EasyGift vs CartBot: which free gift app fits your Shopify store?

Gift with purchase is one of the oldest promotions in retail, and on Shopify it usually breaks in the same place: the shopper qualifies for the gift, but nobody puts it in the cart. Shopify's native discounts can make an item free, yet they still expect the customer to add that item themselves. Apps like EasyGift and CartBot exist to close that gap. They watch the cart, add the reward on their own when a rule is met, and take it back out when the rule stops being met.

That shared job is why the two names keep landing on the same shortlist. Both are rated 4.9 on the Shopify App Store, both carry the Built for Shopify badge, both have a free plan and both are listed in English. The differences sit in the details: how many kinds of trigger each one understands, how far you can narrow who sees an offer, what you get for the first paid tier, and how much reporting you can lean on when the promotion is over. This page goes through those details one at a time, using only what each developer publishes on its App Store listing and documentation.

EasyGift in context

EasyGift is the short name for EG Auto Add to Cart Free Gift, built by a developer called 506 and listed on the App Store since December 2019. With roughly 1,100 reviews, it is one of the most reviewed apps in the free gift niche. The listing presents it as a rule engine: you define a trigger, you define a reward, and EG takes care of the cart.

The documentation describes the mechanics plainly. A lightweight script runs in the background, checks the cart every time an item is added, removed or updated, and compares it against your active rules. If a rule matches, the gift is added. If the cart drops back below the condition, EG removes it. Gift items are tagged behind the scenes so the app can tell them apart from products the customer paid for. Setup starts by switching on the app embed in the theme, then creating a rule.

EasyGift is tiered. The free plan is deliberately narrow, and the bigger features (collection and tag triggers, customer targeting, geotargeting) wait on the $29.99 Unlimited plan.

CartBot in context

CartBot, listed as CartBot: Gift with Purchase, comes from Bundler.app, the team behind the Bundler bundle app. It launched in July 2022 and has around 500 reviews. Its vocabulary is slightly different: instead of rules, you create "bots". Each bot adds a product or a gift to the cart when the customer buys something specific, or when the cart reaches a value you set.

The listing's own example is a coffee shop that adds a free sample when someone buys ground coffee, then removes the sample if the coffee leaves the cart. CartBot calls this removal logic a "reverse" bot, and it is available on the free plan.

CartBot has only two plans. The free one already covers product conditions, cart value limits, subscription products, product replacements and reverse bots. Premium, at $9.99 a month, adds advanced minimum and maximum quantity conditions, combined cart and product conditions, scheduling, unlimited bots and priority support.

Triggers: what can start a gift

This is where the two apps start to separate.

Product triggers. Both handle the classic "buy this, get that" case. On EasyGift's free plan, a rule can watch up to 10 product variants. CartBot's free plan lists custom product conditions without publishing a variant cap.

Cart value triggers. Both can fire on cart value. CartBot includes "flexible cart value limits" on its free plan. EasyGift puts subtotal and quantity triggers on its Standard plan at $14.99 a month, so a "spend $75, get a tote bag" offer costs nothing with CartBot and $14.99 with EasyGift.

Collection and tag triggers. EasyGift's Unlimited plan can trigger on a collection or on product tags, and can combine a cart subtotal with specific products in one rule. CartBot's listing does not mention collection or tag triggers. For a catalog where the eligible products change every week, collection triggers save a lot of manual editing.

Quantity rules. CartBot's Premium plan lists advanced minimum and maximum quantity conditions, useful for "buy 3 to 5 units, get one gift, but not two". EasyGift lists triggers on cart quantity from its Standard plan, but it does not describe min and max bounds in the same way.

On triggers, CartBot gives more for free and EasyGift goes further at the top.

How the gift lands in the cart (and leaves it)

Both apps can add the gift silently. The difference is what happens when you want the shopper to choose.

EasyGift's Standard plan can either auto-add the reward or open a popup where the shopper picks from several gifts or upsells. That is handy when you offer a choice of colours or scents and don't want to guess. CartBot's App Store page does not list a gift picker popup. Some CartBot reviews mention prompts that let shoppers decline a gift, but the feature is not described on the listing, so it is marked as partial in the table above.

Removal works on both sides. EasyGift's documentation says it removes the gift if the customer no longer meets the conditions. CartBot builds the same idea into its reverse bots. Either way, the "add a product, get the gift, remove the product, keep the gift" loophole is covered.

CartBot has one feature EasyGift does not list: product replacements, which swap one item for another in the cart. EasyGift, for its part, lists a product page redirection option on its Unlimited plan.

Discounts and checkout behaviour

A gift that shows up at full price at checkout is worse than no gift at all, so the discount mechanism matters.

EasyGift is explicit: the reward can be discounted with the app's own Shopify Function or with a Shopify discount. Its documentation also explains how stacking works in Shopify. Two discounts only combine if each one is set to combine with the other's type, and when several discounts hit the same item, Shopify keeps the one that saves the customer the most. On the Enterprise plan, which is reserved for Shopify Plus stores, shoppers can also enter a code at checkout to unlock a gift.

