Best Shopify loyalty and rewards apps 2026: 8 verified and ranked

Short answer: the best Shopify loyalty app in 2026 for most stores is Smile, which runs points, referrals and VIP tiers from one widget with 20+ storefront languages. 4.9 stars across 4,150 reviews, free up to 200 monthly orders, $15/month after that.

Craftshift builds Shopify apps and none of them is a loyalty app. Ours handle variant images and product grouping, and there is no honest way to connect either to a points program, so we will not invent one. Nothing of ours is in the ranking or the table below.

Now the thing that decides this purchase. Every app here does points, referrals and rewards. Settled. What separates them is pricing shape: all eight charge by monthly order volume, so the free plan is a trial with a countdown on it, and the plan that finally adds VIP tiers can cost thirteen times the one below it. The question is not which app has the most ways to earn. It is what this costs at the volume you hit next year.

Every figure below was read off the App Store listing in July 2026. The order is by review volume, largest first, because that is the one ranking signal we can show you rather than assert.

In this guide

• What a loyalty app actually does
• The comparison table
• Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards
• BON Loyalty Program & Rewards
• Joy Loyalty Program & Rewards
• Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards
• Appstle Loyalty Program Reward
• Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist
• Yotpo: Loyalty Rewards Program
• LoyaltyLion Loyalty Program
• What a loyalty app will not fix
• How to choose
• FAQ
• The retention spend nobody audits first

What a loyalty app actually does

A loyalty app issues points for orders and on-site actions, converts them into discounts, free shipping or free products, runs a referral scheme with fraud checks, and (higher up the price list) sorts customers into VIP tiers. It lives on your product page, cart and customer account as a widget, and emails people when they earn or are about to lose something.

What it buys is repeat rate. Not traffic, not first-visit conversion. That matters, because a loyalty program on a store doing 40 orders a month is a solution waiting for a problem: you cannot retain customers you have not acquired. Work out what a repeat customer is worth in our free customer lifetime value calculator first. If that number is under your monthly app bill, go read the email marketing roundup instead.

The best Shopify loyalty apps compared

Ratings, review counts and prices from the Shopify App Store, July 2026. The free ceiling is monthly orders, which is what every app in this category meters.

App	Rating (reviews)	Free plan ceiling	Cheapest paid	VIP tiers from
Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards	4.9 (4,150)	200 orders/mo	$15/mo	$199/mo
BON Loyalty Program & Rewards	5.0 (1,798)	150 orders/mo	$15/mo	$129/mo
Joy Loyalty Program & Rewards	4.9 (1,691)	250 orders/mo	$29/mo	$129/mo
Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards	4.8 (1,390)	200 orders/mo	$15/mo	$49/mo
Appstle Loyalty Program Reward	5.0 (1,224)	250 orders/mo	$10/mo	$30/mo
Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist	4.8 (1,174)	200 orders/mo	$15/mo	$199/mo
Yotpo: Loyalty Rewards Program	4.8 (891)	100 orders/mo	$199/mo	$199/mo
LoyaltyLion Loyalty Program	4.6 (469)	400 orders/mo	$199/mo	$199/mo

Smile: Loyalty Program Rewards: best overall

Smile is the biggest app in this category by review volume: 4.9 across 4,150 reviews, with the Built for Shopify badge. Its free plan is unusually complete for 200 monthly orders: points, rewards and referrals, 15+ ways to earn and redeem, discount and free shipping rewards, full branding, 20+ storefront languages and POS. Essential at $15 covers 500 orders and adds a loyalty page, free product rewards, nudges, analytics and one integration.

Honest limitation: VIP tiers and points expiry, the two features most merchants picture when they say loyalty program, live on Growth at $199/month, with Standard at $79 for 1,000 orders in between. Redeeming points at checkout needs Shopify Plus, which is Shopify’s constraint rather than Smile’s.

BON Loyalty Program & Rewards: best rating at scale

BON holds 5.0 stars across 1,798 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge, the highest average of any app here with a sample that large. Free Forever covers 150 monthly orders with points, an anti-cheat referral program, automated emails, money-off, percentage-off and free shipping rewards, and collection or product exclusions. Starter at $15 raises it to 300 orders and adds a loyalty page, free product rewards, birthday rewards and expiry reminders.

Honest limitation: 150 monthly orders is the lowest free ceiling here, below Smile and Rivo at 200 and Joy and Appstle at 250. POS earn and redeem waits for Basic at $29. VIP tiers, B2B tiers and streak points sit on Growth at $129, which does at least cover unlimited orders.

