Joy vs. Essent: Which one should a new store trust? [2026]

Picking a loyalty app often comes down to an odd trade-off: the cheapest, most feature-packed option can also be the one with the least published detail to back it up. Essent unlocks VIP tiers and referrals on its free plan, further than most apps go at that price. Joy costs more at nearly every stage, and what that extra cost buys is specifics, real mechanisms, and real numbers, instead of a feature just being listed as included.

This guide compares Joy and Essent on pricing, features, limits, and the practical value each one offers, so you can choose the better fit for your store.

Joy vs. Essent in one minute

Essent gives new stores a lot for free. Its free plan includes VIP tiers, referrals, and Klaviyo, making it a strong choice if your main goal is to launch a basic loyalty program with little upfront cost.

Joy costs more as you move up the plans, but you get more tools to build and manage a loyalty program as your store grows. Its paid plans add 30+ integrations, Shopify Flow automation, analytics, fraud prevention, VIP and B2B tiers, POS, wallet passes, and paid memberships.

Best value for a new store focused on keeping costs low: Essent.

Best value for a store that wants more tools to grow and manage retention: Joy.

If you expect your loyalty program to become an important part of your retention strategy, Joy's broader feature set can make the higher monthly cost easier to justify.

Joy vs. Essent at a glance

Here's how the two compare in terms of pricing, features, and overall value for your store.

What each platform does well

The biggest difference comes down to value. Essent gives new stores more useful features for free, while Joy offers more tools and control as the loyalty program grows.

What we like about Joy

Joy feels like the better fit when loyalty is something you plan to grow over time, rather than just add to your store.

You get 30+ ways for customers to earn points, including social actions, and 6 ways to redeem them. That gives you more freedom to reward the behaviors that matter to your store, whether that means repeat purchases, referrals, or customer engagement.

The integrations are another big plus. Joy works with 48 integrations, with no limit on how many you can use at once. For a growing store, that means your loyalty program can work alongside your email, marketing, customer service, and other tools instead of sitting on its own.

We also like the level of control over referrals. Joy offers several ways to limit referral abuse, including setting a cap on the number of referrals a customer can make. That can save you from giving rewards away to customers trying to game the system.

As your loyalty strategy evolves, Joy also offers options such as API access and wallet passes. These may not matter to a brand-new store, but they become much more useful once loyalty is tied closely to your broader retention strategy.

What we like about Essent

Essent makes a strong case if keeping your upfront costs low is the priority.

Its free plan already includes VIP tiers, referrals, cart drawer redemption, and Klaviyo integration. So a new store can launch with several useful loyalty features without having to upgrade right away.

The pricing is also easy to budget around. There is no published overage charge, and the Growth plan is $79 a month with unlimited orders. If your store has a lot of orders, that can make the monthly cost much easier to predict.

The trade-off is that Essent's value is strongest when you want a solid set of core loyalty features without spending much upfront. Joy asks you to pay more as you move up, but gives you more tools to connect loyalty with the rest of your retention strategy.

If you want to see how Joy works before committing to a paid plan, you can try Joy for free on Shopify.

Feature-by-feature: how they actually work

The table above provides an overview. Here's a closer look at seven areas where the mechanics actually differ.

VIP tiers and POS

This is one area where Essent has a clear cost advantage. You get VIP tiers on the free plan, then POS support from $10 a month. If you are starting a new store and want to give your best customers extra perks without adding much to your monthly costs, that is hard to beat.

Joy asks you to spend more. VIP tiers and POS start at $129/month on Advanced. But you get more control over how your VIP program works. You can move customers into tiers based on points earned, money spent, or number of orders. You can also give each tier ongoing perks such as discounts, free shipping, free products, bonus points, or exclusive products.

That difference matters once you want your VIP program to do more than simply reward your biggest spenders. For example, you can use order count to encourage more frequent purchases, or points to reward referrals and other actions, rather than relying solely on how much someone spends.

