pages, implying broad compatibility with standard Shopify themes. Its "Enterprise" plan specifically calls out "Headless Integration," which is vital for stores using headless commerce architectures (e.g., built with React, Vue, or other front-end frameworks). This indicates that the app is designed to function effectively even in complex, decoupled storefront environments, although this advanced capability comes at the highest price tier. The "Advance Plan+" also suggests ongoing development and enhancements.

Swish emphasizes its ability to "Integrates with all themes to seamlessly match your stores aesthetic," which is further reinforced by its free setup and customization service. This commitment to universal theme compatibility and visual consistency reduces performance concerns related to conflicting styles or slow loading times due to custom code. For enterprise-level stores, Swish's Shopify Plus plan includes support for "Hydrogen & headless stacks," directly addressing the needs of high-performance, custom-built storefronts. This demonstrates a clear focus on modern e-commerce infrastructure.

Operational overhead with single-function apps can involve several factors:

• Maintenance: Each app requires updates, monitoring, and occasional troubleshooting. Managing multiple apps increases this workload.
• Data Synchronization: Ensuring data flows correctly between separate apps (e.g., wishlist data to an email platform) can be complex, often requiring additional integration layers or manual processes.
• Performance Impact: While both apps appear optimized, a large number of single-function apps can cumulatively impact store loading speed and overall performance.
• Cost Management: Tracking and paying for multiple subscriptions can lead to "app sprawl" where costs escalate unexpectedly.

Both WC Wishlist Club and Swish are specialized wishlist solutions. While highly effective at their core function, merchants must consider the broader implications of adding another single-purpose tool to their stack. For example, if a store uses a separate app for loyalty, another for reviews, and now a dedicated wishlist app, the total operational overhead and cost can become significant. This is a critical point for merchants to consider when planning retention spend without app sprawl surprises.

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

Merchants often encounter a phenomenon known as "app fatigue" – a state characterized by the overwhelming challenge of managing an ever-growing collection of single-purpose Shopify apps. This proliferation of tools leads to several critical issues that can hinder sustainable growth and efficient operations:

• Tool Sprawl: Juggling multiple interfaces, logins, and configurations for different aspects of customer engagement (e.g., wishlists, loyalty programs, reviews, referrals) consumes valuable time and resources.
• Fragmented Data: Each app often operates in its own silo, leading to disparate customer data. This makes it challenging to gain a holistic view of the customer journey, personalize experiences effectively, or attribute success accurately.
• Inconsistent Customer Experience: Different app interfaces and notification styles can create a disjointed and less professional experience for shoppers, potentially eroding trust and brand loyalty.
• Scaling Complexity: As a business grows, managing an increasing number of apps and ensuring their seamless integration becomes exponentially more complex, leading to higher maintenance costs and potential performance bottlenecks.
• Stacked Costs: While individual app subscriptions might seem affordable, the cumulative cost of many specialized tools can quickly surpass the value they provide, leading to an inefficient allocation of budget.

This is where Growave's "More Growth, Less Stack" philosophy offers a compelling alternative. Growave is designed as a flexible retention platform, consolidating multiple customer engagement tools into a single, integrated suite. This approach directly addresses the challenges of app fatigue by providing a unified solution for several key growth levers. Businesses can optimize their approach to loyalty points and rewards designed to lift repeat purchases while simultaneously managing other crucial engagement touchpoints.

Growave integrates Loyalty and Rewards, Referrals, Reviews & UGC, Wishlist, and VIP Tiers into one platform. This means that instead of managing separate apps for each of these functions, merchants can oversee their entire retention strategy from a single dashboard. This streamlined approach allows for:

• Unified Customer Profiles: All customer engagement data – from wishlisted items to loyalty points earned and reviews submitted – resides in one place. This creates a 360-degree view of each customer, enabling highly personalized marketing efforts and a deeper understanding of customer lifetime value. Merchants can also develop retention programs that reduce reliance on discounts more strategically with this integrated data.
• Consistent Brand Experience: With all features originating from a single platform, the design, branding, and user experience across loyalty programs, review widgets, and wishlists remain consistent, reinforcing brand identity and building trust. The unified approach also streamlines processes for collecting and showcasing authentic customer reviews, making the entire post-purchase journey more cohesive.
• Reduced Operational Overhead: A single platform means fewer integrations to manage, fewer billing cycles to track, and a single point of contact for support. This frees up valuable time for strategic growth initiatives rather than administrative tasks.
• Cost Efficiency: By bundling multiple essential features, Growave can offer a better value for money compared to the cumulative cost of acquiring and maintaining several single-function apps. Merchants can explore a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows which is explicitly designed to align with business expansion, ensuring investment scales with success. If consolidating tools is a priority, start by a pricing structure that scales as order volume grows.
• Synergistic Features: The integrated nature allows features to work in tandem. For example, customers can earn loyalty points for leaving reviews, or receive special VIP benefits for wishlisting certain items. This synergy enhances overall engagement and encourages a virtuous cycle of customer interaction. This integration also amplifies social proof that supports conversion and AOV across the store.

