Best Joy Loyalty Alternatives (2026): 7 Shopify Loyalty Apps Compared

Joy puts eight things behind one price jump. VIP tiers, B2B tiers, paid memberships, Shopify POS, wallet passes, social rewards, cart-drawer redemption and the rule engine all arrive together on the $129 Advanced plan. Nothing below Advanced has any of them.

So the question for anyone shopping Joy Loyalty competitors is narrow. Which of those eight do you need, and what does each cost on its own elsewhere? A store using five of them is getting fair value at $129. A store that only wanted POS is paying $129 for something Appstle sells at $10.

Love Loyalty is the broadest replacement. Joy still wins two arguments, and one of them is about money. Prices and ratings were checked on 27 October 2026.

Quick answer: the best Joy Loyalty alternatives

• Broadest replacement, with memberships, POS and B2B: Love Loyalty
• Cheapest above 500 orders, plus subscriptions and store credit: Appstle Loyalty
• Shopify-native surfaces and developer control: Rivo
• Unlimited orders on a flat fee, and multi-language stores: BON Loyalty
• Familiar setup with POS on every plan: Smile.io
• Loyalty alongside reviews, UGC and wishlists: Growave
• Segmentation and attributed loyalty revenue: LoyaltyLion
• Reasons to stay on Joy: social earning actions, the rule engine, and memberships past roughly $2,780 a month

Most roundups of apps like Joy Loyalty stop there. Entry prices tell you very little once order volume and feature gates enter the picture, so start with the table below.

What Joy costs at your order volume

Monthly orders	Joy	Love Loyalty	Appstle	Rivo	Smile	BON	Growave	LoyaltyLion
500	$29	$12	$10	$15	$15	$29	$15	$199
2,000	$129	$79	$30	$369	$199	$129	$274	~$349 est.
5,000	$429	$399	$100	$499	$699	$129	$699	Custom
7,000	$499	$399	$130	$499	$999	$129	$899	Custom

Joy’s step from $29 to $129 is a feature jump wearing a volume label. Essential covers 500 orders, Advanced covers 2,000, and the four times price increase buys capability far more than headroom.

At the top of the table Joy looks reasonable, sitting below Smile at $999 and Growave at $899. It sits a long way above Appstle at $130 and BON at $129, both of which price differently by design.

Three crossover points matter before you renew anything. Joy’s Advanced plan plus overage stays cheaper than Ultimate up to about 5,700 orders a month, so a store on Advanced doing 6,000 orders is overpaying by staying put. Love Loyalty has the same shape at a lower number, with Growth losing to the $399 Plus plan at roughly 4,133 orders. Rivo flattens at about 2,650 orders because its Scale overage caps at $499, which means Rivo costs the same at 3,000 orders as at 7,000. Joy moves to a custom plan above 17,000 orders and for Shopify Plus stores. For the full arithmetic across the category, see our Shopify loyalty app pricing comparison, and the cost-at-scale research carries the same model past 10,000 orders.

Top Joy Loyalty alternatives at a glance

App	Rating (reviews)	Best for	Entry price	Free plan	Cheaper than Joy at	Main trade-off
Joy	4.9 (1,788)	Social rewards, rule-based loyalty	Free, from $29	250 orders	Reference point	Eight capabilities gated at $129
Love Loyalty	5.0 (412)	Memberships, POS, B2B	Free, from $12	150 orders	POS $12, memberships and wallets $79	1.8% membership fee on Growth
Appstle	5.0 (1,450)	Subscriptions, store credit, scale	Free, from $10	250 orders	POS $10, VIP $30	No memberships or wallet passes
Rivo	4.7 (1,441)	Theme and checkout control	Free, from $15	200 orders	POS $15	Referrals locked until $49
BON Loyalty	5.0 (1,965)	High volume, multi-language	Free, from $15	150 orders	Unlimited orders $129	No memberships, wallets or checkout redemption
Smile.io	4.9 (4,647)	Low-risk launch	Free, from $15	200 orders	POS on every plan	VIP tiers cost $199
Growave	4.8 (1,289)	Reviews and wishlists together	Free, from $15	200 orders	Reviews and UGC included	VIP and store credit need $199
LoyaltyLion	4.7 (543)	Segmentation and reporting	Free to install, from $199	400 orders	Revenue attribution	VIP tiers are a paid add-on