There is also a bigger cost difference to consider. Essent gives you VIP and POS much earlier, while Joy's $129 plan is a much bigger commitment. So if you only need basic VIP rewards and in-store loyalty, Essent gives you more value for less.

If you want VIP tiers to become a more strategic part of your retention program, Joy gives you more ways to shape the experience around how you want customers to buy and engage.

Verdict: Essent wins on upfront value. You can add VIP tiers for free and POS for $10/month. Joy wins on flexibility. The higher price makes more sense when you want to use VIP tiers to influence purchase frequency, spending, and long-term loyalty, rather than just giving your best customers a higher discount.

Cart drawer redemption

Essent wins on upfront value. Cart redemption is included on its free plan, so you can let customers use their points at checkout without paying for a higher tier. That makes it a strong option if you want to add rewards without increasing your monthly costs.

Joy puts cart redemption on Advanced at $129/month, but gives you more control over the experience. Customers can view and apply available rewards directly in the cart drawer, remove a reward and get their points back, and keep shopping without leaving the page. The cart can also update as customers change their orders.

Verdict: Essent wins on price. Joy is worth considering if you want a smoother, more flexible redemption experience that keeps customers in the shopping flow.

Wallet passes

Joy lets your customers add their loyalty membership to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. They can keep their loyalty QR code on their phone and show it at the POS without having to open their store or search for their account.

The pass can also display their points and VIP tier, with updates as their loyalty status changes. That makes it easier to use rewards in-store and keeps loyalty within easy reach whenever they shop.

Essent does not currently appear to offer an equivalent wallet pass feature.

Verdict: Joy wins. It gives customers a simpler way to carry and use their loyalty membership, especially when they shop in-store.

Referral fraud protection

Referral programs can quickly become expensive if customers find ways to earn rewards without bringing in genuine new buyers.

Joy gives you several ways to reduce that risk. You can block referrals from the same browser or IP address, prevent rewards for unpaid orders, reject emails linked to previous purchases, limit how many referrals each customer can make, and require customers to log in before referring someone. You can also adjust referral limits by VIP tier.

Essent also includes referral fraud protection, which is a useful feature. The difference is that Joy gives you more control over how you want to protect your referral budget.

Verdict: Joy wins. If referrals are an important part of your growth strategy, having more ways to prevent abuse can help you protect rewards and ensure more of your referral spend goes toward genuine new customers.

Earning and redemption

Joy gives you 30+ ways for customers to earn points, so you can reward more than just purchases. Customers can earn by placing orders, signing up, and engaging with your social channels. If Instagram or TikTok is an important part of how you build customer relationships, rewarding those actions can give people another reason to engage with your brand.

You also have 6 ways to redeem points, including discounts, free shipping, free products, store credit, gift cards, and sending rewards to friends. That gives you more flexibility to match rewards to different customer preferences instead of relying on discounts alone.

Essent offers 12+ ways to earn points, which is enough to build a basic rewards program around purchases and other customer actions. However, its redemption options are less clear, so you have less visibility into how much flexibility you will have when designing your reward strategy.

Verdict: Joy wins. Essent covers the basics well, but Joy gives you more ways to reward customer engagement and more options for turning points into rewards. That gives you more room to build a program around how your customers actually interact with your brand.

Integrations and API

Joy gives you more freedom to connect your loyalty program with the rest of your store. It supports 48 integrations across areas such as email marketing, reviews, customer service, and analytics, with no limit on how many you can use simultaneously.

That means your loyalty data can work alongside the tools you already use. You can connect rewards and customer activity to your broader marketing strategy rather than managing loyalty as a separate system.

Essent keeps things simpler. It connects with Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Judge.me, covering some of the most common needs around email and reviews. It also offers API integrations on its Growth plan, though the available information provides less detail about what you can build with them.

Verdict: Joy wins. Essent covers the key integrations you may need when starting out, but Joy gives you much more flexibility as your tech stack grows. If loyalty needs to connect with more parts of your business, that flexibility can save you from switching tools later.

