Coretava vs Smile.io: What's the Best Loyalty Program App in 2023?

What is the best loyalty program app in the market in 2023?

This question is on the mind of many ecommerce business owners and digital marketers.

In this article we will compare two of the top names among customer loyalty program platforms: Coretava vs Smile.io.

We will look at the tools and features that each app offers, what third-party platforms it integrates with, how much it costs, and what customers think about it. Finally, we’ll show you how to launch your loyalty program with the top app in the market in 2023.

At the end of this review, you can find a summary table which provides a quick summary of the most important similarities and differences between Coretava and Smile.io.

Table of Contents

• Corevata vs Smile.io: What Are They?
• Coretava vs Smile.io: Top Features for Loyalty Programs
• Coretava vs Smile.io: Integrations with Ecommerce Platforms
• Coretava vs Smile.io: Pricing
• Coretava vs Smile.io: Customer Reviews
• Coretava vs Smile.io: Customer Service
• Coretava vs Smile.io: What Is the Best Loyalty App?
• Getting Started with the Top Loyalty App in 2023
• Summary Table: Comparison Between Coretava vs Smile.io

Corevata vs Smile.io: What Are They?

In our Coretava vs Smile.io review, let’s first figure out what each of these tools is and what options it provides to ecommerce business owners and marketers.

Product	Coretava	Smile.io
Loyalty	✔	✔
Marketing	✔	✖
Personalization	✔	✖
Omnichannel	✔	✖
Gamification	✔	✖
Team Engagement	✔	✖

What Is Coretava?

Coretava is a data-driven, multi-segment, 360 retail growth platform. While competitors like Smile.io are simply a loyalty program plugin, Coretava allows ecommerce businesses to optimize marketing, personalization, customer loyalty, and even employee engagement from a single, omnichannel platform in order to boost business performance.

Coretava offers 5 distinct products that work hand in hand to deliver a complete growth journey for businesses in all industries and of all sizes:

• Core Loyalty: An AI-powered loyalty program app providing access to all types of loyalty programs, integrating with all ecommerce platforms, and benefiting all ecommerce business sizes.
• Core Marketing: A data-driven ecommerce marketing app allowing personalization, customization, and gamification to boost customer acquisition and retention.
• Core Personalization: An AI-driven ecommerce personalization app to drive more sales at a higher value.
• Core Omnichannel: An all-in-one app providing a seamless and consistent loyalty experience that meets customer needs and preferences across all touchpoints, both online and offline.
• Core Teams: A smart employee engagement app to improve individual and team dedication, productivity, performance, and development.

Core Loyalty provided by Coretava is a direct Smile.io competitor as one of the best loyalty apps in 2023, but provides many more functionalities and options for businesses.

Coretava is able to meet the requirements and needs of businesses of all types, industries, and sizes, from micro-enterprises to large corporations.

What Is Smile.io?

Smile.io is a segment-specific, transactional loyalty program app that has the basic features expected from such a platform. Smile.io is a Coretava competitor but fails to provide many of the advanced functions available at Coretava.

Importantly, the Smile.io app is based on transactional loyalty and does not use AI-powered, data-driven algorithms to optimize the results of a customer loyalty program. Moreover, unlike Coretava, Smile.io does not have a personalization and recommendation engine.

In terms of market coverage, the use of Smile.io is segment-specific as it is a loyalty program app for small businesses. Smile.io is not a good fit for large ecommerce companies.

Coretava vs Smile.io: Top Features for Loyalty Programs

Next in our comparison between Coretava and Smile.io, let’s take a look at the tools and functionalities available at each app for loyalty program:

Coretava Features & Functionalities

Core Loyalty offers access to all types of customer loyalty programs, across all Core Loyalty plans:

• Points-based loyalty programs
• Cashback loyalty programs
• Tier-based loyalty programs including VIP levels and badges
• Referral programs
• Gamification features such as missions and challenges

Instead of relying on transactional loyalty like most Coretava competitors like Smile.io, Stamped.io, and Yotpo, Core Loyalty uses AI, big data, and machine learning to personalize and customize the experience of customers to boost their loyalty. In this way, customer retention is maximized, which leads to lower churn, higher share of wallet, higher sales value, higher LTV, and more revenue.

The Coretava app provides detailed, smart analytics and insights on the performance of brand’s loyalty programs allowing business owners and marketers to know exactly what works and what doesn’t. In this way, they can easily optimize the performance of tier customer loyalty programs.

Smile.io Features & Functionalities

Unlike Coretava, the Smile.io app covers only the basics of a customer loyalty program app. Instead of using artificial intelligence and data analytics, Smile.io relies on transactions to build loyalty programs. This leads to suboptimal performance in terms of customer loyalty, customer retention, and repeat business.

Smile.io allows ecommerce businesses to launch the following types of loyalty programs:

• Points-based loyalty programs
• Tier-based loyalty programs including VIP loyalty programs (available only in Pro Plan)
• Referral programs

Cashback customer loyalty programs are not available, while tier-based loyalty programs are provided only with Pro plans that are costly for SMEs.

Coretava vs Smile.io: Integrations with Ecommerce Platforms

Another important feature of the best loyalty program app is integrating with all top ecommerce platforms. Let’s compare:

Coretava Integrations

Core Loyalty - one of the most popular Smile.io alternatives - integrates with all the best ecommerce platforms including:

• Shopify
• Shopify Plus
• VTEX
• Nuvemshop
• Zid
• Magento
• WooCommerce

Smile.io Integrations

The Smile.io app integrates with a limited number of ecommerce platforms, including:

• Shopify
• Wix
• BigCommerce

This limited integration makes Smile.io a less viable Coretava alternative.

