WooCommerce Points and Rewards is the official points extension sold on the WooCommerce Marketplace. It does one thing and does it cleanly: customers earn points when they buy, and they redeem those points for a discount at checkout. You set the earn rate and the redemption rate, cap the discount, and let it run. If you want a simple points scheme with the reassurance of a first-party extension, it’s a sensible pick.
Perkie is a self-hosted WooCommerce loyalty and rewards plugin. It covers the same points-for-purchases ground, then keeps going: VIP tiers, referrals, review incentives, surveys and prize draws, birthday and celebration bonuses, and a "Your Rewards" picker at the cart and checkout. The points ledger lives in your own database, and you can optionally connect Tracksies HQ to target offers using its customer tags, and for customer intelligence. We make Perkie, so yes: we’re biased. But these two tools really do suit different stores, and we will try to be fair about which is which.
The Quick Version
Platform
- Perkie: Self-hosted WooCommerce plugin; runs on your own WordPress (needs WordPress 6+, PHP 8+, WooCommerce 8+).
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Self-hosted WooCommerce extension, published and maintained by WooCommerce itself.
Pricing model and price
- Perkie: A$99 for the first year, then A$79.20 to renew (20% off); one licence covers up to five sites; flat annual fee with no per-member or per-order charges.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: US$179 per year (a 2-year plan is US$286.40); billed as an annual subscription per the WooCommerce Marketplace.
Points earning
- Perkie: Configurable points per dollar, with a rename-able points currency (stars, gems, credits); earns on subscription renewals.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Configurable points per dollar (for example 1 point per $1), set globally or per product and category; earns on subscription renewals when WooCommerce Subscriptions is present.
Earning triggers
- Perkie: Per-order bonus, first-order bonus, account creation, and celebration or personal dates; points award on order Completed (not at checkout).
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Purchases, account signup, and a customer’s first review of a product.
Redemption
- Perkie: Redeem for discount coupons or free shipping via a "Your Rewards" picker at cart and checkout; configurable redemption rate, minimum redemption, and maximum discount %; a pending redemption can be cancelled to return the points.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Redeem points for a cart discount at checkout, with partial redemption and maximum discount caps at global, category and product level.
VIP tiers
- Perkie: Unlimited configurable tiers with thresholds and point multipliers (default Bronze, Silver, Gold, VIP), optional standing discount per tier, a My Account progress bar, and a lifetime or rolling 12-month calculation period.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: No VIP tier system.
Referrals
- Perkie: Unique personal codes, cookie tracking (30 days by default), two-sided rewards, fraud checks, and social sharing.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: No referral programme.
Surveys and prize draws
- Perkie: Build surveys, reward completion with points, and run automated prize draws among entrants; responses tie back to real order history.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: No surveys or prize draws.
Review incentives
- Perkie: Points for approved reviews, an optional photo or video bonus (requires Trustie Pro), and one-per-product anti-gaming.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Awards a fixed number of points for a customer’s first review of a product.
Birthday and date bonuses
- Perkie: Celebration and personal dates (for example birthdays) can trigger bonus points.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: No birthday or date-based bonuses.
Points expiry
- Perkie: Optional points expiry with warning emails before points lapse.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Configurable expiry period after points are granted.
Where data lives
- Perkie: In your own database; the points ledger is yours.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: In your own WooCommerce database, as a first-party extension.
Customer intelligence and suite integration
- Perkie: Optional Tracksies HQ integration adds tag-triggered offers and shows tier, balance and referral results on the HQ customer profile.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: No customer-intelligence layer; it’s a standalone points extension.
Styling and branding
- Perkie: Rename the points currency, tune the cart and checkout redemption UX, and brand the loyalty emails.
- WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Integrates cleanly with the standard WooCommerce cart, checkout and My Account styling.
If your store wants points and nothing more, the two look similar. The gap opens up the moment you want tiers, referrals, or a reason for customers to come back beyond a discount.
Where WooCommerce Points and Rewards Does Well
It’s the official, first-party extension. It’s built and maintained by WooCommerce and sold on the WooCommerce Marketplace, so it carries the brand trust of the platform your store already runs on. For a lot of merchants, that reassurance is worth a great deal, and it’s a completely reasonable reason to choose it.
It’s simple and quick to set up. You set an earn rate, a redemption rate, and a few caps, and you’re live. There’s very little to learn, and very little that can go wrong. Reviewers consistently describe it as clean and straightforward, and that’s a real strength for a store that wants points without a project.
It integrates cleanly. Because it’s a WooCommerce product, it slots into the standard cart, checkout and My Account without fuss, and it works with WooCommerce Subscriptions for renewal points. It behaves exactly the way you would expect a first-party extension to behave.
