Loox vs Okendo for Stores Under 100 Orders
If you're running a Shopify store with fewer than 100 orders a month, the review app decision comes down to one thing: how much you pay before reviews start earning you money. Loox and Okendo both collect product reviews and photo reviews, but they're built for different stages. Loox is a photo-first review app priced for small catalogs. Okendo is a customer marketing platform with reviews as one module, aimed at brands with real budgets. Below is how they compare at your volume, what each actually costs at the low end, and which one to install first.
Loox vs Okendo for Stores Under 100 Orders: The Short Answer
For a store under 100 orders, start with Loox. Its entry plan is built around photo reviews and a review widget, which is exactly what a new store needs to build social proof on product pages. Okendo's strengths — deep segmentation, loyalty integrations, advanced review syndication — only pay off once you have a few hundred reviews and a marketing stack to plug them into.
Pick Okendo instead only if you already know you'll be running a full retention program (reviews plus loyalty plus referrals) within the next few months and you'd rather avoid migrating later. Otherwise, Loox gets you collecting photo reviews this week at a lower entry cost.
Pricing Compared: What Each App Actually Costs at Low Volume
Both apps are subscription-based with a free tier, and both scale price by order volume. Because pricing changes, treat the numbers below as structure, not quotes — check current pricing on each app's Shopify listing before you commit.
| Loox | Okendo | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes, limited order volume and features | Yes, limited order volume |
| Paid entry tier | Low-cost plan for small stores | Higher entry tier, priced for growing brands |
| Pricing basis | Monthly order count | Monthly order count (tiers) |
| Photo reviews on free plan | Limited | Limited |
| Typical fit | Stores doing 0–500 orders/mo | Stores doing 500+ orders/mo |
The practical difference: Loox's paid tiers start lower, so a store doing 30–80 orders a month can move off the free plan for a modest monthly fee. Okendo's paid tiers are priced for brands with more volume and more budget, which means a sub-100-order store often sits on the free plan longer — and hits its limits sooner.
One cost people forget: both apps can charge overage or require a plan upgrade when you cross an order threshold mid-month. If you're running a launch promotion, check which tier your order count will land in before the sale, not after.
Free Plan Limits: How Many Reviews and Orders You Get Before Paying
Free plans are where most new stores live for the first few months, so the limits matter more than the paid features.
- Loox free plan: lets you collect a capped number of reviews per month and display a basic review widget. Photo reviews are limited, and some widget layouts and email customization are locked behind paid plans.
- Okendo free plan: lets you collect a capped number of reviews per month with basic display. Advanced features — custom question sets, segmentation, integrations — require a paid plan.
The key question to ask before installing either: how many reviews per month does the free plan allow, and what happens when I hit the cap? On both apps, hitting the cap means new reviews stop being requested or published until you upgrade. For a store getting 20–40 orders a month, a free plan that allows 50 reviews a month is plenty. For a store doing 90 orders with a 30% review request rate, you'll collect roughly 27 reviews a month — still fine, but check the cap.
Feature Comparison for New Shopify Sellers: Photo Reviews, Widgets, and Email Requests
Here's what actually matters at your stage, feature by feature.
Photo reviews. Both apps support photo reviews. Loox is built around them — the default request flow pushes customers to add a photo, and the widget displays photos prominently in a grid. Okendo supports photo and video reviews too, but the photo-first experience is more central to Loox's product.
Review widgets. Loox offers a star rating widget, a review grid, and a carousel-style widget you can drop on product pages and the homepage. Okendo's widgets are more configurable (custom layouts, richer filtering) but require more setup to look good. For a new store, Loox's defaults look polished out of the box.
Email review requests. Both send automated post-purchase review request emails. Loox's request emails are simple to configure and include photo incentives by default. Okendo's request flows are more flexible — you can build segmented flows by product, customer tag, or order value — but that flexibility is wasted if you're not segmenting yet.
Setup time. Loox installs and shows a widget in under 30 minutes. Okendo's setup is longer because it's a platform: you'll configure review attributes, question sets, and integrations before it feels finished.
Where Okendo Wins (and When It's Overkill Under 100 Orders)
Okendo wins on depth. It's a customer marketing platform, not just a review app:
- Review segmentation and attributes. You can tag reviews by product attribute, customer type, or use case and display filtered reviews on different pages.
- Integrations. Okendo connects to loyalty, referral, and CDP tools, and syndicates reviews to Google Shopping and other channels.
- Custom question sets. You can ask different review questions per product category — useful for apparel (fit, sizing) versus supplements (efficacy).
Under 100 orders, that depth is mostly overkill. You don't have enough reviews to segment, you're probably not running a loyalty program yet, and custom question sets add setup time you'd rather spend on product pages and ads. Okendo becomes the better choice once you're past roughly 500 orders a month, have 200+ reviews, and are actively running retention campaigns.
Where Loox Wins for Low-Volume Stores
Loox wins on speed to value at low volume:
- Lower entry cost. The paid tiers start where small stores can afford them.
- Photo-first by default. New stores need visual social proof; Loox makes photos the default, not an option.
- Faster setup. Install, connect, customize the request email, place the widget — done in an afternoon.
- Simple request flow. One automated email sequence with photo incentives, which is all a new store needs.
If your goal this month is "get 20 photo reviews on my top three products," Loox is the shorter path.
How Costs Change as You Grow Past 100 Orders
Both apps price by order volume, so costs rise as you grow — but the shape of the increase differs.
- Loox scales through order tiers. Crossing 100, 200, or 500 orders a month moves you up a tier. The jump is incremental and predictable.
- Okendo also scales by order volume, but its tiers are priced for larger brands. At low volume Okendo is often free or cheap; at higher volume the cost rises faster than Loox's.
The migration question matters here. If you start on Loox and outgrow it, migrating reviews to Okendo means exporting and re-importing review data, reconfiguring widgets, and re-verifying review syndication. It's doable but disruptive. If you're confident you'll hit 500+ orders within six months and want Okendo's platform features, starting there avoids a migration. If growth is uncertain, start with Loox and migrate only when the features — not the price — force you to.
Our Recommendation for New Shopify Sellers
Install Loox first. It gets photo reviews live on your product pages within a day, its entry pricing fits a sub-100-order store, and its defaults look good without design work. Set up the automated review request email, add a photo incentive, and place the review grid widget on your top three product pages.
Revisit the decision when you cross roughly 300–500 orders a month and have a few hundred reviews. At that point, evaluate whether Okendo's segmentation, integrations, and syndication are worth the migration — and check current pricing on both apps before you switch.
Bottom line: Loox is the right review app for a store under 100 orders because it delivers photo social proof faster and cheaper. Okendo is the better long-term platform, but its advantages don't activate until you have the volume to use them.
FAQ
Can I use both Loox and Okendo at the same time? Technically yes, but don't. Running two review apps means duplicate review requests, split review data, and two subscriptions. Pick one and migrate later if needed.
Does Loox work on Shopify's free trial or Basic plan? Yes — Loox is a standard Shopify app and installs on any plan. Check the app listing for the current Shopify plan requirements.
What happens to my reviews if I switch from Loox to Okendo? Both apps support review export and import, but the process isn't one-click. Export your reviews from Loox, import them into Okendo, then reconfigure widgets and re-verify syndication. Plan for a few hours of setup and a short period where widgets display inconsistently.