STKY vs Buy Me: which sticky add to cart app fits your Shopify store?

A sticky add-to-cart bar fixes a very specific problem. On a long product page, especially on a phone, the shopper scrolls past the buy button to read the description, the size guide and the reviews, and when they decide to buy, the button is three screens up. The sticky bar keeps a compact version of that button pinned to the top or bottom of the screen. If you want the background on why this matters, our guide on adding a sticky cart button to Shopify and the piece on why mobile conversion rates lag cover it.

STKY and Buy Me are two of the longest-running apps built around that one idea. Both have been on the Shopify App Store since before most current themes existed, both have a 4.9 rating, and both start free. Yet they have drifted in different directions over the years, and a merchant who installs the wrong one either pays for features they never use or ends up stacking a second app on top.

Two apps, two philosophies

STKY: the sticky bar that grew into a mini cart suite

STKY (listed as “STKY ‑ Sticky Add To Cart Bar”, previously known as Sticky Add To Cart BOOSTER PRO) is published by Codeinero and has been live since March 2016. At the time of checking it had 495 reviews with a 4.9 average. The listing presents it as a conversion bundle more than a single widget: a sticky add-to-cart bar, a countdown timer urgency bar, floating sticky cart icons, a sticky checkout bar, quick view, quick buy and buy now buttons, and a slider cart drawer with in-cart upsells.

The important detail is that every one of those features is in every plan, including the free one. What changes between plans is volume (the free plan stops at 25 add-to-cart clicks a month) and which Shopify plan your store is on.

Buy Me: the specialist with fine-grained controls

Buy Me (listed as “Buy Me: Sticky Add To Cart Bar”) is made by MakeProSimp and launched in May 2017. It had 169 reviews with a 4.9 average, and it carries the Built for Shopify badge, which STKY does not. Its scope is narrower: a sticky add-to-cart bar, a floating sticky cart icon, quick buy buttons on product images in collections, a sticky bar you can attach to non-product pages by URL, and a countdown timer. There is no slide cart with upsells in its plans or documentation.

Where Buy Me goes further is configuration. Its help center documents five display triggers, separate desktop and mobile settings, four different click behaviors and page exclusions by URL. It is a tool for merchants who want the bar to behave exactly as they intend, and nothing more.

Criterion by criterion

The bar itself

Both apps do the core job well. The difference is in how much control you get over when and how the bar appears.

Buy Me's documentation lists the display modes precisely: “Auto” shows the bar once the theme's own add-to-cart button scrolls out of view, “Instant” shows it on page load, and you can also trigger it after a set number of pixels, after a percentage of the page, or place it after a specific element using a CSS class or ID. Each of these, plus the template, the variant selector, the quantity box, a discount badge and social icons, can be set separately for desktop and mobile. You can also raise its z-index so it sits above chat widgets or other apps' banners.

STKY's App Store listing does not describe its trigger rules or per-device settings in that level of detail. It lists “Mobile responsive”, custom styles, custom CSS and custom HTML among its features, so you can restyle it, but if you need different behavior on mobile and desktop you would have to test it in the app before relying on it.

Edge: Buy Me, clearly, for anyone who cares about how the bar behaves.

What happens after the click

This is where the two apps differ most in practice. Buy Me lets you choose what the button does: add to cart and follow the theme's default, add and reload the page, add and redirect to the cart page (recommended in its docs when you use third-party payment gateways), or skip the cart and go straight to Shopify checkout.

STKY answers the same question differently. Instead of offering several redirect modes, it ships its own slider cart drawer, so the shopper lands in a side cart that can show upsell and cross-sell products. It also has buy now buttons and lists “Skip to checkout” among its features.

Edge: depends on your theme. If your theme already has a good cart drawer (most recent Shopify themes do), Buy Me's routing options are the cleaner fit. If your theme's cart is a bare page, STKY's drawer replaces it with something more useful. Our breakdown of cart page vs cart drawer explains the trade-off.

Upsells and average order value

STKY includes an in-cart upsell in its slider cart drawer on every plan. That is a meaningful bonus if you do not already run an upsell app, because a sticky bar on its own only rescues conversions; it does not raise order value.

Buy Me does not list an upsell feature in its plans or in its help center. Its App Store page carries generic category tags such as “Product recommendations”, but nothing in the pricing table or the documentation describes an upsell widget, so we treat it as not available. If you want to add upsells around a Buy Me setup, you will need a separate app; our guide to in-cart upsells lists the usual options.

Edge: STKY.

Urgency and extras

Both apps include a countdown timer. On STKY it is part of every plan. On Buy Me, the helpdesk pricing article places the “Sticky Countdown Timer” in the Medium plan and above. Before you turn one on, read our take on whether countdown timers still work in 2026: fake timers that reset on reload hurt trust more than they help.

Buy Me has a few small extras STKY does not list: review stars pulled into the bar from a supported review app, social sharing icons, “Remember My Cart” to keep a cart in sync across devices (Extra Large plan, per its pricing article), and seasonal “Festival Attractions” such as snowflakes. STKY's own extras are the floating cart icons and the sticky checkout bar.

