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Loyalty Program Get on Shopify

Loyalty points for Shopify that customers actually spend.

Essential Loyalty runs the points program on your store. Customers earn points 14 different ways, then spend them in the cart, at checkout or at the register. The first reward stays close enough to be worth chasing.

  • ★ 5.0 430+ reviews
  • Free plan, no card
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A collection product card carrying its own loyalty badge: 89 points, shown with the cash value it is worth.

Loyalty points are your store's own currency

Customers earn points when they buy, and for other things too: signing up, leaving a review, having a birthday. They spend those points on money off, free shipping or a free product.

You decide what each action earns and what each reward costs. That part is easy. Getting people to care is the hard part, and it is where most programs fail.

Plenty of them ask for 10,000 points to get $5 off. A shopper works out that this would take a year, and never thinks about it again.

How loyalty points work, in three steps

All three arrive already set up. You choose how generous to be, and the rest of the maths follows from there: on a $50 order, a customer's first $5 reward is two orders away, not a year away.

  1. 01

    You pick a reward rate

    The one decision at setup. It sets how fast points build up and what a reward costs.

  2. 02

    Customers earn on more than orders

    Every order earns points, with a bigger bonus on the first one. Signing up, reviews, birthdays and social follows earn too.

  3. 03

    They spend without a discount code

    Rewards come off in the cart, at checkout, in their account and at the register. Nothing to copy or paste.

Why the first reward has to be close

Researchers followed a café's loyalty cards across roughly 10,000 purchases. Customers bought 20% faster the closer they got to the free coffee.

In another study, a car wash handed out two cards that both needed eight more purchases. One of them looked already started, with two of ten stamps filled in. That card was used 34% of the time, against 19%.

Kivetz, Urminsky and Zheng (2006) and Nunes and Drèze (2006). Both studied loyalty programs in general, not Essential's results.

Many ways to earn points

Customers earn for more than buying. All of it works on every plan, including the free one, and you can switch off anything you do not want.

  • Buying

    Every order earns points, and the product page shows how many. A first order earns a bigger bonus.

  • Signing up

    Joining the program, or subscribing to your emails.

  • Coming back

    A visit, once a day.

  • Birthdays

    A yearly gift that sends itself.

  • Reviews

    Points for a review that gets published, through Judge.me.

  • Social

    Following or sharing on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X, or visiting a link you choose.

  • Referrals

    Bringing a friend who orders. Both of them get rewarded.

Every way to earn is on the free plan.

Points, VIP tiers, referrals and the automatic emails all run on the free plan, up to 250 orders a month. At the cap the program pauses and asks you. It never starts billing on its own.

14

Ways to earn, every plan

See full pricing

Add your own rules with Shopify Flow

The built-in rules cover most stores. Shopify Flow lets you add your own: double points over $100, a bonus on one collection, a top-up for a customer tag. No code, and nothing extra to buy.

Integrations

Where customers spend their points

Nothing to copy, nothing to paste. Points come off the price in the places where people actually pay.

  • A loyalty widget on a phone showing a 120 point balance, the next reward and ways to earn and redeem

    Floating widget

    It sits on every page of your store: their balance, ways to earn, ways to redeem and how close they are to the next tier.

  • A cart offering 6,500 points to redeem against a product or $10 off, with a Redeem and apply button

    In the cart, in one tap

    Money off, a percentage off, free shipping, a free product, or their own amount on a slider.

  • Shopify checkout with the loyalty block applying a reward inline, with no discount code to enter.

    Inside the Shopify checkout

    Growth + Plus

    The reward applies on the checkout page itself, so nobody has to go back to the cart for it.

    For Shopify Plus
  • A Shopify POS terminal with the loyalty app open, showing a customer's points balance mid-redemption.

    At the register, in your shop

    Starter

    Staff find the customer in Shopify POS and spend the same points in store.