Why merchants look for a Joy Loyalty alternative

1. One plan holds almost everything

Essential at $29 gets you a loyalty page, points expiry, analytics, Shopify Flow and fraud prevention. Advanced at $129 adds the entire retention layer in one go. There is no middle step where you buy POS without also buying the rule engine. Three gates make the point:

• Shopify POS costs $129 on Joy, $10 on Appstle, $12 on Love Loyalty, and nothing at all on Smile’s free plan
• VIP tiers cost $129 on Joy and $30 on Appstle, though Smile and Growave both charge $199 for them
• Checkout redemption needs Joy’s $499 Ultimate plan and a Shopify Plus store. Appstle does it for $100, still with the Plus requirement

2. Referrals are capped below Advanced

Joy’s Starter plan allows 30 referrals and Essential allows 100. Unlimited referrals begin at Advanced. Love Loyalty, Smile, BON and Appstle all put an uncapped referral program on their free plan. Rivo holds referrals back until its $49 Scale plan, the strictest referral gate here.

3. Overage compounds quietly

Joy bills $15 per additional 100 orders on Essential, $10 on Advanced and $5 on Ultimate. A store doing 3,000 orders on Advanced pays $229. The same store on Essential would pay $404, which is why the plan step arrives sooner than merchants expect.

What Joy Loyalty does well

Social earning actions are the standout. Joy rewards follows and engagement on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook as native earning rules, and no other app in this comparison publishes the same thing on its plan page. Milestone rewards and the rule engine sit alongside them, which makes Joy the most configurable option here for campaign-style loyalty. Paid memberships carry no transaction fee.

The app holds 4.9 stars across 1,788 reviews, and those scores are what our app-by-app review study found the category’s support record resting on. Joy also ships an AI loyalty copilot from the $29 Essential plan, and Ultimate adds the full developer toolkit, JS SDK, REST API and headless support.

How we picked these seven

We priced all eight apps at 500, 2,000, 5,000 and 7,000 monthly orders using each listing’s included-order allowance and published overage charge. We mapped every capability behind Joy’s $129 plan and found the cheapest plan elsewhere that includes it. We noted which data fields survive a migration.

And we checked App Store ratings, official pricing pages and product documentation on 27 October 2026. Review counts say something about support quality, not about your results.

The seven alternatives

Love Loyalty: Best for memberships, POS, B2B and broad Shopify loyalty

Best for: Shopify and Shopify Plus brands running points, VIP tiers, paid memberships, POS and B2B loyalty as one program.

Rating: 5.0 (412 reviews) | Price: Free, paid plans from $12/month | Free plan: Yes

Current plan shape: Free to 150 orders. Professional $12 to 500. Growth $79 to 2,000, then $15 per 100, plus a 1.8% paid-membership fee. Plus $399 unlimited, with a 0.8% membership fee.

Love Loyalty is the only app here that matches Joy across the whole retention layer, and it starts charging for that layer much earlier down the ladder.

Why it may be a better Joy alternative

• Shopify POS runs on the $12 Professional plan against Joy’s $129
• Cart redemption and uncapped referrals are on the free plan
• Memberships, VIP tiers, B2B segments and wallet passes all sit on Growth at $79
• At 5,000 orders Plus is $399 against Joy’s $429, with no ceiling above it

Key features: points and referrals, paid memberships, Apple and Google Wallet passes from Growth, POS from Professional, B2B loyalty by customer segment, two-step cart redemption, 15+ storefront touchpoints, Klaviyo and Shopify Flow, checkout extensions and API on Plus.

Where Love Loyalty wins: memberships and wallets in one app, POS at a tenth of Joy’s price, and the clearest upgrade path of the seven.

Trade-offs: the 1.8% membership fee on Growth is the catch, and it sends high-membership stores back to Joy. Checkout extensions and API need the $399 plan. At 412 reviews the evidence base is the smallest here. Shopify only. The Joy vs Love Loyalty call usually comes down to membership revenue, and our Love Loyalty alternatives page runs the same comparison from the other side.