Analytics and integrations

Buy Me has a built-in analytics section (sales, popular products, clicks, social engagement) and its listing names Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, GemPages, PageFly and “All Review Apps” as compatible. The page builder compatibility matters if your product pages are built with GemPages or PageFly.

STKY's listing does not mention analytics or third-party integrations; its “works with” list only names its own features. That does not mean it breaks with page builders, only that the listing makes no promise.

Edge: Buy Me.

Pricing: the biggest trap

Both apps cost less than a coffee a month at their entry level, but they price on completely different logic.

Buy Me prices by volume. The free plan covers up to 50 add-to-carts a month. Small is $2.95/month for 250, Medium $4.95 for 750, and Large $6.95 for unlimited, or $58.38 a year. The help center adds an Extra Large plan at $8.95/month with the cart preview and Remember My Cart. Your Shopify plan does not affect the price.

STKY prices by your Shopify plan. Every paid tier gets unlimited clicks and the same features, but the tier you need matches your store's plan: $6.99/month on Basic, $11.99 on Grow, $18.99 on Advanced. Codeinero's own pricing page adds a Shopify Plus tier at $29.99/month or $250 a year, which is not shown on the App Store listing. One recent reviewer complained about being charged $29.99 after seeing lower prices on the listing; the Plus tier on Codeinero's site is the likely explanation. Annual billing brings Basic to $60, Grow to $100 and Advanced to $160.

In plain numbers: a Basic Shopify store pays about the same for unlimited use of either app ($6.99 vs $6.95). A store on Advanced pays $18.99 for STKY against $6.95 for Buy Me, and a Plus store $29.99 against $6.95. On the other hand, STKY's price includes a slide cart and upsells, so the fair comparison is STKY against Buy Me plus whatever cart app you would add.

Both paid plans come with a 14-day free trial, and both bill in US dollars through Shopify.

Trust signals

Buy Me carries the Built for Shopify badge, which means Shopify has reviewed it against its performance and design requirements. STKY has nearly three times as many reviews (495 vs 169) and a longer track record. Neither signal is decisive on its own, but if you are cautious about how many scripts load on your product pages, the badge is worth something. Our article on app bloat and site speed explains why.

Which one for which store

A small apparel store on Basic Shopify, mostly mobile traffic

Picture a store selling T-shirts and hoodies, about 300 orders a month, 75% of sessions on phones, built on a recent free theme that already has a decent cart drawer. The need is simple: keep the add-to-cart visible while shoppers scroll through the size chart. Buy Me fits well here. The Small plan at $2.95 might even be enough at first, and Large at $6.95 removes the cap. The “Auto” trigger and separate mobile settings let you hide social icons on phones and keep the bar slim.

A supplement brand with an old theme and no upsell app

Now picture a store selling protein and vitamins on an older theme whose cart is a plain page. It wants a sticky bar, a side cart and a “goes well with” offer in the cart, and it is on the Basic plan. STKY covers all three for $6.99/month. Buying Buy Me plus a separate slide cart app would cost more and add another script.

A Shopify Plus store with a custom headless or heavily coded theme

A larger brand on Plus with a developer on hand will probably care about control and cost. STKY would cost $29.99/month there, and its cart drawer would likely compete with the theme's own cart. Buy Me at $6.95 to $8.95, with custom positioning by CSS selector, a z-index setting and custom functions documented for developers, is the more natural fit.

Switching from one to the other

Moving from STKY to Buy Me: uninstall STKY first and check that its slider cart is gone from the theme, otherwise you may end up with two carts opening. If you relied on STKY's in-cart upsell, plan a replacement before switching, because Buy Me will not cover it. Then enable the Buy Me app embed in the theme editor (it is a Theme 2.0 app embed), pick the “Auto” trigger, and test the click behavior on your theme; “Redirect to cart” is the safe choice if you use a third-party payment gateway.

Moving from Buy Me to STKY: disable the Buy Me embed, then check whether you want STKY's slide cart or your theme's own. If you keep your theme's cart, make sure the two do not both open. Recheck your pricing tier against your Shopify plan before activating, especially on Plus.

In both directions, compare a week of add-to-cart rate on mobile before and after. If the number drops, the most common cause is a bar that appears too early and covers content, not the app itself. If the cart side is where you want to go next, our roundup of cart drawer apps and the Kaching Cart Drawer vs Essential Cart Drawer comparison pick up from here.

A third option

If you are also shopping for bundles, a cart drawer or upsells, ConvertX includes a Sticky Add to Cart module alongside Bundles, Upsells, Cart Drawer, Payment Icons and Stories in one app. It is not a like-for-like replacement for either app here: it has no free plan (outside development stores), starts at $19.99/month on Essential with up to 4 active modules, launched in September 2025, has only a handful of reviews and does not have the Built for Shopify badge. It only makes sense if a sticky bar is one of several modules you would otherwise install separately. For a sticky bar alone, STKY or Buy Me is the cheaper and more proven choice.