CartBot's App Store page does not describe how the gift is priced or discounted. In a public reply to a review, the developer pointed a merchant to a 100% discount through the Bundler integration, and another reviewer noted that a checkout validator may be needed to stop shoppers gaming the gift selection. If price integrity at checkout is critical for you, test this on a development store before launch.

Targeting and campaign control

EasyGift's Unlimited plan unlocks the widest targeting in this pair: rules by customer tag, order history, total spend, B2B or not B2B, and geotargeting by country. It also offers "magic link" rules for email, where a gift is tied to a link you send in a campaign. None of these appear on CartBot's listing.

Scheduling is available in both, with a price gap. EasyGift schedules start and end dates from $14.99. CartBot schedules bots on its $9.99 Premium plan.

EasyGift also sends alerts when a reward goes out of stock, which is easy to overlook until a Black Friday gift runs dry on day two. CartBot's listing does not mention stock alerts.

Reporting

EasyGift attributes orders to each rule and exports them to CSV from its Standard plan, and reviewers mention a data analytics dashboard. That lets you answer a simple question after a campaign: did the gift actually move the average order value, or did it just give away stock?

CartBot's App Store page does not list analytics. If you need per-offer reporting, you will be working from Shopify's own order reports, usually by filtering on the gift product.

Pricing, plan by plan

Both bill in US dollars every 30 days. EasyGift's Standard plan states "no monthly order or revenue cap", so the price doesn't climb as your store grows. CartBot lists no annual price, so the monthly rate is the reference.

Over a year, CartBot Premium costs about $120. EasyGift costs $134.90 a year on Standard and $269.90 on Unlimited if you pay annually. The question is whether you need the Unlimited features. If you don't, CartBot is the cheaper road.

Reviews and track record

EasyGift has about 1,100 reviews since 2019, CartBot about 500 since 2022. Both average 4.9, and both see most of their praise go to support. Recent EasyGift reviews praise quick fixes on discount code issues and compatibility with bundle apps, with one complaint about compatibility with the Shop app and another about the default design looking basic. Recent CartBot reviews praise how simple the free plan is, its support for subscriptions and variants, and fast replies, with complaints about limited customisation on the free plan and a quantity bug that the reviewer later said was fixed.

The volume gap mostly reflects age. In the recent reviews we read, neither app shows a pattern of unresolved problems.

Three stores, three answers

A coffee roaster giving away a sample

A small roaster wants to slip a 50 g sample into every order containing a 1 kg bag, and pull it out if the bag is removed. That is the exact case on CartBot's listing, and the free plan covers it. EasyGift's free plan could do it too, as long as the 1 kg bags stay within 10 variants. CartBot wins on simplicity and cost.

A beauty brand running Black Friday tiers

A skincare brand plans three tiers for Black Friday: a mini serum above $60, a choice of two masks above $100, and a full-size product above $150, each limited to the BFCM week. It wants to know which tier drove revenue. EasyGift's Standard plan covers three active rules, the gift picker popup, scheduling and per-rule analytics for $14.99. CartBot can handle the cart value tiers and scheduling on Premium, but the picker and the reporting are not on its listing. EasyGift wins. Our Black Friday CRO checklist covers how to time offers like these.

A wholesaler with a B2B side

A store sells to both consumers and salons, and only wants consumers to get the gift, or offers a different gift to customers who have spent over $1,000. EasyGift's Unlimited plan targets by B2B status, total spend and customer tag. CartBot does not list any customer targeting. EasyGift wins, at $29.99 a month.

Moving from one app to the other

From CartBot to EasyGift

List every active bot with its trigger product or cart value and its reward. Recreate each one as an EasyGift rule, then check that your plan covers the trigger type: cart value needs Standard, collections need Unlimited. Switch on the EG app embed, test on a duplicate theme, then pause the CartBot bots before publishing so both apps don't add a gift at the same time. If you used the Bundler integration for the gift's discount, set up the EG discount instead and test checkout.

From EasyGift to CartBot

Rules built on collections, tags, customer targeting or geotargeting have no direct equivalent on CartBot's listing, so rebuild them as product-based or cart-value bots. Export your EG analytics to CSV before uninstalling, because that history won't follow you. Turn on reverse bots for every gift so removals keep working.

In both directions, run one app at a time. Two scripts adding gifts to the same cart is the quickest way to give away twice the stock.

A third option

If a free gift is only one of several things you want on the cart, an all-in-one app can replace several single-purpose ones. ConvertX includes free gifts in its Upsells module, alongside a cart drawer with a free shipping bar, quantity bundles and a sticky add to cart, for $19.99 a month (4 active modules) or $34.99 (unlimited), with a 7-day trial and no commission. Be clear about the trade-offs: it has no free plan, it launched in September 2025 with only a handful of reviews, it doesn't carry the Built for Shopify badge, and it does not list Buy X Get Y offers. If all you need is a gift rule, EasyGift or CartBot is the more focused choice.

Related reading

• BOGO offers on Shopify: do they still convert in 2026
• Free vs paid Shopify apps: when it's worth paying
• How many Shopify apps is too many?
• Kaching Cart Drawer vs Essential Cart Drawer