Smile.io Pricing: The $999 Plan Is Not on the App Store

Smile.io publishes six pricing tiers and the Shopify App Store shows four of them. The panel runs Free at 200 monthly orders, Essential at $15, Standard at $79 and Growth at $199 including 2,500 orders with $20 per additional 100, then stops and links out. smile.io/pricing continues from there to Plus at $999 a month billed annually for 7,500 orders with $5 per 100 overage, and then to Enterprise on custom terms. Both surfaces were read on 8 October 2026 and they agree on every tier they both list.

That missing half of the ladder is the whole pricing story, because the overage rate falls roughly fourfold on the way up. Growth charges 20 cents an order past its allowance; Plus charges 5 cents. The consequence is a crossover at exactly 6,500 monthly orders, where Growth and Plus both cost $999, and a brand that does not know Plus exists keeps paying the 20 cent rate past it. At 10,000 orders that mistake costs $575 a month.

Below is the full ladder across both surfaces, the cost at named order volumes, the two cliffs inside it, and what each tier actually unlocks.

The full ladder, across both surfaces

Smile is the oldest loyalty app in its category, launched on 2 December 2014, and it runs on 57,813 live Shopify stores. The Smile listing read 4.9 stars from 4,622 reviews on 8 October 2026, with 69 one-star reviews inside that total and the Built for Shopify badge present on the page.

Best for: brands under about 2,500 monthly orders that want VIP tiers, checkout redemption, points expiry and unlimited integrations at one flat price. Growth bundles all four at $199, which at the top of its allowance works out at 8 cents an order, the best value anywhere in Smile's ladder. The free plan also carries full branding, 20-plus languages and Shopify POS, so a multi-market brand can launch online and in store before paying anything.

Not ideal for: brands growing through 3,000 orders a month on a monthly budget. The 20 cent Growth overage takes a 5,000-order brand to $699 and a 7,500-order brand to $1,199, and the plan that fixes it is $999 billed annually, an $11,988 commitment the App Store panel never shows. A brand planning its upgrade from the listing alone will not see the cheaper option until it is already overpaying for the one it is on.

Plan	Price	Included monthly orders	Overage	Where it is published
Free	$0	200	none	both
Essential	$15/month	500	none published	both
Standard	$79/month	1,000	none published	both
Growth	$199/month	2,500	$20 per 100 orders	both
Plus	$999/month, billed annually	7,500	$5 per 100 orders	smile.io only
Enterprise	custom	unlimited	not applicable	smile.io only

Four tiers publish no overage at all, which makes them ceilings rather than meters. Crossing 200, 500 or 1,000 orders does not add a per-order charge; it moves you a whole tier. Only Growth and Plus have a meter, and that is where the arithmetic lives.

Why the panel stops at four

The four-card limit is a platform constraint rather than a Smile decision. Shopify's developer documentation states that an app "can add up to eight public plans", while the App Store listing panel renders at most four plan cards. Shopify's own listing guidance tells vendors that "enterprise-level pricing plans should be referenced in the Description of additional charges section", which is a line of small print rather than a card.

So Smile's panel carries its first four tiers plus a "See all pricing options" link, and the two tiers a high-volume brand would actually buy live one click away. Nothing is hidden and nothing disagrees. The figures on smile.io/pricing and on the App Store matched on every shared tier when both were read on 8 October 2026. The panel is simply a partial view, and a brand pricing an upgrade from the panel alone is working from four of six numbers.

What Smile costs at named order volumes

Each row is the cheapest published Smile plan covering that volume, with overage added. Figures from the App Store listing and smile.io/pricing, both read 8 October 2026.

Monthly orders	Plan	Monthly cost	Effective cost per order
200	Free	$0	$0
500	Essential	$15	3.0 cents
1,000	Standard	$79	7.9 cents
1,100	Growth	$199	18.1 cents
2,500	Growth	$199	8.0 cents
3,500	Growth	$399	11.4 cents
5,000	Growth	$699	14.0 cents
6,500	Growth or Plus	$999	15.4 cents
7,500	Plus	$999	13.3 cents
10,000	Plus	$1,124	11.2 cents
15,000	Plus	$1,374	9.2 cents

Read the right-hand column as a curve rather than a list. The effective rate falls from 3 cents to 8 cents as you climb the flat tiers, spikes to 18.1 cents at 1,100 orders, bottoms out again at 8 cents at the top of Growth's allowance, then climbs to 15.4 cents at 6,500 orders before Plus drops it back to 13.3 cents and keeps falling.

The most expensive order Smile will ever bill you for is the 6,500th. That is the peak of the curve, and it is the exact point where the plan you cannot see from the App Store becomes the cheaper one.

Cliff one: order number 1,001

Standard covers up to 1,000 monthly orders for $79 and publishes no overage rate, so there is no gradual path out of it. A brand at 1,000 orders pays $79. A brand at 1,001 orders pays $199.

That is 2.5 times the bill for one additional order, and it is the single sharpest step in the ladder. It also arrives at an awkward volume: 1,000 orders a month is roughly where a brand starts treating loyalty as infrastructure rather than an experiment, and the price of doing so more than doubles with no warning in the plan card.

The practical move is to price Growth before you need it. If your trailing three-month order count is above about 850, budget $199 rather than $79, because a single strong month commits you.

Cliff two: the 6,500-order crossover

Growth includes 2,500 orders for $199, then charges $20 per additional 100 orders, which is 20 cents each. Plus includes 7,500 orders for $999 a month billed annually, then charges $5 per 100, which is 5 cents each.