Growave's capabilities extend to enterprise-level requirements, supporting multi-language stores and integrating with popular apps like Klaviyo, Omnisend, Gorgias, and Recharge, offering a robust solution even for complex environments. For merchants seeking real examples from brands improving retention through this integrated approach, various case studies illustrate the effectiveness of consolidating their tech stack. Understanding how other teams implement these strategies can provide customer stories that show how teams reduce app sprawl through unified platforms.

Conclusion

For merchants choosing between WC Wishlist Club and Swish (formerly Wishlist King), the decision comes down to a balance of budget, desired feature depth, customization needs, and the importance of a white-glove setup experience. WC Wishlist Club presents itself as an economical option, particularly for smaller businesses or those on a tight budget, offering robust core wishlist features and automated alerts at a very accessible price point. Its tiered pricing model makes it suitable for stores that want to scale their investment as their needs evolve, with advanced integrations and custom design options reserved for its Enterprise plan.

Swish, while starting at a higher price, positions itself as a premium, full-service solution. Its "all features included" approach across most plans, coupled with a free setup and customization service, is highly appealing to brands that prioritize seamless integration, advanced marketing integrations (Klaviyo, GA4, Meta), and a hands-off implementation. Its perfect 5-star rating from a significant number of reviews underscores its reliability and strong customer satisfaction. Swish is particularly well-suited for established businesses, those with specific branding guidelines, or operations already on higher Shopify plans that can leverage its advanced integrations and dedicated support.

Both apps excel at their core function, but the broader strategic context often highlights a common challenge: managing multiple single-function applications. While WC Wishlist Club and Swish each offer excellent solutions for wishlists, they represent just one piece of the customer retention puzzle. An integrated platform like Growave offers a compelling alternative by consolidating loyalty programs, reviews, referrals, and wishlists into a single, cohesive system. This approach not only reduces tool sprawl and fragmented data but also provides a more unified customer experience and a clearer view of total retention stack costs. By streamlining operations and unifying customer data, merchants can drive sustainable growth more efficiently. For merchants interested in seeing how integrated tools improve retention, checking practical retention playbooks from growing storefronts can provide valuable insights. To reduce app fatigue and run retention from one place, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

FAQ

### What are the main differences in pricing models for WC Wishlist Club and Swish (formerly Wishlist King)?

WC Wishlist Club employs a feature-tiered pricing structure, starting at a very low monthly cost and gradually increasing as more advanced features (like headless integration or custom design) are needed. Swish, conversely, ties its pricing to a merchant's Shopify plan (Basic, Shopify, Advanced Shopify, Plus), offering a comprehensive suite of features across all plans with a higher starting price. The latter also includes a free setup service, adding to its value proposition.

### Which app is better for stores needing extensive customization?

Swish (formerly Wishlist King) appears to be the stronger choice for extensive customization, primarily due to its "free setup & customisation service" offered across all plans, ensuring seamless theme integration. While WC Wishlist Club offers custom design and feature build, these are reserved for its highest-tier Enterprise plan.

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

An all-in-one platform like Growave consolidates multiple customer engagement functions (e.g., wishlists, loyalty, reviews, referrals) into a single system. This contrasts with specialized apps, which focus on one function. All-in-one solutions reduce "app fatigue," minimize data silos, ensure a consistent customer experience, and often offer better value for money by avoiding cumulative subscription costs. They also streamline operational workflows, making it easier to manage and optimize customer retention strategies from a unified dashboard.

### Do either of these apps offer guest wishlist functionality?

Yes, WC Wishlist Club explicitly states it provides "Guest, multiple, and Share Wishlist" options, allowing unregistered users to save products. The provided data for Swish does not explicitly mention guest wishlists, but its focus on enabling shoppers to wishlist items throughout their "entire shopping journey" often implies support for both logged-in and guest users, though this specific detail is not specified in the provided data.