Smile.io and Joy both give Shopify merchants the core features needed to launch a loyalty program, including points, rewards, referrals, and VIP tiers. But the similarities end there. Their pricing, features, order limits, customization, integrations, and overall approach to building a loyalty program are quite different.
As your store grows, those differences become harder to ignore. What looks like a small price difference at lower order volumes can mean very different costs and feature sets at 2,000 or 5,000+ orders per month. The same goes for how much you can customize your program, how easily it integrates with Shopify apps, how simple it is to manage, and the level of support you get.
In this article, I'll compare Smile.io and Joy at 500, 2,000, and 5,000+ orders per month, break down what you get at each pricing level, and show a third option that offers more features, flexibility, and value than either platform.
Smile.io: A well-established, self-serve choice with a large track record behind it. VIP tiers are included on the $199/month Growth plan, which covers up to 2,500 orders, but paid memberships aren't offered at any tier.
Joy: A strong option once you're on its $129/month Advanced plan, which includes VIP tiers, B2B loyalty, and paid memberships together for 2,000 orders, more functionality than Smile.io offers at a higher price.
Love Loyalty is the best Shopify loyalty app for stores that want VIP tiers, referrals, and paid memberships together at a fixed, published price starting at $79/month for 2,000 orders, cheaper than both Smile.io and Joy for the same core feature set.
I've compared both Smile.io and Joy across the areas that matter most when choosing a Shopify loyalty app for your store.
Now let's get into the details.
Most loyalty app pricing looks straightforward until you factor in order limits, overage fees as your order volume grows, and which features are actually included at each tier.
Here's the real cost breakdown.
At 500 orders a month, you're paying:
Love Loyalty is the cheapest entry point, and Smile.io is the only one of the three besides Love Loyalty to include POS support at this tier.
This is where Joy pulls ahead of Smile.io specifically.
At 2,000 orders a month, you're paying:
Joy costs less than Smile.io at this volume and includes more: paid memberships and B2B loyalty on top of what Smile.io offers for $70 more a month. Love Loyalty still beats both on price, covering the same 2,000 orders and the same VIP-tier-plus-memberships feature set for $50 less than Joy and $120 less than Smile.io.
At this tier, you're paying:
Joy stays closest to Love Loyalty's price at this tier while including comparable functionality. Smile.io costs the most here and offers the least.
Love Loyalty stays flat at $399/month regardless of volume. Joy's Ultimate plan adds checkout extensions and on-demand development at this tier, though its overage keeps climbing with order volume, and Joy moves to a fully custom plan above 17,000 orders a month. Smile.io moves to a custom Enterprise quote at this scale, so there's no published number to compare directly.
Let's say you're running a growing Shopify store processing 2,000 orders a month, and you want VIP tiers, referrals, and paid memberships for your loyalty program.
With Love Loyalty: $79/month for 2,000 orders, with VIP tiers, referrals, POS support, and paid memberships all included.
With Joy: $129/month for the same 2,000 orders, with the same VIP tiers, referrals, POS support, and paid memberships, plus B2B loyalty and Wallet passes.
With Smile.io: $199/month for 2,500 orders, with VIP tiers and referrals included, but no paid membership option at any tier, meaning this scenario isn't fully possible on Smile.io regardless of price.
Joy includes more at its mid tier than Smile.io does at its own, which makes this comparison less about gated features and more about which platform bundles more for less.
Smile.io's entry plan at $15/month covers points, referrals, free product redemption, and a dedicated loyalty page.
VIP tiers arrive at the $199/month Growth plan, along with points expiration and VIP tiers synced to Shopify metafields. Paid memberships never arrive, at any tier, including the $999/month annual Plus plan.
Joy's Essential plan at $29/month covers points, engagement programs, free product and shipping redemption, and fraud prevention, but no VIP tiers.
VIP tiers, B2B loyalty, paid memberships, milestone rewards, and social rewards all arrive together at the $129/month Advanced plan, a complete feature set for less than Smile.io's Growth plan charges for VIP tiers alone.
Love Loyalty includes VIP tiers, referrals, and paid memberships together starting at $79/month, the same core set Joy charges $129/month for and Smile.io doesn't offer at any published price.
At $79/month, you get:
Joy comes closest to matching this, just at a higher price. Smile.io doesn't match it at any price, since paid memberships aren't available on any of its plans.
Smile.io leans on scale and Shopify certification; Joy leans on including more design and translation tools earlier in its pricing.
Smile.io holds both Shopify's Built for Shopify badge and Shopify Technology Partner certification, and is managed entirely through the Smile dashboard without developer involvement.