It does the core job properly. Earning on purchases, signup and a first review, redeeming for a cart discount, retroactive points for past orders, manual balance adjustments, expiry, and a full transaction log: the fundamentals are all there and they work. If the core points loop is all you need, it delivers it well.
Where the Approaches Differ
Basic points vs a full loyalty system
WooCommerce Points and Rewards is, by design, a points engine. Customers earn on purchases and redeem for a discount, and that single loop is the whole programme. Perkie starts from the same loop and layers a full loyalty programme on top: tiers that make regulars earn faster, referrals that turn customers into a growth channel, birthday and celebration bonuses, review incentives, and surveys with prize draws. Whether you need that depth is the real question. If you only ever want simple points, the extra surface area is weight you don’t need.
Tiers and referrals
This is the clearest split. WooCommerce Points and Rewards has no VIP tiers and no referral programme. Perkie ships both: unlimited configurable tiers with point multipliers, an optional standing discount per tier, a My Account progress bar, and a lifetime or rolling 12-month calculation window; plus two-sided referrals with personal codes, cookie tracking, fraud checks, and social sharing. If a tiered "the more you shop, the more you earn" ladder or a friend-refers-a-friend loop is part of your plan, that’s a Perkie feature and not a WooCommerce Points and Rewards one.
Surveys and customer intelligence
Perkie can build surveys, reward completion with points, and run automated prize draws among entrants, with responses tied to real order history. Connect Tracksies HQ and you also get tag-triggered offers (mint and email a coupon when a customer tag fires) and a customer profile that shows tier, balance and referral results in one place. WooCommerce Points and Rewards doesn’t attempt this; it stays a focused points extension, which is a legitimate choice.
Where the data and the relationship live
Both keep data in your own database, which is a genuine advantage they share over hosted, third-party loyalty apps. The difference is what you can do with it. Perkie treats loyalty as an ongoing relationship (tiers, referrals, celebrations, surveys) rather than a discount at the till, and the optional HQ layer turns that history into segments and offers. WooCommerce Points and Rewards keeps the relationship simple: points in, discount out.
When WooCommerce Points and Rewards Is Your Answer
You want points for purchases and a discount at checkout, and nothing else. That’s the whole job it does, it does it cleanly, and it’s cheaper to reason about. If that’s your list, stop here and buy it.
Official matters to you. It’s a first-party WooCommerce extension, sold on WooCommerce.com, and for plenty of stores that reassurance outweighs any feature comparison. Perkie doesn’t carry that badge.
You need to start at zero. Perkie has no free tier.
Perkie earns its keep when you want the tiers, referrals, surveys and celebration dates around the points. If you don’t want those, the extra depth isn’t doing anything for you and you’d be paying for room you never use.
Who Should Choose What
WooCommerce Points and Rewards is a good fit if:
- You want a simple points-for-purchases scheme and nothing more.
- The reassurance of a first-party, WooCommerce-published extension matters to you.
- You value a very short learning curve and minimal configuration.
- Redeeming points for a cart discount is the only reward you plan to offer.
- You’re comfortable with a US$179 per year subscription for a focused tool.
Perkie is a good fit if:
- You want VIP tiers, referrals, or both, alongside points.
- You want to reward reviews, surveys, birthdays and celebration dates, not just purchases.
- You want a cart and checkout "Your Rewards" picker, free-shipping redemption, and the ability to cancel a pending redemption.
- You want the option of tag-based offers and a customer-intelligence view via Tracksies HQ.
- You prefer a flat annual fee that covers up to five sites with no per-member or per-order charges.
Switching from WooCommerce Points and Rewards
Moving across doesn’t mean asking your customers to start from zero. Perkie can award retroactive points for historical orders, with a preview or dry-run so you can see the outcome before you commit, and background processing so a large catalogue of past orders doesn’t stall your site. In practice you would decide on your earn rate, run the import in preview to sanity-check the numbers, then let it process in the background.
A fair note: the two plugins store points separately, so this is a fresh award based on order history rather than a live migration of existing balances. Plan the changeover for a quiet period, communicate the new programme to your customers, and keep your old settings noted down until you’re happy the new balances look right.
Go Have a Look
If you want tiers, referrals, surveys and celebrations around your points, take a look at Perkie. If you want a simple, official, first-party points scheme, the WooCommerce Points and Rewards extension is a solid choice and worth your time.
Both keep your data in your own database, both do the core points job well, and both are reasonable picks depending on how much loyalty programme you actually want. You do you.
