Heartly vs Privy
Heartly wins on AI discoverability and dual-platform reach. Privy wins on email list size for shops that already live inside its ecosystem.
What is Privy?
Privy is a Shopify-first marketing app focused on email capture, popups, and SMS. Flash sales exist inside Privy as a popup timer feature, not as a standalone campaign surface. Privy ships only on Shopify and has been acquired by Attentive, now positioned primarily as an SMS on-ramp.
Heartly treats a flash sale as a campaign with its own landing page, countdown, stock indicator, and public Marketplace listing. Privy treats a flash sale as a popup widget inside the merchant's existing store page. Different category.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Heartly | Privy |
|---|---|---|
| Public Deal Marketplace (deals.heartly.io) | Yes | No |
| AI crawler optimization (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) | Yes | No |
| Shopify support | Yes | Yes |
| WooCommerce support | Yes | No |
| AI Assistant with timing + competitor analysis | Pro plan | No |
| Autopilot flash sale creation | Pro plan | No |
| Mobile apps (iOS + Android) for shoppers | Yes | No |
| Email capture popups | Basic | Core product |
| SMS marketing | No | Core product |
| Dedicated flash sale landing page | Yes | No |
What Heartly adds that Privy does not have
Heartly publishes every flash sale to deals.heartly.io, a public Marketplace that lists every active deal from every Heartly merchant. ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude can read and cite the deal thanks to the full AI-crawler stack — robots.txt allowlist, Product JSON-LD, public JSON API, and llms.txt. Privy runs inside the merchant's Shopify store only. There is no public deal directory, no AI-crawler optimization, no cross-merchant discovery.
Shopify and WooCommerce vs Shopify-only
Heartly supports Shopify and WooCommerce with the same dashboard, the same features, and the same pricing. Merchants on either platform get identical flash sale capability, Marketplace publication, AI Assistant, and Autopilot. Privy supports Shopify only. WooCommerce merchants pick a different tool.
Flash sales as a campaign vs flash sales as a popup
A Heartly flash sale is a standalone campaign with a dedicated landing page, countdown timer, stock indicator, one-click checkout, Marketplace placement, and a tombstone page after it ends. A Privy flash sale is a popup widget that overlays the merchant's existing store page. If a shopper blocks popups, the Privy sale is invisible. A Heartly landing page works with or without popups and is shareable in WhatsApp, email, and social without any rendering quirks.
AI Assistant and Autopilot
Heartly Pro ships with an AI Assistant that analyzes sales history, inventory positions, and category trends to recommend the next flash sale. Autopilot can create and schedule sales automatically during peak-conversion hours. Privy has no equivalent feature. Merchants pick sales manually, run them manually, and review performance manually.
Pricing
Privy charges based on mailable contacts and SMS sends — the pricing scales with email list size. Heartly charges a flat monthly rate (€29 Basic, €59 Plus, €99 Pro) regardless of catalog size or traffic. For shops with a large email list, Privy's cost rises with the list while Heartly's stays the same.
See Heartly pricing →Ready to run your first flash sale on Heartly?
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Have a question?
The FAQ has direct answers on pricing, platform support, the Marketplace, Autopilot, and more.
Read the FAQ →Last updated: April 16, 2026 · Privy website