Appstle Loyalty, best for subscriptions, store credit and cost at scale

Best for: subscription merchants, and any store whose complaint about Joy is the bill.

Rating: 5.0 (1,450 reviews) | Price: Free, paid plans from $10/month | Free plan: Yes

Current plan shape: Free to 250 orders. Starter $10 to 500. Business $30 to 2,000. Business Premium $100 to 5,000, then $0.015 per order.

Appstle is the cheapest app here at every volume from 500 to 5,000 orders, and the gap is not small. At 7,000 orders it comes to about $130 against Joy’s $499.

Why it may be a better Joy alternative

• $30 covers 2,000 orders with VIP tiers included, where Joy charges $129
• Store credit is on the free plan, which suits brands rewarding in cash value
• POS is on the $10 Starter plan
• Checkout redemption costs $100, the cheapest route to it on this page

Key features: points, store credits and referrals, VIP programs from Business, cart and checkout redemption, POS from Starter, Appstle Subscriptions integration, multi-language and multi-currency support, analytics with data exports, Klaviyo and Omnisend.

Where Appstle wins: price, by a margin nothing else matches, and the link into Appstle Subscriptions that makes Joy vs Appstle Loyalty an easy call for stores already on Appstle billing.

Trade-offs: no paid memberships and no wallet passes, so two of Joy’s distinctive features have no equivalent. No social earning actions. Checkout redemption still needs Shopify Plus. The wider product family means more settings at setup.

Appstle Loyalty on the Shopify App Store

Rivo: Ideal for Shopify-native customization and developer control

Best for: Shopify-first brands with a developer or designer who wants control over how loyalty renders.

Rating: 4.7 (1,441 reviews) | Price: Free, paid plans from $15/month | Free plan: Yes

Current plan shape: Free to 200 orders. Essential $15 to 500. Scale $49 including 400 orders, then $20 per 100, capped at $499. Plus $499 to 2,500, custom above.

Read the Scale plan twice. Its $49 headline covers 400 orders, fewer than the $15 Essential plan, so the real cost climbs fast.

Why it may be a better Joy alternative

• Theme extensions, custom CSS and fonts give more control than Joy’s widget settings
• The Rivo Developer Toolkit and checkout extensions are on Plus
• POS is on the $15 Essential plan
• The $499 cap means cost stops rising at about 2,650 orders

Key features: points and ways to earn, VIP tiers and points expiry from Scale, referrals from Scale, theme extensions and on-site prompts from Essential, POS from Essential, advanced branding with custom CSS, analytics and bonus campaigns, developer toolkit and checkout extensions on Plus.

Where Rivo wins: storefront and checkout surfaces, and the tooling underneath them.

Trade-offs: referrals are locked until $49, which is worth checking against your acquisition plan. At 2,000 orders Rivo costs $369, the second highest in the table. No memberships, wallet passes or reviews. Joy vs Rivo comes down to whether someone on your team will actually use the toolkit, and our Rivo alternatives page covers who leaves it and why.

BON Loyalty: Used for high volume and international stores

Best for: stores past 2,000 orders a month that want a flat bill, and merchants selling in several languages.

Rating: 5.0 (1,965 reviews) | Price: Free, paid plans from $15/month | Free plan: Yes

Current plan shape: Free to 150 orders. Starter $15 to 300. Basic $29 to 500. Growth $129 with unlimited monthly orders.

BON’s Growth plan is the only unlimited-order plan under $399 here. It costs the same as Joy Advanced and removes overage entirely.

Why it may be a better Joy alternative

• $129 at 7,000 orders against Joy’s $499, with the gap widening above that
• Multi-language display and multi-currency discounts from the $29 Basic plan
• VIP tiers and a B2B tier program on Growth, matching Joy’s Advanced tier for the same money with no order ceiling

Key features: points and automated emails, referral program with anti-cheat controls, VIP and B2B tiers on Growth, POS from Basic, multi-language display from Basic, streak purchases and daily check-in points, product page points, Klaviyo from Starter.

Where BON wins: predictable cost at volume, and localization without an enterprise plan. The BON Loyalty vs Joy Loyalty comparison is the shortest version of that argument.

Trade-offs: no paid memberships, no wallet passes and no checkout redemption, so three Advanced features have no counterpart. Analytics are thinner than LoyaltyLion’s. The trial length is not published anywhere, against 14 days elsewhere.

