Most Shopify stores need only four types of conversion rate optimization tools: an A/B testing tool, a heatmap and session recording tool, a page builder, and a reviews app. Upsell apps are worth adding once you have steady orders. Start with the free options (Microsoft Clarity, Shopify's built-in Rollouts, a free reviews plan), and pay for a tool only when a free one stops you from running or reading a test.
This guide covers each category, what the main tools cost, who each one is not for, and what real tests from the LiftArchive test database show about the changes these tools let you make. We have not used these tools ourselves. The notes below come from vendor pricing pages, app store listings, and public reviews. Some links are affiliate links, explained in our disclosure.
CRO tools at a glance
| Category | Free option | Paid tools to consider | Starting price (as of November 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A/B testing | Shopify Rollouts (Grow plan or higher) | Convert, VWO, Shoplift, Intelligems | Shoplift from $74/mo, Intelligems from $69/mo, Convert from $299/mo billed yearly |
| Heatmaps and recordings | Microsoft Clarity | Lucky Orange, Heatmap.com | Lucky Orange from $32/mo billed yearly, Heatmap.com from $199/mo |
| Page builders | Shopify theme editor; free plans of PageFly and GemPages (1 page) | PageFly, GemPages | PageFly from $24/mo, GemPages from $29/mo |
| Reviews | Judge.me Forever Free, Loox free plan | Judge.me Awesome, Loox | Judge.me $15/mo, Loox $49.99/mo |
| Upsells and bundles | Rebuy Monetize (partner offers only) | Rebuy | From $25/mo, scales with orders |
Testing tools
A testing tool is the one CRO tool that proves whether a change made money. Everything else on this page helps you find ideas or build them. For a deeper comparison, see our full list of A/B testing tools.
The reason to pay for proper testing shows up in our database. Ruben added a doctor-style authority badge to a product page and saw +17% after the first week, which faded to +1.66% CVR after four weeks. Without a tool that splits traffic evenly and keeps the test running, that early spike would have looked like a win.
Shopify Rollouts (free)
Shopify now has a built-in feature, Rollouts, for scheduling and testing storefront changes. Per Shopify's help center, rollouts work on the Basic plan or higher, but experiments (A/B tests) need the Grow plan or higher. They don't work with vintage themes, and you can't change Liquid templates as part of a rollout.
Not for: stores that want to test prices, or small changes to a single page element, without duplicating a theme.
Shoplift and Intelligems
Both are Shopify-only apps. Shoplift's listing shows a Core plan at $99/month (from $74 depending on monthly visitors) for theme, template, and split URL tests, with price testing starting on the $399/month Advanced plan, as of November 2026. It has a 4.9 rating, but from only 134 reviews at the time of writing.
Intelligems' pricing page lists a build-your-own plan from $69/month, with separate modules for content, pricing, shipping, and checkout tests, as of November 2026. Price testing modules need a 3-month minimum. Our testing tools guide compares the two.
Not for: brands that sell on platforms other than Shopify.
Convert and VWO
Convert and VWO work on any website, not just Shopify. Convert's pricing page lists the Growth plan at $299/month billed yearly ($399 monthly) for 100,000 tested users a month, with a 15-day free trial, as of November 2026. Every plan includes Shopify price testing.
VWO bundles testing with heatmaps and recordings. Its pricing page shows Growth, Pro, and Enterprise tiers but no public prices as of November 2026, so you need to request a quote.
Not for: low-traffic stores. If you can only finish one or two tests a month, a $300+ monthly bill is hard to pay back.
Tools mentioned here
Analytics, heatmaps and recordings
Heatmaps and session recordings show where shoppers click, scroll, and give up. They don't prove anything, but they give you better test ideas than guessing. Our heatmap tools guide goes deeper.
Microsoft Clarity (free)
Microsoft Clarity is free with no traffic limits and includes heatmaps, session recordings, and AI summaries. For most stores under seven figures, it covers the basics.
Not for: teams that want revenue tied to each click, or built-in surveys and live chat.
Lucky Orange
Lucky Orange's pricing page starts at $32/month billed yearly for 3,500 sessions, rising to $72/month for 10,000 sessions, as of November 2026. Every plan includes recordings, heatmaps, surveys, live chat, funnels, and form analytics, with a 7-day free trial. Data is kept for 60 days on the base plan.
Not for: high-traffic stores on a tight budget, since the session caps fill up fast.
Heatmap.com
Heatmap.com shows revenue per click and per element, not just clicks. Plans are priced by store revenue: $199/month for stores up to $10M a year, as of November 2026, with a 14-day free trial.
Not for: new stores. The entry price is high if you are still finding product-market fit.
Surveys count too
Some of the biggest wins in our database came from asking customers, not watching them. Kasper Dolk rewrote hero bullets to answer objections found in surveys and reported $763,679.14 extra profit per year. Oliver Kenyon added three survey-based reassurance lines above a collection grid, worth $44,890/month.
A free post-purchase survey is often the cheapest research tool you will use.
Tools mentioned here
Page builders
Page builders let you build landing pages and test variants without a developer. They are useful, but they add code to your store, so treat them as a tradeoff. Compare options in our Shopify page builders guide.
The tradeoff is real. Oliver Kenyon rebuilt a landing page natively in Shopify and tested it against the same page made in a page builder: the native version won by +9.9% conversion rate. On the other side, Kasper Dolk's test of a new theme with a BOGO offer against the old theme won by +44.54% conversion rate, so a better layout can beat the cost of extra code.
