What is Rivo? Pricing, Reviews, Why Choose it in 2025?

In today’s crowded ecommerce landscape, winning customers once is just the beginning. As Fred Reichheld, the pioneer behind the Net Promoter Score, famously said,

“Companies that focus on customer loyalty outperform their competitors by significant margins.”

This insight captures why loyalty programs have become an essential growth engine for online brands. But not all loyalty solutions are created equal — many fall short in delivering real engagement or meaningful rewards that keep shoppers coming back.

That’s where Rivo comes in.

Designed specifically for Shopify merchants, Rivo offers a powerful yet easy-to-use platform that helps you build and manage loyalty programs tailored to your customers’ behavior and your brand’s unique goals.

But what exactly makes it different—and how can it help your business grow? Let’s take a closer look.

What Is Rivo: From Reviews to Retention

Many Shopify merchants first discovered Rivo as a product reviews app.

Originally launched as Rivo Product Reviews & UGC, it helped stores collect and display customer reviews—complete with star ratings, photo uploads, and beautifully styled review widgets.

It was clean, modern, and gave merchants a reliable way to showcase social proof and boost conversion rates. But as customer retention became a growing priority in eCommerce, the Rivo team saw an opportunity to do more.

They recognized that while reviews build trust, loyalty builds relationships.

This led to a major product shift: Rivo evolved from a review tool into a full-featured loyalty, referrals, and VIP rewards platform—designed to help merchants keep customers coming back.

Today, Rivo offers a complete suite of retention tools for Shopify brands, with a strong focus on ease of use, no-code setup, and full customization. It’s no longer just about showcasing feedback—it’s about creating a lasting customer journey.

What Rivo Helps You Do— Core Features

Here are Rivo’s core features, crafted to help you build deeper customer relationships and drive sustainable growth:

Rivo Loyalty Program (Points & Rewards)

Rivo’s Loyalty Program is the very heart of encouraging repeat purchases and enhancing customer engagement for your store. It operates on a flexible points-based system, allowing your customers to earn points through a variety of actions. You have the power to customize these “ways to earn” extensively.

For instance, you can reward points when a customer signs up for your program, places an order, celebrates a birthday, or even engages on social media.

If you use review apps like Judge.me or Channelwill reviews, you can also reward points for submitting product reviews, which means you’re leveraging existing customer actions for loyalty.

You can define how points are valued, such as rewarding a specific number of points for every dollar spent, which naturally encourages higher spending.

Once customers have accumulated points, they can redeem them for a range of attractive rewards like fixed-amount or percentage-off discounts, free shipping, or even free products.

For those with physical stores, the system also supports POS-specific coupons, ensuring a consistent experience across all your sales channels. To keep your customers engaged and ensure they use their points, Rivo offers points expiry settings, allowing you to configure points to expire after a certain period of inactivity.

Your customers can easily track their points history and activity through a dedicated dashboard, providing them with full transparency and encouraging their continued participation.

Rivo VIP Tiers Program

The VIP Tiers Program introduces a gamified layer to your loyalty strategy, powerfully motivating your customers to ascend to higher engagement levels. You have the flexibility to create multiple, customizable tier levels, each associated with unique thresholds and exclusive benefits.

Customers can progress through these tiers based on various criteria, such as the total points they’ve earned, the cumulative amount they’ve spent, or the number of orders they’ve placed.

Each tier offers specific rewards, making the journey to the next level highly appealing and aspirational for your customers.

Rivo provides flexible tier period options, including a lifetime tier, a calendar year, or a rolling year expiration.

This innovative rolling year option means that members have 12 months from the moment they join a tier to advance, fostering consistent engagement without the pressure of a fixed annual deadline.

The platform supports automated notifications to seamlessly inform your customers of any changes to their tier status.

Furthermore, Rivo offers VIP Tier analytics, enabling you to track customer distribution across different tiers and monitor the overall performance of your VIP program.

This valuable data helps you understand, nurture, and strategically engage your most valuable customer segments, ultimately strengthening relationships and driving sustainable growth for your brand.

Rivo Referrals Platform

Rivo’s Referrals Platform is an incredibly effective tool for expanding your customer base by transforming your loyal customers into powerful brand advocates.

This system leverages the invaluable power of word-of-mouth marketing by offering double-sided rewards, meaning both the referring customer (advocate) and the new customer (referred friend) receive a benefit.

For example, a referred friend might receive a discount on their initial purchase, and once that purchase is completed, the advocate then earns their reward, creating a win-win scenario that incentivizes sharing.

The platform provides customizable referral messages and a variety of social sharing options, such as email, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp, making it effortless for your customers to share their unique referral links.

To ensure a fully branded experience, Rivo allows for the creation of custom referral landing pages, maintaining a consistent look and feel for your brand. To safeguard the integrity of your program, Rivo includes robust fraud prevention tools, giving you peace of mind.

You also have the option to require referred customers to create an account, further enhancing data quality.

You can easily track the performance of your referral campaigns through referral analytics, monitoring successful conversions and helping you optimize your strategies to reduce customer acquisition costs and drive organic growth effectively.

Rivo Shopify Accounts / Customer Personalization

Rivo’s “Accounts” feature seamlessly integrates into its broader retention platform, transforming your basic Shopify customer login pages into dynamic, personalized, and interactive hubs.

This goes beyond a simple login; it’s designed to significantly enhance customer retention and overall experience. It is fully compatible with Shopify’s new customer accounts, while also providing a robust alternative for Shopify Plus brands seeking more advanced customization capabilities.