Smile.io: Konwn best for a low-risk launch

Best for: teams that want the most-used loyalty app on Shopify and a setup nobody has to think about.

Rating: 4.9 (4,647 reviews) | Price: Free, paid plans from $15/month | Free plan: Yes

Current plan shape: Free to 200 orders. Essential $15 to 500. Standard $79 to 1,000. Growth $199 to 2,500, then $20 per 100. Plus $999 on annual billing only, to 7,500 orders.

Why it may be a better Joy alternative

• Native Shopify POS on every plan, including the free one
• 4,647 reviews, more than double the next app here, so support quality is well documented
• Emails can route entirely through Klaviyo from the $15 plan

Key features: points, referrals and 10+ ways to earn, free product and free shipping rewards, VIP program from Growth, points expiry from Growth, native POS on all plans, Klaviyo and Judge.me, VIP tier sync to Shopify metafields, API on Plus.

Where Smile wins: POS at zero cost, and the largest body of merchant evidence in the category, which our Smile.io review works through in detail.

Trade-offs: VIP tiers cost $199, the most expensive VIP gate on this page and $70 above Joy’s. Integrations are capped at one on Essential and two on Standard. At 7,000 orders Smile is $999, the highest figure in the pricing table, and Plus bills annually only. No memberships or wallet passes. Our Smile.io alternatives page covers the rest.

Smile.io on the Shopify App Store

Growave, best for loyalty with reviews and wishlists

Best for: stores paying separately for a loyalty app, a reviews app and a wishlist app.

Rating: 4.8 (1,289 reviews) | Price: Free, paid plans from $15/month | Free plan: Yes

Current plan shape: Free to 200 orders a month, capped at 500 lifetime orders. Entry $15 to 500 orders, then $20 per 100. Growth $199 to 1,500, then $15 per 100. Plus $499 to 3,000, then $10 per 100. Unlimited $999.

Why it may be a better Joy alternative

• Photo reviews and UGC on the $15 Entry plan, which would otherwise be a second subscription
• Wishlists with email alerts, plus Instagram UGC
• One dashboard and one support queue across four retention tools

Key features: points, referrals with fraud protection, nudges, photo reviews and Instagram UGC, wishlists with email alerts, VIP program from Growth, store credit and gift cards from Growth, social login, POS, Klaviyo and Shopify Flow.

Where Growave wins: app consolidation. Judge it on the combined bill against your current stack, which is the case our Growave review makes in full.

Trade-offs: VIP tiers, points expiry and store credit all need the $199 Growth plan. Checkout extensions need Plus at $499 and a Shopify Plus store. At 7,000 orders it comes to $899. The loyalty module alone is shallower than Love Loyalty’s. Our Growave alternatives page covers the stores that leave the suite.

LoyaltyLion: Best for segmentation and attributed revenue

Best for: established brands with a retention team and a reason to report on loyalty revenue.

Rating: 4.7 (543 reviews) | Price: Free to install, paid plans from $199/month | Free plan: Yes, 400 orders

Current plan shape: Free to install to 400 orders. Classic $199 from 500 orders, with an existing-customer cap of 2,000 and no published overage rate — third-party estimates put the step at about $10 per 100 orders. Advanced and Plus are quoted.

Why it may be a better Joy alternative

• Loyalty revenue reporting and Klaviyo flow support that Joy’s built-in analytics do not attempt
• Custom earning activities, on-site and off-site
• An onboarding manager on Classic, and a loyalty page designed for you

Key features: points for custom activities, free and discount vouchers, bonus points for specific products and collections, loyalty challenges from Advanced, segmentation and win-back campaigns, POS locations, unlimited integrations on Classic, Klaviyo, Gorgias, Recharge and Attentive.

Where LoyaltyLion wins: reporting depth. If someone has to justify the loyalty budget in a spreadsheet, this is the app that produces it, and our LoyaltyLion review shows where the reporting stops.