Joy includes advanced on-site design, a point calculator, and basic translation from its Essential plan onward, with Shopify Flow and Shopify Metafield integration included at every paid tier.
Love Loyalty is built exclusively for Shopify. That's a structural choice, and it shows up in how the app performs.
What that means in practice:
Smile.io and Joy split sharply here: Joy includes paid memberships at its $129/month Advanced plan, while Smile.io doesn't offer them at any tier.
Smile.io doesn't offer paid membership functionality at any tier, including its $999/month annual Plus plan.
Joy includes paid memberships starting at its $129/month Advanced plan, alongside VIP tiers and B2B loyalty. This is a genuine strength for Joy over Smile.io specifically, and one of the few competitors in this space that offers it at all.
Love Loyalty includes paid memberships starting at $79/month, with a 1.8% transaction fee that drops to 0.8% at $399/month, the same feature Joy charges $129/month for and Smile.io doesn't offer at any price.
A merchant sets the benefits, whether that's a percentage discount, free shipping, early access, or bonus points, and customers pay upfront to unlock them.
Smile.io's support is uniform across every plan; Joy's expands with plan tier.
Smile.io offers 24/7 live chat support, email/help desk, and a knowledge base on every plan, including Free, with a dedicated Loyalty Program Strategist available to Plus merchants specifically.
Joy includes live chat support and a knowledge base on every plan, including its free Starter tier. A dedicated account manager and personalized demo arrive at the $129/month Advanced plan, with priority support and white-glove onboarding reserved for Ultimate.
Love Loyalty includes live chat and email support on every plan, including Free. On the Growth and Plus tiers, that expands to founder-led onboarding, performance audits, and on-demand development, support that scales with the plan rather than gating basic responsiveness behind a higher tier.
Both platforms are built for no-code setup, but Joy prices VIP tier configuration into a single mid-tier plan, while Smile.io requires its highest published entry point to reach the same point.
Smile.io is designed for a marketing team to launch and adjust without a developer. Reward structures, on-site widgets, and campaign settings are all managed through the Smile dashboard.
Joy's setup scales with plan: Essential covers the core program without a developer, and Advanced adds VIP tiers, B2B rules, and milestone rewards through the same no-code interface, with a dedicated account manager available to help configure them.
Love Loyalty is designed to be configured once and managed easily from there. Because it's built exclusively for Shopify, its settings map directly to Shopify's native functionality rather than translating from a multi-platform system. Adjusting VIP tier thresholds, adding a reward, or changing where a widget appears takes a few clicks, with live chat support available starting on the $12/month Professional plan.
Both platforms connect to standard Shopify marketing tools, though Joy publishes its integration count directly and bundles Shopify Flow and Metafield integration into every paid plan.
Smile.io connects with Klaviyo, Recharge, and other standard ecommerce tools, with unlimited integrations available from its Growth plan onward. Smile's dual Shopify certification reflects deeper native integration than most multi-platform tools offer.
Joy lists 30+ curated integrations on every plan, including its free Starter tier, with Shopify Flow and Shopify Metafield integration added from Essential onward.
Love Loyalty stores all loyalty data in Shopify metafields, which makes it accessible to other Shopify apps without a custom API integration. Because there's no external database being queried, integrations like Klaviyo, email marketing, and POS all read from the same native Shopify data rather than syncing between two separate systems.
Smile.io's scale and track record are real, but its feature set hasn't kept pace with Joy's at a comparable price: Joy includes VIP tiers, B2B loyalty, and paid memberships at $129/month, functionality Smile.io doesn't offer at any published tier. Between the two, Joy is the stronger pick if paid memberships matter to your program.
That's where Love Loyalty wins over both. It includes the same VIP tiers, referrals, and paid memberships Joy charges $129/month for, and Smile.io doesn't offer at all, at just $79/month for up to 2,000 orders and unlimited orders for only $399/mo.
Yes. Love Loyalty supports migrating existing customer data, including points balances, at scale, and has handled migrations from other platforms tested at over a million customers.
Smile.io charges $199/month for VIP tiers alone, with no paid membership option at any tier. Joy includes VIP tiers, referrals, and paid memberships at $129/month. Love Loyalty includes the same core feature set at $79/month.
No. Joy includes paid memberships starting at its $129/month Advanced plan. Smile.io doesn't offer paid membership functionality at any tier. Love Loyalty includes the same feature starting at $79/month.
Love Loyalty stores all loyalty data in Shopify metafields and doesn't rely on external API calls to load that data, a structural difference from platforms that query an external database.
Yes. Love Loyalty integrates with Shopify POS for both online and in-store transactions, starting on the $12/month Professional plan.
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