Coretava vs Smile.io: Pricing

When comparing loyalty program apps, it’s important to look at the pricing. The top app for loyalty programs might turn out to be useless if it’s too expensive, especially for small businesses.

Coretava Pricing

The Coretava pricing structure is based on these factors:

• Ecommerce platform
• Subscription plan: Starter (Free) vs Basic vs Growth vs Pro vs Enterprise (Custom)
• Monthly number of orders
• Access to tools and features

Core Loyalty offers a free Starter plan that can serve the needs of micro businesses or that can be used by all enterprises to test the platform and make sure it meets all their requirements.

Access to all loyalty program types including VIP levels and badges is available with all paid plans.

A monthly subscription to Coretava for integrating with Shopify or PrestaShop costs between $24.99 and $139.99.

A monthly subscription to Coretava for integrating with Vtex costs between $299 and $999.

While this pricing might seem expensive, the higher-tier plans are suitable for big enterprises with a significant number of monthly orders.

Custom Enterprise subscription plans with unlimited monthly orders are available for large businesses.

Smile.io Pricing

The Smile.io pricing structure is based on the following factors:

• Ecommerce platform: Shopify vs BigCommerce vs Wix
• Subscription plan: Free vs Starter vs Growth vs Pro for Shopify and BigCommerce and Free vs Premium for Wix
• Monthly order limit
• Smile.io integrations included
• Other features and tools

Smile.io has a free plan for integrations with all ecommerce platforms, but the features are very limited. Access to the VIP loyalty program tools is available only with the Pro plan, priced at $599/month.

A monthly subscription to Smile.io for integrating with Shopify or BigCommerce costs between $49 and $599.

A monthly subscription to Smile.io for integrating with Wix costs $49.

Lower-tier subscriptions to Smile.io are relatively affordable though they are more expensive than comparable subscriptions to Coretava which come with access to more features. The pricing of Smile.io gets steep for more access to the tools available on the loyalty program app while limited to SMEs only, with a small number of monthly orders.

Coretava vs Smile.io: Customer Reviews

When deciding on the top loyalty program app for your ecommerce business, it’s important to see what existing customers think about the platform. Positive reviews by Coretava customers are a sign the tool will allow you to enjoy all the benefits of a loyalty program without technical glitches.

Coretava Reviews by Customers

Coretava (previously Gamiphy) has a rating of 5/5 stars on the Shopify website. In their positive reviews, happy Coretava customers highlight the amazing features, the comprehensive app (data-driven omnichannel), the acquisition and growth optimization, the supportive team, and the superiority over other loyalty program apps.

Smile.io Reviews by Customers

Smile.io has a rating of 4.8/5 stars on the Shopify website. While many customers are satisfied with the platform, negative reviews by unhappy Smile.io customers complain about technical issues with the app, integration and technical limitations, the high cost, and the extremely poor customer support.

An ecommerce business should consider these Smile.io customer complaints before deciding where to go for their customer loyalty program tool.

Coretava vs Smile.io: Customer Service

The best app for loyalty program should offer impeccable customer service and support. Let’s see how Coretava and Simle.io compare in this regard.

Coretava Customer Service

Coretava reviews by customers praise the availability, responsiveness, and competency of the customer support team. This means that even in the highly unlikely event of a temporary technical issue, or in case you are not sure how to use the app, someone from the Coretava team will be there to help you out right away.

Smile.io Customer Service

Smile.io reviews by customers complain the most about the lack of customer support. Some of them say it’s impossible to connect with a real human being at Smile.io, while others report that their problems were not fixed by the team. Meanwhile, numerous Smile.io customers complain about various technical issues and problems, which means that customer support is frequently required.

Coretava vs Smile.io: What Is the Best Loyalty App?

Our comparison of Coretava and Smile.io shows that Coretava is the best loyalty program app in the market in 2023. It covers all the features and functionalities expected from a platform, allowing ecommerce businesses to optimize their loyalty programs for maximum results. Positive customer reviews of Coretava confirm this. Moreover, the pricing is affordable, and the app works for e-stores of all sizes.

Getting Started with the Top Loyalty App in 2023

Coretava is the only app that you need in order to take your ecommerce business to the next level in 2023. All that’s left is to sign up for a free trial to launch the best loyalty programs in your industry.

Summary Table: Comparison between Coretava vs Smile.io

Refer to the table below for a quick review of the similarities and differences between Coretava and Smile.io:

Feature	Core Loyalty by Coretava	Smile.io
360 Complete Retail Growth Platform	✔	✖
Complete On-Site Control	✔	✖
Points-Based Loyalty Program App	✔	✔
Cashback Loyalty Program App	✔	✖
Tier-Based Loyalty Program App including VIP levels	✔	✔
Referral Program App	✔	✔
Sophisticated Gamification Features	✔	✖
Data-Driven Omnichannel	✔	✖
Integration with All Major Ecommerce Platforms	✔	✖
AI-Powered Analytics & Insights	✔	✖
Good for Micro and Small Businesses	✔	✔
Good for Medium-Sized Companies	✔	✖
Good for Large Business Enterprises	✔	✖
Customer Reviews	5/5	4.8/5
Customer Service	Best in Class (based on customer reviews)	Poor (based on customer reviews)
Affordable Pricing	More affordable than competitors; Suitable for businesses of all sizes; Offering all key features in all plans	Less affordable than competitors; Suitable for SMEs only; Offering only limited features in low-level plans