Set the two equal and the crossover is exact. Growth at 6,500 orders costs $199 plus 4,000 overage orders at 20 cents, which is $999, precisely what Plus costs. Below 6,500 orders Growth is cheaper. Above it, Plus is cheaper and widens the gap fast: $200 a month cheaper at 7,500 orders, $575 at 10,000, $1,325 at 15,000.

The commitment shape differs, and that is the real decision rather than the arithmetic. Growth is billed monthly. Plus is $999 a month billed annually, an $11,988 commitment, and the App Store panel shows no annual billing option on any Smile tier. So the brand facing this choice is being asked to sign a year at the moment its order volume is least predictable, which is why the crossover is worth knowing six months before you reach it rather than during the month you cross it.

What each tier actually unlocks

Smile prices features by volume tier rather than separately, which means the feature you need sets your price regardless of your order count.

Free, 200 orders. Points, rewards and referrals with 15-plus ways to earn and redeem, discount and free-shipping rewards, full branding customisation, 20-plus languages and Shopify POS. That is an unusually complete free tier on branding and language, and the POS support is rare at this level.

Essential, $15. A dedicated loyalty page, free product rewards, on-site nudges, analytics and reporting, Shopify Flow triggers and one integration such as Klaviyo. Analytics starting here is the line that matters: the free plan runs a programme you cannot attribute.

Standard, $79. Bonus events such as a double-points weekend, points embedded on product pages, points promoted on the order thank-you page, subscription and gift-card rewards, loyalty segments with ROI and lifetime-value insights, and two integrations.

Growth, $199. Loyalty Hub for signed-in members, checkout redemption on Shopify Plus, VIP tiers, points expiry, performance benchmarks, 25-plus pre-built reports and unlimited integrations.

The concentration at Growth is the thing to notice. VIP tiers, points expiry, checkout redemption and unlimited integrations are four of the most commonly required capabilities in loyalty, and all four arrive at the same $199 step. A brand doing 300 orders a month that wants a tiered programme pays $199, the same as a brand doing 2,500, because tier access is bound to the plan rather than to volume. If tiers are the reason you are shopping, your Smile price is $199 whatever your size.

The integration ladder is also worth reading twice: one integration on Essential, two on Standard, unlimited on Growth. A brand running Klaviyo and Judge.me together is on Standard at minimum, and a brand adding Gorgias or Recharge to that is on Growth.

What to check before you commit

Price the tier above the one you think you need. Smile's ceilings are hard on four of six tiers, so the cost of being wrong is a whole tier rather than a few cents. Run your trailing three-month order count and your peak month, not your average.

Check whether your must-have feature is a Growth feature. If it is VIP tiers, points expiry, checkout redemption or more than two integrations, the price is $199 and the order-volume arithmetic is irrelevant. That is a cleaner decision than it looks, and it is worth establishing in the first ten minutes rather than after a trial.

Read both pricing surfaces before you upgrade. The App Store panel does not render Plus or Enterprise, and the Growth-to-Plus crossover at 6,500 orders is invisible from inside the app. A brand at 8,000 orders on Growth is paying $1,299 a month for an allowance Plus would cover for $999.

Confirm the billing cadence. Plus is quoted at $999 a month billed annually. Treat it as an annual contract decision rather than a monthly software decision, and negotiate the Enterprise tier instead if your volume is genuinely above 7,500 orders, since Enterprise is the only tier published as unlimited.

The business case underneath any of these numbers is unchanged. Harvard Business Review's summary of the retention research puts acquiring a customer at five to 25 times the cost of keeping one, and cites Frederick Reichheld's finding at Bain that lifting retention 5% raises profit 25% to 95%. Against those numbers $199 a month is small. The reason to do this arithmetic is not whether loyalty pays, it is that the same software costs $999 or $1,699 at 10,000 orders depending on which half of the ladder you read.

For what a loyalty programme costs beyond the app subscription, see what a loyalty programme actually costs. For the capability that most often forces the $199 step, tiered loyalty programmes and VIP programme design cover what tiers need to be worth the money, and loyalty programme ROI covers how to judge the spend. If the arithmetic above pushes you to compare vendors, Smile.io alternatives prices the rest of the category.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Smile.io cost per month? Free at up to 200 monthly orders, then $15, $79 and $199 on the App Store panel, which covers 500, 1,000 and 2,500 orders. smile.io/pricing adds Plus at $999 a month billed annually for 7,500 orders and Enterprise on custom terms. All figures read 8 October 2026.

What is Smile's Plus plan and why is it not on the App Store? Plus is $999 a month billed annually, includes 7,500 monthly orders and charges $5 per additional 100. It is absent from the listing because Shopify's App Store panel renders at most four plan cards while allowing an app up to eight public plans, so Smile's fifth and sixth tiers sit behind the "See all pricing options" link.

When does Smile Plus become cheaper than Growth? At exactly 6,500 monthly orders, where both cost $999. Growth is $199 plus 20 cents per order above 2,500, so at 6,500 orders the overage alone is $800. Above that volume Plus is cheaper: $200 a month less at 7,500 orders and $575 less at 10,000.

What is Smile's overage charge? $20 per additional 100 orders on Growth, which is 20 cents an order, and $5 per additional 100 on Plus, which is 5 cents. The Free, Essential and Standard plans publish no overage, so crossing their caps moves you to the next tier instead.

Which Smile plan includes VIP tiers? Growth, at $199 a month. Points expiry, checkout redemption on Shopify Plus, the Loyalty Hub, performance benchmarks and unlimited integrations arrive on the same tier, so all five capabilities carry the same price whatever your order volume.

Does Smile offer annual billing? The App Store panel showed no annual price on any of its four plans on 8 October 2026. Plus is quoted on smile.io as $999 a month billed annually, and Enterprise is annual on custom terms, so annual billing applies only to the two tiers the listing does not display.