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TOP 3 ALTERNATIVES — RANKED
Three you should evaluate first.
Filtered from 12 candidates by feature similarity, audit score, and review velocity. The hero treatment is editorial — these earned more space because the data did.
Appstle℠ Subscriptions App
Loyalty and rewards#1TOP PICK
5.008,604 reviews
91/100Audit score
Pick if you're surveying the marketplace
Widely used on this marketplace — not a like-for-like swap. AppRanks found no app sharing Gather: Refer a Friend's category, so this is not a replacement for it — it is a widely-used loyalty and rewards option shown for market context. Compare it against your own requirements rather than as a swap.
BON Loyalty Program & Rewards
Loyalty and rewards#2RUNNER-UP
5.001,920 reviews
94/100Audit score
Pick if you're cost-sensitive
Adjacent tool, different job. Different use case from Gather: Refer a Friend. Listed because it is among the most-adopted loyalty and rewards apps on this marketplace, not because it covers the same job.
Appstle Loyalty Program Reward
Loyalty and rewards#3VALUE PICK
5.001,346 reviews
91/100Audit score
Pick if you're mapping adjacent tooling
Popular alternative to evaluate on its own merits. Solves a different problem than Gather: Refer a Friend. Useful market context; verify the capability overlap yourself before treating it as an option.
SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON
Gather: Refer a Friend versus the top 3.
Five rows, all loaded above the fold. Wins are highlighted; nothing's hidden behind a tab.
RANKS #4 THROUGH #12
The next 9, denser.
Lower-ranked but legitimate. Click any row for the full profile — or compare side-by-side with Gather: Refer a Friend.
How these alternatives are ranked
Scored daily. Three signals, weighted and blended. No vendor money changes anything.
45%Feature similarity
N-gram match against Gather: Refer a Friend's feature signature, weighted by category overlap.
35%Audit + rating
Listing quality (0–100) blended with rolling 90-day rating average. Penalizes thin listings.
20%Review velocity
Reviews added in trailing 30 days, normalized by category baseline. Surfaces rising challengers.
Every Shopify alternative on this page is scraped, normalized, and re-scored every 24 hours. We don't accept paid placement, vendor-funded "best of" content, or sponsored ranking — and we publish the rules so you can audit them yourself. If a vendor disagrees with their position, that's between them and the data.
WHEN DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO SWITCH FROM GATHER: REFER A FRIEND?
Four reasons people leave.
Decision triggers, not marketing. If two or more apply, your shortlist starts with the apps named below each card.
Pricing has outgrown your usage
If your usage of Gather: Refer a Friend has crossed a pricing-tier breakpoint, per-unit cost is usually where alternatives diverge most clearly. Some apps in the list above carry a free tier; others are paid from day one. Compare the published plans on each alternative's page against your current bill — the gap is the only number worth acting on, and it is specific to your usage.
BON Loyalty Program & Rewards · Appstle℠ Subscriptions AppYou need a feature outside the focus
Each Shopify category has a feature spectrum. The "Similar feature set" badge above marks alternatives whose feature signature most overlaps with Gather: Refer a Friend. The "Category leader" badge marks apps that may approach the same category from a different feature angle — useful if you want to widen rather than narrow your toolset.
Appstle℠ Subscriptions AppSupport response has slowed you down
Support quality is the hardest thing to read from a listing, and it is the most common reason a switch gets made. Read the most RECENT reviews on each alternative's profile rather than the lifetime average — recency is what tells you how the app is supported today, and trailing review velocity is the freshest signal AppRanks tracks.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Answers built from the data.
Built from the same scores the ranking uses — so they won't contradict the table.
For most accounts under typical category usage, the answer depends on tier. Appstle℠ Subscriptions App is in the freemium band (Free plan available), while Gather: Refer a Friend is freemium (Free plan available). At parity scale, the cheaper option can save 30–60% — but feature-for-feature swaps usually narrow the gap above the second tier.
VERDICT · UPDATED TODAY
If you're moving from Gather: Refer a Friend, the most common landing spots are Appstle℠ Subscriptions App (unknown feature match, audit 91/100) and BON Loyalty Program & Rewards (pricing leverage + breadth). Skip Affiliate Marketing ReferrLy unless your use case is unusual.
If feature parity matters most
→ Appstle℠ Subscriptions App
Unknown feature parity. Audit 91, 5.00★.
If pricing matters most
→ BON Loyalty Program & Rewards
Best for cost-sensitive teams. 5.00★ across 1,920 reviews.
If you're scaling enterprise
→ Appstle Loyalty Program Reward
Strongest scale fit when category usage exceeds typical thresholds. Vendor-evaluate before committing.
Continue your research
Audit Gather: Refer a Friend's listing
See where Gather: Refer a Friend ranks 0–100 on listing completeness, screenshots, and description quality.
Open auditGather: Refer a Friend vs Appstle℠ Subscriptions App
Side-by-side feature deltas, shared keywords, rating curves over the trailing 12 months.
Open compareShopify category leaders
Highest-rated Shopify apps by intent. The category-by-category leaderboard.
Open best
