Elevar vs Retention.com
Elevar is better for Shopify tracking; Retention.com specializes in email audience recovery.
What is Elevar?
Elevar ensures that 100% of your conversions are tracked and delivered to your marketing channels using Google Tag Manager and server-side tracking. Since the company was acquired by Buxton (now Audiense) the product has been merged into a wider analytics and segmentation tool.

What is Retention.com?
Retention.com's identity resolution software helps Shopify merchants recover lost shoppers and increase Klaviyo flow revenue.
Switching from Elevar? You get more for less with Littledata.
Elevar vs Retention.com comparison
| Feature | Elevar | Retention.com | Littledata |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity resolution to boost audiences | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Customer data to marketing platforms | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Direct from Shopify's servers | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Natively supports Shopify Markets | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Via server-side Google Tag Manager | ✔️ | ||
| Works with platforms other than Shopify | ✔️ | ||
| 30 day free trial | ✔️ | ||
| Founder owned and led | ✔️ | ||
| Fully automatic, no code setup | ✔️ | ||
| Automatic tracking of checkout steps | ✔️ | ||
| Built For Shopify | ✔️ |
Elevar vs Retention.com
Elevar focuses on comprehensive conversion tracking via server-side Google Tag Manager, delivering data to multiple marketing platforms. However, following its acquisition by Buxton/Audiense, it has shifted toward a broader analytics and segmentation tool, meaning it may no longer be a pure tracking solution for Shopify Plus brands.
Retention.com is narrower in scope — primarily focused on identity resolution to recover lost shoppers and boost Klaviyo flows, rather than full conversion tracking across marketing channels.
Where Littledata wins over both:
Neither Elevar nor Retention.com is Littledata, so it's worth noting Littledata's advantages:
- Elevar relies on Google Tag Manager, which is still browser-dependent and can miss server-side events. Littledata sends data direct from Shopify's servers, capturing a more complete customer journey.
- Retention.com also lacks direct Shopify server-side sending, limiting event enrichment.
- Littledata adds a 30-day free trial, fully automatic no-code setup, and automatic checkout step tracking — reducing implementation friction significantly.
Cost comparison
Elevar vs Retention.com's monthly subscription cost
| Store size | Elevar | Retention.com | Littledata |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 orders / month | $650 | $500 | $18 |
| 500 orders / month | $650 | $500 | $175 |
| 5,000 orders / month | $650 | $2000 | $544 |
| 20,000 orders / month | $1250 | $5000 | $1290 |
Sources: Elevar pricing, Littledata pricing. Prices last verified October 22, 2026. Elevar: Priced on the Advanced plan or above, the cheapest that covers Klaviyo plus GA4, Meta and Google Ads (Base and Core allow 2 ad or analytics destinations). Retention.com: Annual plans only.
Supported data destinations
| Destination | Elevar | Retention.com | Littledata |
|---|---|---|---|
| Klaviyo | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Google Analytics | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Meta Ads | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| ✔️ | ✔️ | ||
| TikTok | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Attentive | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Google Ads | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Microsoft Ads | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Segment | ✔️ | ||
| ChatGPT Ads | ✔️ |
Elevar and Littledata offer broad multi-channel server-side tracking across paid media, analytics, and email/SMS platforms — covering Google Analytics, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Klaviyo, and Attentive.
Retention.com's server-side tracking is narrowly focused, sending data exclusively to Klaviyo. Its core value proposition isn't multi-channel attribution — it's identity resolution and list growth (identifying anonymous visitors to expand your email audience).
Key distinction: If you need server-side tracking across paid media and analytics channels, Elevar or Littledata are purpose-built for that. Retention.com is better positioned as a Klaviyo-specific identity resolution tool rather than a comprehensive tracking solution.
Klaviyo comparison
Elevar vs Retention.com's solution for Klaviyo
| Feature | Elevar | Retention.com | Littledata |
|---|---|---|---|
| Identity resolution | |||
| Never adds emails to your list without consent | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Uses other marketing channel cookies to boost identity | ✔️ | ||
| Backstitches Klaviyo profile onto previous customer events | ✔️ | ||
| Klaviyo Preferred Partner | ✔️ | ||
| Viewed Product trigger | |||
| Backwards compatible with Klaviyo templates | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Tracked server-side | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Enriched product info (e.g. category) | ✔️ | ||
| Added to Cart trigger | |||
| Backwards compatible with Klaviyo templates | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Direct from Shopify servers | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Enriched product info (e.g. category) | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Unreliable tracking of button clicks | ✔️ | ||
| Target the whole contents of the cart | ✔️ | ||
| Checkout Started trigger | |||
| Backwards compatible with Klaviyo templates | ✔️ | ✔️ | |
| Tracked via the checkout page | ✔️ | ||
| Direct from Shopify servers | ✔️ | ||
| Placed Order metric | |||
| Direct from Shopify servers | ✔️ | ||
| Selectable as conversion metric for revenue attribution | ✔️ | ||
Benefits of Littledata

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How we compiled this comparison: pricing and feature data comes from each vendor's public pricing page, Shopify App Store listings, and BuiltWith usage data, reviewed by the Littledata team. Last verified November 3, 2026. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.