Your customers can access a wealth of information in one convenient location, including their order history, shipment tracking, and even perform self-service returns.

Key functionalities include passwordless login for a frictionless access experience and an AI Activation Match that can intelligently predict and suggest future orders, making reordering incredibly easy for your customers.

The platform also supports wishlists and saves for favorite products, along with a recommendation engine to guide their next purchase.

A significant advantage is the fully customizable user experience, allowing you to modify fonts, colors, CSS, and even integrate custom code blocks to perfectly align with your unique brand identity and ensure a native feel.

Moreover, Rivo Accounts integrates with over 50 other applications in your tech stack, consolidating loyalty points, referrals, returns, re-ordering, and profile management into a single, seamless customer portal, streamlining their journey.

All loyalty data directly syncs with your Shopify customer list, meaning all your existing Shopify account holders automatically become members of your loyalty program.

Rivo Pricing That Grows With You

Rivo offers a tiered pricing model designed to scale with your business. There’s a Free Plan available that gives you access to core features like basic reviews, simple popups, and entry-level referral tools. It’s a great way to get started if you’re launching a new store and want to test what works.

As your store grows, the Premium Plan unlocks more powerful features. For $19/month, you can enable advanced customization, email automation, photo/video reviews, and segmentation options for popups. This plan is ideal if you’re starting to get traction and want to professionalize your customer engagement.

For larger stores or those with higher traffic, Rivo offers a Pro Plan with enhanced analytics, A/B testing, and dedicated support. Custom pricing is available on request.

Regardless of which plan you choose, all options are designed to be plug-and-play with Shopify. You won’t need a developer to get started.

And here’s the thing: Rivo doesn’t just sell you a tool. They offer educational resources, onboarding support, and regular product updates—so you’re never left in the dark.

How Rivo Compares to Competitors?

Feature	Rivo	Smile.io	LoyaltyLion	Channelwill
Core Features	Points, referrals, VIP tiers, email popups, automation	Points, referrals, VIP program	Advanced triggers, points expiration, customer segmentation	Points, referrals, social media tasks, VIP tiers
Ease of Use	Extremely user-friendly; intuitive UI; fast setup	Sleek UI, minimal learning curve	Complex backend; onboarding recommended	Simple layout; lighter interface but less localized for Western users
Integrations	Shopify Flow, Klaviyo, email platforms, popup tools	Klaviyo, Shopify POS, Mailchimp, Gorgias	Recharge, Gorgias, Klaviyo, analytics platforms	TikTok, Instagram, Shopify APIs
Pricing	Free plan + affordable paid plans (from $29/month, often discounted)	Free plan available; paid plans start at $49/month	Premium pricing (starting at $159/month); best for high-volume stores	Free plan available; Pro from $39/month
Customer Support	Live chat with fast response times; knowledge base	Email support + help docs; slower response on free plans	Priority support for enterprise plans; account managers included	Bilingual (English/Chinese) support; responsive for growing stores
Best Fit For	Small to mid-sized merchants seeking flexibility & affordability	Brands prioritizing design and customer-facing experience	Data-driven DTC brands with complex loyalty logic	Social-first or cross-border brands with TikTok/Instagram strategies
Strengths	Quick setup, clean UI, built-in engagement tools	Established tool, strong app store presence, reliable integrations	Enterprise features, deep analytics and retention modeling	Gamified flows, influencer/smm-friendly, great mobile UX

Following our comparison, you’ll see Channelwill loyalty stands out as a practical choice for merchants like you. Its free plan is quite generous, supporting up to 50 monthly orders with solid loyalty and referral features. This is a huge win for new or growing businesses, allowing you to start building loyalty without upfront costs.

If your customers are worldwide, Channelwill offers strong multi-language support, ensuring your program speaks their language for better engagement across different regions.

Channelwill loyalty app is “Built for Shopify” certified, ensuring superior integration and reliability. Rivo currently doesn’t have this official endorsement, giving Channelwill a distinct advantage.

Rivo Reviews

Rivo holds strong ratings across key platforms, reflecting real satisfaction from Shopify merchants:

• Shopify App Store: 4.9/5 ⭐ (based on 4,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 ⭐ with high marks in ease of use and customer support
• Capterra: 4.6/5 ⭐, praised for its simple onboarding and affordability

Merchants often highlight the app’s clean interface and responsive support team. One store owner mentioned how they “ As a store owner, this app is showing a lot of results and our customers are super happy to be using the rewards system we have. It increased engagement and purchases.”

Others love the ability to integrate Rivo with Klaviyo and other tools they’re already using.

According to G2’s Spring 2024 Small Business Grid Report, Rivo scored above average in user satisfaction, especially for growing brands. What’s more, reviews consistently praise the Rivo team for listening to feedback and rolling out updates quickly.

These ratings tell a clear story: Rivo isn’t just a tool you install and forget. It becomes part of your store’s long-term strategy.

Wrapping It Up

Rivo offers an all-in-one loyalty solution that’s powerful yet approachable—perfect for Shopify merchants who want to build deeper customer relationships without getting bogged down in complex tools.

Its clean interface, responsive support, and growing feature set make it a smart choice for brands that are ready to take loyalty seriously.

But Rivo isn’t the only option worth considering.

If your store is heavily focused on social media engagement or operates in cross-border markets—especially those with strong TikTok or mobile-first audiences, you might want to look at alternatives like Channelwill loyalty app, which brings a more gamified, social-centric approach to loyalty building.