Want results like this on your store?
Oliver Kenyon at Conversionwise. Oliver co-founded Conversionwise and has spent 13 years helping ecommerce brands turn clicks into customers.
PageFly
PageFly's Shopify listing shows a free plan with one published page, a Builder plan at $24/month, and an Accelerate plan at $99/month that adds A/B testing and heatmaps, as of November 2026. It has a 4.9 rating from about 5,900 reviews, with support often praised.
Not for: stores that want built-in testing without paying for the $99 tier.
GemPages
GemPages' listing shows a free plan with one page, Build at $29/month for unlimited pages, and Optimize at $59/month, as of November 2026. It is rated 4.9 from about 4,300 reviews.
Not for: teams comfortable editing theme code, who may get faster pages building natively.
Reviews and social proof apps
Reviews are one of the most tested elements in our database, and the results show that how you display them matters as much as having them. See our Shopify review apps guide for a full comparison.
Dave Diederen saw +5.80% CVR after adding customer video reviews to a product page. But another of Dave's tests, adding small customer profile icons next to the star rating, lost 3.84% revenue per visitor. A reviews app gives you the widgets; testing tells you which ones to keep.
Want results like this on your store?
Dave Diederen at Syntra Labs. Dave builds and tests Shopify stores at Syntra Labs, and shares most results in public.
Judge.me
Judge.me has a Forever Free plan with unlimited reviews, photo and video reviews, and rich snippets. The Awesome plan is $15/month as of November 2026 and adds Q&A, integrations, and AI replies. It holds a 5.0 rating from over 49,000 reviews.
Not for: brands that want a highly visual, photo-first review look out of the box.
Loox
Loox focuses on photo and video reviews. Its free plan covers up to 500 orders, and the Convert plan is $49.99/month for 300 orders plus $50 per extra 300, as of November 2026. Costs rise with order volume.
Not for: high-volume, low-price stores, where per-order pricing adds up.
Upsell and bundle apps
Upsell apps raise order value, but they can also distract shoppers before checkout. Our Shopify upsell apps guide covers more options.
The numbers vary a lot by offer. Kasper Dolk's test of upsells vs no upsells found +1.86% revenue per visitor, about $26,471/month. Milos tested a leather strap against a mystery box as the cart drawer upsell and the winner added +15.26% RPV. The product you offer matters more than the app.
Rebuy
Rebuy's pricing page starts at $25/month for a build-your-own plan, priced by orders per month, with a 14-day free trial, as of November 2026. Modules cover cart, checkout and post-purchase, search, and A/B testing flows. It also has a free Monetize option that shows partner brands' offers after purchase.
Not for: stores with a small catalog, where a simple bundle in the theme may do the same job.
Free tools first
A store can run real CRO with almost no software bill. Here is a sensible free stack:
- Shopify Analytics for conversion rate, AOV, and funnel drop-off.
- Microsoft Clarity for heatmaps and recordings.
- Shopify Rollouts for theme A/B tests, if you are on the Grow plan or higher.
- Judge.me Forever Free for reviews.
- A post-purchase survey asking what almost stopped people from buying.
Pay for a tool when a free one blocks a specific test. Common triggers: you want to test prices (Shoplift Advanced, Intelligems, or Convert), you need revenue per click (Heatmap.com), or you want test-ready pages without a developer (PageFly or GemPages).
Before buying anything, browse the tests in our database for your page type. Ideas proven on other stores are a better first test than any tool's feature list.
Questions
What are conversion rate optimization tools?
CRO tools help you find, build, and prove changes that turn more visitors into buyers. For a Shopify store, that means an A/B testing tool, a heatmap and session recording tool, a page builder, a reviews app, and later an upsell app.
What are the best CRO tools for a small Shopify store?
Start free: Shopify Analytics, Microsoft Clarity for heatmaps and recordings, Shopify Rollouts for theme tests (Grow plan or higher), and Judge.me's free plan for reviews. Add paid tools like Shoplift, Intelligems, Lucky Orange or PageFly only when a free tool blocks a test you want to run.
How much does CRO software cost?
As of November 2026, entry prices range from free (Microsoft Clarity, Judge.me) to about $24-$32 a month (PageFly, Lucky Orange billed yearly), $69-$99 a month for Shopify testing apps (Intelligems, Shoplift), and $299 a month billed yearly for Convert. Check each vendor's pricing page, since plans change often.
Do I need a paid A/B testing tool?
Not always. Shopify Rollouts can test themes for free on the Grow plan or higher. You need a paid tool for price tests, element-level tests without duplicating a theme, or testing on a non-Shopify site.
Is Microsoft Clarity good enough for heatmaps?
For most smaller stores, yes. Clarity is free with no traffic limits and includes heatmaps and session recordings. Paid tools like Heatmap.com add revenue per click, and Lucky Orange adds surveys, live chat and funnels.
Sources
- www.convert.com/pricing/
- wingify.com/pricing/
- www.luckyorange.com/pricing
- clarity.microsoft.com/
- apps.shopify.com/pagefly
- apps.shopify.com/gempages
- www.heatmap.com/pricing
- apps.shopify.com/loox
- apps.shopify.com/judgeme
- www.rebuyengine.com/pricing
- www.intelligems.io/pricing
- apps.shopify.com/shoplift
- help.shopify.com/en/manual/markets/rollouts/requirements-and-considerations
- changelog.shopify.com/posts/schedule-and-test-storefront-changes-with-rollouts