Appy Pie Alternative: WooCommerce Native mobile app builder

Creating a mobile app for your store takes your business to the next level. According to Statista, the first quarter of 2021 recorded over 54.8 percent of global website traffic from mobile devices. The number is consistently above 50 right now in 2017. This revelation encourages eCommerce to tap the conversion rates of mobile devices by improving mobile users’ experiences.

Although this might sound like a complex task, there are a lot of mobile app builders that help you create native Android and iOS app without a single line of code. WooCommerce mobile app builders help you enjoy the payback of having an app without costing you a fortune or waiting time.  

Watch this video to learn how to create an app without coding with Appmaker woocommerce app builder.

WooCommerce Native App Builders

WooCommerce is the easiest-to-use and customizable eCommerce platform that powers over 28.19% of all online stores and more than 1 million eCommerce websites. The great thing about WooCommerce is the wide range of integration options and themes. The availability of themes and plugins helps you customize your site exactly the way you want to boost sales and increase conversions.

If you have already leveraged WooCommerce’s adaptable platform, you can easily convert the store using a WooCommerce app builder to ensure the flow of profits. Building WooCommerce apps for iOS and Android will help you cover most of your customer base. Following are the reasons why the conversion rates with apps are higher:

• Mobile apps users are more loyal
• Mobile apps ensure a better user experience
• Communication with the customer is easy and effective with push notifications

Having said that, the easiest way to create a mobile app is to convert your thriving  WooCommerce store into mobile apps. Converting mobile apps encourages repeat purchases, and customer retention while providing a more engaging user interface. Mobile apps help create a better first impression and increase visibility, which support both your marketing campaigns and customer journey.

Learn more about Appmaker WooCommerce mobile app builder with our Complete Guide to WooCommerce Mobile App Creation.

Appy Pie Vs Appmaker: App Builder Comparison

Converting WooCommerce to a mobile app means putting your effort and time into earning a lot of benefits. Hence, it is important that you spend some time on research before you choose the right WooCommerce app maker.

If you are struggling to choose between Appmaker and Appy Pie this article is for you. Here,  we analyze the key features, pricing, and what makes each of them unique to help you choose the right Appy Pie alternative.

What is Appy Pie?

Appy Pie is a WooCommerce native app builder launched in 2014 and has served about 2 million apps until now. Appy Pie offers a trial period to offer its services to users so as to build trust among the customers to make them sign up for subscriptions. Appy Pie offers many high-end features such as AR and VR, but with assistance from third parties. If you are looking for any basic apps Appy Pie will definitely satisfy you with the following features:

1. Ease of use: Appy Pie is an easily accessible app building platform that offers templates for you to choose from. It lets you build an app and preview it from Appy Pie’s web page without having to sign.
2. AR / VR Features: Though Appy Pie also provides a significant number of features such as AR/VR for your app. Categorized under Social, Commerce, Contact, and Information, these can be added directly. However, some of them require third-party integration for getting added to your app features list.
3. Promotion and Marketing: With Appy Pie, can easily convert your website to a mobile app and create an in-app store link to the existing platforms. You can generate promotional activities such as cards and loyalty programs. Appy Pie also offers app analytics support for store owners to formulate better sales strategies.

How to create app on Appy Pie? 

Appy Pie offers a DIY app-making solution with which you can tweak and customize your app until you are fully satisfied. With its no-code solution, it attracts many store owners who are not tech-savvy.

Basically, Appy Pie offers a range of app templates for their customers to choose from. Some of them are Restaurant app builder, Church app builder, Small business app builder, and Real estate app builder. Appy Pie suggests an elaborate process to create the app as given below:

1. Choosing the app name and selecting a color palette
2. Customizing the app design
3. Choosing a device and installing for testing
4. Adding the key features
5. Testing before the app launch
6. Publishing and promoting the app

The process is not really complicated, yet most of the apps created with Appy Pie incline towards a similar layout owing to the use of templates. This might be disappointing if you are looking for a customizable app maker that can convert your woocommerce to android app/ iOS app.

Appy Pie pricing

Appy Pie has three primary pricing plans for its users. These include the basic, gold, and platinum plans.

The basic plan comes with a limited number of push notifications and app downloads. This plan supports only Android app support with limited customer support only via email. The next category, the gold plan comes with some of the premium features above the basic plan. The number of push notifications and app downloads is also high when compared to the basic plan.

On the other hand, the platinum plan offers many premium features including complete customer support through email, chat, and calls. The only premium plan allows you to create apps compatible with both iOS and Android.

If you need to remove Appy Pie branding and get white-labeling you have to buy an add-on to have that. There is an additional cost for additional downloads and installs.

What is Appmaker?

