You are doing the responsible thing. You found a free cart app - Selleasy, maybe - it has thousands of reviews, it does upsells, it costs nothing. Then you find CartBoost at $19.99 a month and the obvious question lands: why would I pay for something I can get for free?
Fair. Let us answer it honestly, because you deserve a real answer, not a sales pitch.
Free is never actually free
Most free Shopify apps run on a freemium model. The free tier exists to get you in the door. The features that actually move revenue sit behind usage caps, paywalls, or upgrade prompts - and the app makes money when you outgrow the free plan, not when your store wins.
That is a small misalignment, but it shapes everything. A freemium app is incentivised to keep you almost satisfied.
CartBoost is a flat $19.99 a month. No tiers, no usage caps, no “upgrade to unlock.” Our incentive is simple: keep your store growing so you keep paying us. When you win, we win. That alignment is the product.
Deterministic, not a slot machine
Here is the part that matters most. Most upsell apps surface recommendations that are either random or driven by an opaque algorithm you cannot inspect.
CartBoost recommendations are deterministic and basket-matched. Same cart, same logic, same result - every time. They are chosen to fit what the shopper is already buying, not to throw products at the wall. You can understand exactly why a recommendation appeared, because it follows rules, not a black box. No machine learning guesswork. No randomness dressed up as intelligence.
It starts with your threshold
Free apps show upsells. CartBoost starts a step earlier, with a diagnostic: it looks at the gap between your store’s average order value and your free shipping threshold, then works to close it. The smart cart drawer shows each shopper precisely how far they are from free shipping and offers a matched product to get them there.
That is the difference between decorating your cart and engineering it.
We are not hiding from the comparison. We put it in writing.
Read the full CartBoost vs Selleasy breakdown
If you want a cart that is built to do one job - lift your average order value, predictably - the $19.99 is not a cost. It is the cheapest growth lever you have.