Notifications

Joy gives you more control over what your customers receive. Notifications start turned off, so nothing is sent until you choose which messages to enable. You can then customize the subject line, content, and branding to match your store.

That extra control is useful if you want your loyalty emails to feel like part of your brand, rather than automated messages that look out of place. It also gives you time to review each message before your customers see it.

Essent takes the easier starting point. Built-in emails are included on the free plan, so you can get basic loyalty communication up and running without spending time setting up each message first.

Verdict: Joy is better if you care about control and brand consistency. Essent is better if you want to get started quickly with less setup. For most stores, the extra control is useful once loyalty becomes a regular part of your customer communication.

What it costs at each stage of growth

Price is only part of the value. What matters is what you get at each stage and whether it supports how you want to grow.

Just starting out: free plans

Both support up to 250 orders a month for free. Essent includes VIP tiers and referrals, while Joy includes points and referrals.

Verdict: Essent offers more value upfront. Joy is better if you only need a simple points-and-referral program.

Growing past the free plan

At 500 orders, Joy Essential costs $29 a month. Essent Starter costs $10 and includes POS support.

Verdict: Essent offers more for less at this stage. Joy becomes more valuable if you need more ways to connect and manage your loyalty program.

Reaching VIP tiers and scaling further

Essent gives you VIP tiers from the free plan, while Joy unlocks them on the Advanced plan at $129. Essent is cheaper, but Joy gives you more control over tier qualification and rewards.

Verdict: Essent wins on cost. Joy offers more value if you want VIP tiers to actively drive repeat purchases and customer engagement.

High volume

Essent's $79 Growth plan includes unlimited orders, while Joy Ultimate costs $499 for 7,000 orders before incurring overage charges. Essent clearly gives you more order capacity for less, but Joy's higher price includes a broader set of tools for managing loyalty at scale.

Verdict: Essent wins on order capacity. Joy can offer better value if you will use its advanced tools to make loyalty a core part of your retention strategy.

The full price ladder

Joy pricing:

• Starter: Free (250 orders/mo)
• Essential: $29/month (500 orders/mo)
• Advanced: $129/month (2,000 orders/mo)
• Ultimate: $499/month (7,000 orders/mo)

Essent pricing:

• Free: $0/month (250 orders/mo)
• Starter: $10/month (500 orders/mo)
• Essential: $24/month (1,500 orders/mo)
• Growth: $79/month (unlimited orders)

Which one fits where you're headed

Choose Joy if you:

• Want more ways to build loyalty around purchases, referrals, social engagement, and repeat buying
• Want stronger control over referral abuse, rewards, VIP tiers, and redemption
• Need more integrations and API access as your loyalty program becomes part of your wider retention strategy
• Are willing to invest more for a loyalty setup you can grow into

Choose Essent if you're:

• Starting out and want VIP tiers and referrals without paying more
• Want to keep your loyalty costs low as order volume grows
• Prefer simple pricing and a straightforward loyalty setup
• Are comfortable choosing a newer app in exchange for more features at a lower cost

Switching from Essent to Joy

If you decide Joy is a better fit as your loyalty program grows, you do not have to rebuild everything yourself.

Joy's migration team can help migrate your existing points, VIP tiers, and referral data from Shopify apps that do not yet have a dedicated migration guide. The team can review your current setup and help rebuild it in Joy.

You can see how the migration process works on Joy's migration page or contact Joy's support team to discuss your move from Essent.

Which Loyalty App Gives You Better Value?

Essent wins on upfront value. You get VIP tiers and referrals for free, plus unlimited orders at $79 a month. If keeping costs low is your priority, it is a strong option.

Joy costs more, but gives you more control as your loyalty program grows, with deeper redemption options, referral protection, integrations, and tools for a more advanced retention strategy.

If you want a loyalty program you can grow into, try Joy free on Shopify.

Frequently asked questions