Appmaker launched in 2013 and offers app-building services as well as a built-in marketing tool. It allows users to create and update marketing banners inside the app, send push notifications, and make updates on the go using Admin CMS.

Let’s have a look at the Appmaker features, that make it the best Appy Pie alternative:

Personalized Push Notification: The store owners can send engaging push notifications to the app users from Appmaker’s dashboard. This will help you to be directly in touch with the customer even if they are not using the app.

Social Integration: Appmaker’s social integration feature lets the users login into the app using their social media accounts and thus provides an easy login experience. This increases user sign-ups and makes your app user-friendly.

App settings: Appmaker offers quick app settings to make your app more appealing for users. Some of them are currency-language switcher, customizable in-app pages, and RTL support.

Customized Home Page: The homepage is surely the best arena to display your design skills and lure all your customers to buy products through various offers, sales, and a variety of products available. With the apps built by Appmaker, you can bring in various banners, grid images, product scrollers, image scrollers, and a lot more.

Multilingual Apps: With multiple-language support, the app users can switch the app content into their native languages. This helps your business to win global customers and at the same time boost the customer experience.

Payment Gateway Support: Appmaker apps support all the WooCommerce payment gateways to provide your customers a secure and seamless checkout experience through their mobile app.

Grocery Mode: The unique grocery mode feature by Appmaker is suitable for eCommerce business stores that sell groceries. The users can choose the number of products to be added even without opening the product.

In Sync with your WooCommerce store: Being in sync with your WooCommerce store, the mobile app helps you keep a track of your stock and products.

How to create app on Appmaker?

Appmaker, a WooCommerce native mobile app builder, helps you create and manage your app easily. If you already have a WooCommerce store, you can start by entering the URL of your WooCommerce store. Next, connect your store automatically by clicking on the Connect Woo Store button. The real magic starts from the following steps:

1. Installing and activating Appmaker’s plugin

This automatically builds a native app for your WooCommerce store. A basic version of your eCommerce store will be ready after installing the plugin. Appmaker connects your online store to the mobile app and seamlessly exports all the products, categories, payment gateways, menu items, and more from your WooCommerce website.

2. Enabling app features

Apps built by Appmaker have an admin panel where you can have absolute complete control of your app. With this, you can design the homepage of the app, give a theme color, style your menu page, send push notifications, and many more features. You can even upload your Android and iOS versions to the store directly from the dashboard.

3. Customizing app

With Appmaker, you can custom design the homepage and the Menu of the app. Though all the menu items are taken from the website and displayed in the app automatically, it allows you to add more menu items. Any changes made in the dashboard is reflected in real-time in the app.

4. Publishing the app

App publishing with Appmaker is simple with Appmaker’s dedicated document support for each app store. With its Growth and Scale pricing plans, Appmaker also provides assisted app building.

5. Promoting the app

Appmaker dashboard provides options to help promote your Android and iOS app using Smart banner and email footers. The built-in customization option will help you come up with promoting your app by creating attractive sliders and banners. This in-built marketing feature is what makes Appmaker different from its competitors.

Appmaker pricing

Appmaker offers three pricing plans such as Starter, Growth, and Scale plans. In addition, Appmaker also provides an Enterprise plan for larger organizations.

The Starter plan comes with all the basic features including push notifications, 3 home pages, and complete product sync. Whereas the Growth plan additionally provides assisted publishing and app designing. It is suitable for any growing business as it comes with comprehensive analytics and automatic updates.

The next is the Scale plan for businesses in the scale stage, which comes with custom plugin support and 10 home pages. SEO Support and  Quality business insights in this plan will help you scale up with Appmaker’s support. There’s an Enterprise level pan for large businesses with custom requirements which includes all features in the scale plan with additional website audit for solid growth at a high level.

Appmaker’s pricing plan is categorized based on the stage that your business is in and the pace of your growth. Appmaker’s experts will also be able to suggest you custom-built pricing for your business. Also, there’s a discount available, if you are going for a yearly billing plan.

Is Appmaker a better alternative to Appy Pie?

The detailed discussion above explains all the key points to consider Appmaker as the best Appy Pie alternative. While Appy Pie provides generous features for building a basic app, it might not be ideal for those who are seeking advanced features.

Appy Pie lets you choose a template for your app. This lack of flexibility in the design and similar layouts will be unappealing to store owners who are planning to go for a more customizable app builder.

Appy Pie has launched many video tutorials on building apps using their platform. But when it comes to customer support, Appmaker has the upper hand with its 24/7 dedicated customer support in addition to the detailed video and document resources available.

Appy Pie offers many of its services as separate add-ons. For example, White-Label and customer branding come with a cost. This might catch those subscribing to Appy Pie a little off-guard at the end when it comes to pricing. On the other hand, Appmaker does not charge you for White-label and the pricing is pretty straightforward when compared to Appy Pie.