Trade-offs: dynamic VIP tiers, rolling or calendar-based, are an optional paid add-on on Classic, so $199 does not include the feature Joy bundles at $129. Checkout redemption requires Shopify Plus on every tier. Classic caps existing customers at 2,000 orders. No memberships or wallet passes, and it is tied for the lowest rating here. Our LoyaltyLion alternatives page covers the cheaper routes to the same analytics.

Who should stay with Joy Loyalty

Stay if social rewards drive real signups, because nothing on this page replaces them. Stay if you are on Advanced and using four or more of the gated capabilities, since unbundling across two apps would cost more and add a second dashboard.

Stay if your paid memberships are doing volume. This is where the top-ranked alternative loses on price. Love Loyalty Growth is $79 plus 1.8% of membership revenue. Joy Advanced is $129 with no membership fee. The two lines cross at about $2,780 a month in membership revenue, and past that point Joy is cheaper. At $10,000 a month in memberships, Love Growth works out to $259 against Joy’s $129. That figure is Magicbean arithmetic from the published plan terms, so check it against your own numbers first.

How to switch from Joy Loyalty

Do not uninstall Joy first. Export customer IDs, points balances, VIP tier assignments, membership status, referral history, store credit and your active earning rules while the app is still live.

Then ask the replacement app, in writing, which of those fields it can import. Several will not carry across. Wallet passes have to be reissued. Active membership subscriptions usually need rebuilding and re-billing. Referral attribution rarely survives, and custom rule-engine logic has no equivalent format anywhere else.

Install the new app, rebuild earning and redemption rules, map VIP thresholds to the same spend levels, and reconnect Shopify Flow, Klaviyo and any cart or POS placements. Test on real orders with a sample customer. Keep Joy running until the two systems reconcile. If you need a cheaper landing spot during the overlap, our best free Shopify loyalty apps and loyalty apps for small Shopify stores roundups cover the plans that work under 500 orders. Cancel Joy last, and our points migration checklist keeps the sequence in order.

Which Joy alternative should you choose

If you need	Choose	Cost at 2,000 orders
Memberships, POS and B2B in one app	Love Loyalty	$79
The lowest bill, or subscription loyalty	Appstle Loyalty	$30
Theme extensions and developer tools	Rivo	$369
Unlimited orders, or multi-language	BON Loyalty	$129
A familiar setup with free POS	Smile.io	$199
Reviews and wishlists alongside loyalty	Growave	$274
Revenue attribution and segmentation	LoyaltyLion	~$349 est.
Social rewards, or memberships past $2,780/month	Stay on Joy	$129

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Joy Loyalty alternative in 2026?

Love Loyalty, for most stores. It matches Joy on memberships, wallet passes, POS and B2B tiers, and sells Shopify POS on a $12 plan against Joy’s $129.

What is the cheapest Joy Loyalty alternative?

Appstle Loyalty. It is $10 at 500 orders, $30 at 2,000 and around $130 at 7,000, where Joy costs $499. BON is flat at $129 with unlimited orders.

Which Joy alternative supports Shopify POS for the least money?

Appstle at $10 a month. Love Loyalty is $12, Rivo is $15, BON is $29, and Smile includes native POS on its free plan. Our POS and omnichannel roundup tracks the same field plan by plan.

Which alternatives support paid memberships?

Love Loyalty only, from its $79 Growth plan with a 1.8% transaction fee. Appstle, Rivo, BON, Smile, Growave and LoyaltyLion do not sell paid memberships on any published plan. Our VIP tier app guide ranks the plans that gate tiers and memberships.

Can Joy points balances and VIP tiers be migrated?

Points balances and VIP assignments export and import in most cases. Wallet passes, membership subscriptions, referral history and custom rules generally do not, so budget time to rebuild them.

Which Joy alternative is best for subscriptions?

Appstle Loyalty, because it connects directly to Appstle Subscriptions. Store credit sits on its free plan, which suits recurring-revenue brands that reward in cash value.

Which app is best for international Shopify stores?

BON Loyalty. Multi-language display and multi-currency discounts start on its $29 Basic plan, and the $129 Growth plan removes order limits.

Is Love Loyalty better than Joy Loyalty?

For memberships under roughly $2,780 a month in revenue, yes, and for POS by a wide margin. Joy is cheaper once membership volume clears that line, which is what our Smile.io vs Love Loyalty comparison shows alongside a third option at the same price point.