Joy Loyalty Program & Rewards: deepest automation

Joy runs 4.9 across 1,691 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge. Its free Starter tier covers 250 monthly orders with points, referrals with fraud prevention, a unified widget and email notifications. Essential at $29 adds points for social engagement, a loyalty page, expiration rules, 30+ integrations and Shopify Flow automation with 22+ triggers. Advanced at $129 brings VIP and B2B tiers, a custom rule engine, bonus campaigns, cart drawer redemption, a POS extension and wallet passes.

Honest limitation: the overage maths. Essential includes 500 orders then charges $15 per extra 100, so 900 orders costs $89, more than Smile’s $79 plan covering 1,000. Advanced includes 2,000 orders and $10 per extra 100 after. Run your real order count through the tiers, not last winter’s.

Rivo: Loyalty Program, Rewards: cheapest route to VIP tiers

Rivo is 4.8 across 1,390 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge. Free Forever covers 200 monthly orders with points, ways to earn and redeem, branding and automated emails. Essential at $15 covers 500 orders and adds a loyalty and referral page, theme extensions that embed points on the product page, on-site prompts, two integrations and POS. Scale at $49 is where VIP tiers, points expiry, bonus campaigns and custom CSS branding arrive, the cheapest tier here that includes tiers at all.

Honest limitation: the referral program is listed on Scale, not Essential, so the $15 plan is points only. 4.8 is the joint lowest rating here, alongside Growave and Yotpo, and the step from $49 to Plus at $499 is the widest jump on this page.

Appstle Loyalty Program Reward: cheapest paid tier

Appstle Loyalty is 5.0 across 1,224 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge, and it prices more aggressively than anything else here. Free covers 250 monthly orders with earning and reward rules, loyalty pages, store credits, referrals, milestone emails and data exports. Starter at $10 runs to 500 orders and adds advanced branding, nudges and POS earn and redeem. Business at $30 covers 2,000 orders and includes the VIP program and custom points expiration.

Honest limitation: $30 for 2,000 orders with VIP tiers looks impossible next to Smile at $199 for 2,500, so the fair counter is track record. 1,224 reviews against Smile’s 4,150 is under a third of the sample, and checkout redemption needs Shopify Plus and the $100 plan.

Growave: Loyalty & Wishlist: three apps in one

Growave is 4.8 across 1,174 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge, and it is the only app here bundling loyalty, wishlist and product reviews on one bill. The free plan covers 200 monthly orders across all three. Entry at $15 covers 500 orders and adds advanced rewards, referrals with fraud protection, nudges, review request emails, POS and Shopify Flow. Growth at $199 brings VIP tiers, store credit, gift cards and Instagram UGC.

Honest limitation: the free plan carries Growave branding, and Entry charges $20 per extra 100 orders, the steepest overage here. Bundling only saves money if you need all three. If you already run a dedicated app from our review app roundup, you are paying twice for the same job.

Yotpo: Loyalty Rewards Program: for stores already on Yotpo

Yotpo Loyalty runs 4.8 across 891 reviews. Free to install covers stores under 100 monthly orders: a rewards sticky bar, points for purchases, points exchanged for discounts, referrals and reporting. Pro at $199/month adds a rewards page, more ways to earn, checkout redemption, webhooks and integrations with Klaviyo and Recharge, then meters $0.08 to $0.20 per order from 500 orders a month.

Honest limitation: two plans, and the gap between them is a canyon. 100 monthly orders is the tightest free ceiling here and the next rung is $199, with nothing in between. It also lacks the Built for Shopify badge, unlike six of the eight apps here. The real reason to choose it is that your reviews and SMS already live in Yotpo.

LoyaltyLion Loyalty Program: the most generous free order ceiling

LoyaltyLion is 4.6 across 469 reviews. Free to install covers 400 monthly orders, the highest free ceiling on this page, with points for on-site activities, currency and percentage discount rewards, branding, loyalty analytics and segments, real-time notifications and pre-written emails. Classic at $199 adds a free loyalty page design, customisable rules, unlimited integrations, VIP tiers, POS locations and loyalty-attributed revenue reporting.

Honest limitation: 4.6 is the lowest rating here and 469 the smallest review sample. Classic covers 500 orders a month and above that the listing sends you to a custom quote, so budgeting past that means a sales call. No Built for Shopify badge either. That said, 400 free orders is twice Smile’s, and for a store testing whether loyalty moves anything, that is the cheapest experiment on this page.

What a loyalty app will not fix

We build in a different corner of the App Store, so take this as an outsider’s read rather than a pitch. Points move repeat rate. They do nothing about the reasons people did not buy the first time, and merchants routinely install a rewards program to solve a problem that lives on the product page.

