Cartlytics
Lucky OrangeWhich Shopify analytics tool is right for your store? A detailed comparison of features, pricing, and use cases.
Cartlytics vs Lucky Orange: Which Shopify Analytics Tool Is Right for You?
I get asked about Lucky Orange a lot. It's one of the most popular behavior analytics tools out there, and for good reason. But here's the thing: it wasn't built for Shopify stores specifically, and it definitely wasn't built for cart analytics.
Lucky Orange gives you heatmaps and session recordings. Cartlytics shows you exactly what's in every cart on your store right now. Different tools, different problems they solve.
So which one do you actually need? Depends on what's keeping you up at night.
| Feature | Cartlytics | Lucky Orange |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time cart tracking | Yes | No |
| Individual cart contents | Yes | No |
| Customer journey tracking | Yes | via recordings |
| Heatmaps | No | Yes |
| Session recordings | No | Yes |
| Cart recovery emails | Yes | No |
| UTM/traffic source tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Shopify-native | Yes | No |
| Free tier | with limits | 100 sessions |
| Starting paid price | $9/mo | $32/mo |
Cartlytics is a Shopify app that does one thing well: it tracks carts. You can see every active cart on your store in real-time, what products people added, where they came from (Google, Instagram, email campaign), and what pages they browsed before adding something.
When someone abandons their cart, you can send recovery emails automatically. You also get daily or weekly reports in your inbox so you don't have to log in constantly.
It installs from the Shopify App Store in about 2 minutes. No code, no theme edits.
Lucky Orange is a behavior analytics platform. The big features are heatmaps (see where people click and scroll) and session recordings (watch actual visitors navigate your site like a screen recording).
It also has live chat, surveys, and form analytics. It works on any website, not just Shopify.
If you've ever wondered "why do people leave my homepage?" or "are people actually scrolling to my CTA?", that's what Lucky Orange is for.
They solve different problems
Lucky Orange helps you understand how people use your website. Cartlytics tells you what's sitting in carts right now and why it's not converting.
Say a customer adds a $200 item, browses for 10 minutes, then leaves. With Lucky Orange, you'd need to find their session recording, watch it, and try to figure out what happened. With Cartlytics, you just see that cart in your dashboard with all the context already there.
Setup is very different
Cartlytics is a Shopify app. Install it, approve the permissions, done. It automatically knows your products, orders, currency, and timezone because it's reading directly from Shopify.
Lucky Orange needs you to add a tracking script to your theme. Nothing crazy, but it's an extra step. And it doesn't know anything about your Shopify data unless you configure it.
Real-time carts vs real-time visitors
Both tools have a "live" view, but they show different things. Lucky Orange shows you visitors on your site. Cartlytics shows you carts with items in them.
The difference matters. Knowing someone is on your product page is interesting. Knowing someone has $347 worth of products in their cart and came from your Facebook ad is actionable.
Cart recovery
Cartlytics has built-in abandoned cart emails. Set up your template, pick when to send (1 hour after abandonment, 24 hours, whatever), and it runs automatically.
Lucky Orange doesn't do this. You'd need Klaviyo, Shopify's native emails, or another tool for recovery.
| Plan | Cartlytics | Lucky Orange |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Yes (with limits) | Yes (100 sessions/mo) |
| Entry paid | $9/month | $32/month |
| Mid-tier | $19/month | $72/month |
| Higher tier | $29/month | $199/month |
Lucky Orange's free tier caps at 100 sessions per month. That's maybe a day or two of traffic for most stores. After that, you're looking at $32/month minimum.
Cartlytics starts at $9/month for growing stores. The free tier has limits too, but it's designed for stores just getting started.
Go with Cartlytics if your main question is "what's happening with carts on my store?" You want to see what products get added, which ones get removed, who's abandoning, and where those people came from.
Also if you want cart recovery emails without paying for Klaviyo. Cartlytics includes that.
Lucky Orange makes sense if you're trying to figure out why people aren't clicking your buy button, or if your homepage layout is confusing visitors. The heatmaps and recordings are great for that.
It's also the better choice if you have websites outside Shopify, since it works anywhere.
Sure. They don't overlap much. One tracks carts, the other tracks behavior. Some stores run both.
But if budget is a concern, pick the one that solves your biggest problem first. For most Shopify stores, that's cart abandonment.
These aren't really competitors. Lucky Orange is for UX optimization. Cartlytics is for cart analytics. Different problems.
If you're losing sales to abandoned carts and want to know exactly what's in those carts, Cartlytics is the more direct solution. If you're trying to understand why visitors bounce before they even add anything to cart, Lucky Orange's heatmaps will help more.