    POS loyalty

The rest of the points program

Points are one balance, shared across the whole Shopify loyalty program. These three decide what that balance is worth.

  • VIP tiers

    Tiers multiply every point a customer earns. Free on every plan, where others charge $30 to $199 a month.

  • Store credit

    Turn points into real Shopify store credit, which comes off the next order by itself.

  • Points calculator

    Work out your earn rate and your first reward from your own average order value.

What merchants say about Essential Loyalty

5.0 average from 430+ reviews on the Shopify App Store

Read all reviews

  • I just spent 2 hours on another affiliate type app because we wanted customer referral codes. Then I found that this app already had it and so I clicked through to figure it out. It took me LESS THAN 10 MINUTES TO SET IT UP.
    Damsel in this Dress Corsets
  • The app itself is powerful and easy to work with, while the support team goes above and beyond to ensure everything runs smoothly. Highly recommended for any Shopify store looking to build a reliable and effective loyalty program.
    GetMorePower.bg
  • I've had a great experience using the Essential Loyalty app on my Shopify store. Highly recommended for any Shopify store owner looking to improve customer loyalty and increase repeat purchases.
    FIXCOMART
  • App is great! pricing is spot on. This team moves the needle. They really care about us store owners and are constantly evolving their families of apps in our favor.
    That Detail Shop
  • We had been using SMILE for 5+ years and then tried Essential Loyalty! Way cheaper! Better functionality! Easy to migrate across. Matas on the support team was great and super fast response. Would highly recommend Essential Loyalty!
    SMOKO E Cigarettes
  • Easy setup with a clean, intuitive interface. The free plan includes the referral program with up to 250 orders/month, which is generous for new stores. Customizable rewards, branded popups, and multiple sharing options (email, Facebook, X, WhatsApp) make it simple to launch.
    DiabFix

Shopify loyalty points questions

Anything else? The support team answers every message, on every plan, including free.

Get support

A store's own currency, earned by shopping and spent on rewards. A customer earns points on every order, then swaps them for money off, free shipping or a free product. Points only work when the first reward is close enough that people bother.
Fourteen earning rules, in seven kinds. Every order earns by default, usually with a bigger bonus on a first order. You can also give points for signing up, subscribing, leaving a review, a birthday, a daily visit, following you on social, or referring a friend. Shopify Flow adds rules of your own on top.
Whatever you decide. You pick how generous to be at setup, and that one choice sets both how fast points build and what a reward costs. The presets keep a first $5 reward about two orders away, rather than a year away.
One that produces round numbers at your average order value and puts the first reward one or two orders away. Most Shopify stores land on 1 point per $0.10 spent. The calculator works it out from your own average order value.
In the floating widget on any page, in the cart, inside Shopify checkout, and at the register through Shopify POS. There is no discount code to copy, which is where rewards go unused on a phone.
Shopify has no points program built in. It gives you customer accounts, discounts and store credit, and an app turns those into a points system: a balance for each customer, rules that add to it, and rewards that spend it. Essential Loyalty is that app, and it is free up to 250 orders a month.
You set the rate, so you decide what it costs. Reachable is not the same as cheap: it means a first-time buyer can see a reward they would actually get, rather than one that reads as impossible and gets ignored.
Not unless you want them to. Expiry is off by default, and on the Essential plan and above you can set a window of 6 to 24 months.
The points come off their balance automatically, in proportion to what was refunded, and refunded spend stops counting toward their VIP tier.
Yes, with Shopify Flow. If Shopify can detect it, Flow can award points for it with no code: an order over a threshold, a particular collection, a customer tag, or a date range.
No. All fourteen earning rules, every reward type and the storefront placements are on every plan, including the free one. Paid plans buy order volume and control, not more ways to earn.
Essential Loyalty Program & Rewards app icon on a glossy black tile

Add loyalty points to your store for free.

Install the app, turn it on, and customers start collecting points on their next order. Free up to 250 orders a month. See pricing

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