RareCircles

Name: RareCircles
Brand: RareCircles

AI Native

RareCircles is a customer experience platform that creates and manages paid memberships, member portals, gated product experiences, events and surveys for Shopify merchants.

Est 2022|Raised $7.5M

LinkedIn 8K|Website|FTEs 1|HQ Montreal, Quebec, CA

MarketsCustomer Loyalty Software

01Competitive Landscape

Narrative analysis

Potential strengths - A membership-first framing rather than points-only, emphasizing benefits, early access, and events. - Explicit PDP gating use case useful for limited drops and exclusivity mechanics. - Published entry-level pricing for small merchants. Where incumbents often have advantages - Proof and trust: competitors such as Smile.io and LoyaltyLion have a larger visible footprint and review presence on the Shopify App Store and other review sites, which can serve as trust signals. - Ecosystem depth: some incumbents emphasize a larger set of integrations (Klaviyo, Judge.me, Gorgias, Recharge, etc.). - Enterprise readiness: larger vendors more often publish security and compliance documentation and have more referenceable customers. Adoption trends and market signal - Competitors such as Smile.io and LoyaltyLion exhibit a larger public review footprint and a longer presence in the Shopify App Store, indicating greater maturity in some cases. - RareCircles’ lighter public review footprint may reflect an earlier stage, rebranding/pivot-related fragmentation, or customers not leaving public reviews.

	RareCircles	Smile.io	LoyaltyLion
Starting Price	Published entry-level pricing for small merchants	Free install with tiered paid plans available	Free install with tiered paid plans available
Primary use case	Shopify retailers wanting paid memberships, gating, portal features, events and surveys	Shopify brands wanting points/VIP/referrals with broad ecosystem adoption	Shopify brands seeking mature loyalty operations, onboarding services, and analytics
Key Strength	Membership-style benefits and Shopify-centric gating/portal workflows	Widespread market awareness and broad integrations	Analytics, onboarding services, and loyalty-focused features
Key Weakness	Limited third-party reviews and limited publicly documented security/compliance posture	Cost can increase as needs scale for some merchants	Higher cost and pricing that scales with volume

01Competitive Landscape

Narrative analysis

Potential strengths

A membership-first framing rather than points-only, emphasizing benefits, early access, and events.
Explicit PDP gating use case useful for limited drops and exclusivity mechanics.
Published entry-level pricing for small merchants.

Where incumbents often have advantages

Proof and trust: competitors such as Smile.io and LoyaltyLion have a larger visible footprint and review presence on the Shopify App Store and other review sites, which can serve as trust signals.
Ecosystem depth: some incumbents emphasize a larger set of integrations (Klaviyo, Judge.me, Gorgias, Recharge, etc.).
Enterprise readiness: larger vendors more often publish security and compliance documentation and have more referenceable customers.

Adoption trends and market signal

Competitors such as Smile.io and LoyaltyLion exhibit a larger public review footprint and a longer presence in the Shopify App Store, indicating greater maturity in some cases.
RareCircles’ lighter public review footprint may reflect an earlier stage, rebranding/pivot-related fragmentation, or customers not leaving public reviews.

	RareCircles	Smile.io	LoyaltyLion
Starting Price	Published entry-level pricing for small merchants	Free install with tiered paid plans available	Free install with tiered paid plans available
Primary use case	Shopify retailers wanting paid memberships, gating, portal features, events and surveys	Shopify brands wanting points/VIP/referrals with broad ecosystem adoption	Shopify brands seeking mature loyalty operations, onboarding services, and analytics
Key Strength	Membership-style benefits and Shopify-centric gating/portal workflows	Widespread market awareness and broad integrations	Analytics, onboarding services, and loyalty-focused features
Key Weakness	Limited third-party reviews and limited publicly documented security/compliance posture	Cost can increase as needs scale for some merchants	Higher cost and pricing that scales with volume