If shoppers bounce off a listing where the photo does not match the colour they picked, no amount of points fixes that. If a customer has to open six near-identical pages to compare colours, that is merchandising. There is data on the second one in whether product card swatches move conversion, and on the collection page side in collection swatches and conversion rate.

Blunt version: a points program is a multiplier on a store that already converts. Multiply zero and you still have zero. Sequence matters more than app choice, and the cheapest way to find out where you stand is to price a repeat order in our free profit margin calculator first.

How to choose in about a minute

Skip the feature grids. Three questions decide it:

1. How many orders a month? Under 150, take a free plan and pick on ceiling: LoyaltyLion 400, Joy and Appstle 250. Between 500 and 2,000, Appstle at $10 to $30 is cheapest, and Rivo at $49 is the cheapest with VIP tiers.
2. Do you genuinely need VIP tiers? Tiers only pay once you have enough repeat customers to sort. If you cannot name your top 5% by revenue today, you are buying a feature you cannot operate.
3. What else is on the bill? Growave replaces a review app and a wishlist app as well. Yotpo makes sense if your reviews are already there. Otherwise buy the loyalty app on its own merits.

One opinion, stated plainly. Order-volume pricing punishes exactly the stores it should reward: your bill rises with your success while the app does identical work per order. Nobody will break that model while it prints money. Read the overage line before the feature list. Every time.

FAQ

Which loyalty app should I use for a small Shopify store?

Under 200 monthly orders, Smile’s free plan (4.9 stars, 4,150 reviews) covers points, referrals, branding and POS with nothing to pay. If you expect to pass that soon, Appstle Loyalty at $10/month is the cheapest paid tier in the category and BON holds the highest rating with a large sample at 5.0 across 1,798 reviews. LoyaltyLion’s free plan covers the most orders at 400.

Is there a genuinely free Shopify loyalty app?

All eight have a free tier, capped by monthly orders: LoyaltyLion 400, Joy and Appstle 250, Smile, Rivo and Growave 200, BON 150, Yotpo 100. Growave adds its branding on the free plan. The rest let you run a real program until the order ceiling catches you.

What does a Shopify loyalty program cost at 1,000 orders a month?

Wildly different amounts, which is the point of reading the tiers. Appstle Business at $30 covers 2,000 orders. BON Growth at $129 covers unlimited. Smile Standard is $79 for 1,000. Joy Essential at $29 plus $15 per extra 100 makes 1,000 orders $104. Growave Entry at $15 plus $20 per extra 100 lands near $115. Four times the spread, same category.

Do loyalty programs actually increase repeat purchases?

They can, and we are not going to quote a percentage we cannot source. The mechanism is real: an unspent points balance is a switching cost, and a customer sitting on 400 points has a reason to return that a rival cannot match with a discount code. Measure repeat purchase rate before and after, over two purchase cycles, not points issued.

Can customers redeem points at checkout?

Only on Shopify Plus, in every app here that offers it. Smile puts it on Growth at $199, Appstle on Business Premium at $100, BON lists it on the free plan for Plus stores, and Yotpo includes it on Pro. On non-Plus plans the standard pattern is a discount code generated from points and applied in the cart. Our free discount code generator is useful for testing what those codes look like before you wire anything up.

Should I use an app that bundles loyalty with reviews and wishlists?

Only if you need all of it. Growave bundles loyalty, wishlist and reviews on one plan: real value at 200 orders a month, real overlap if you already run a review app. Bundles also make switching harder, because replacing one product means replacing three.

Related reading

• Best Shopify store credit apps
• Best Shopify email marketing apps
• Best Shopify review apps
• Best Shopify upsell apps
• Best Shopify bundle apps
• Collection swatches for separate colour products

The retention spend nobody audits first

A closing thought that is not about loyalty apps at all. Points bring a customer back. They do not bring back the one who opened the parcel and found the wrong colour, because that person has already decided what your store is like. Retention software is cheap to buy and expensive to make work on top of a product page that misleads people.

So if your catalogue carries a lot of colours or options, read a month of return reasons before you design a tier structure. That is the corner we build in: Rubik Variant Images filters a product gallery to the variant a shopper selected, so what is on screen matches what ships. 5.0 stars across 410 reviews, free to install for one product. It is not a loyalty app, it is not in the table above, and it does not belong there. Different problem, earlier in the same funnel.

Otherwise: pick on order volume and overage, not on the number of ways to earn. If you are still under a hundred orders a month, spend the $199 on getting the second hundred instead. More on the display side in our guide to apps that handle product variants.