Shapo Alternative? Shapo vs ShowTrust for Video & Text

Shapo facts come from shapo.io and the Shapo help center as of November 2026; ShowTrust facts come from its pricing page and docs. Plans change, so recheck prices on both sites before you buy.

Sev LeoLinkedInTwitter

Founder and sole developer of ShowTrust.to and Skribra.com

Shapo vs ShowTrust at a glance

Shapo facts as of November 2026, from Shapo’s pricing page and help center.

The pattern is simple: Shapo covers more ground (review imports, surveys, team roles, schema), while ShowTrust covers the collect-approve-display loop for much less money and without a testimonial cap on Free.

Shapo pricing and free plan vs ShowTrust

Shapo has two plans as of November 2026:

• Free ($0, no card): up to 15 testimonials, collected or imported, unlimited forms and widgets, 2 custom form fields per form, 20 tags, one AI/NPS/feedback survey, video and image testimonials, and Shapo branding.
• Pro ($29/month, or $290/year): unlimited testimonials, imports from 30+ platforms, 500 email campaign invites a month, 10 custom fields per form, unlimited surveys, custom domain for the Wall of Love and Review Booster pages, and no branding. A 7-day Pro trial costs $1 and renews at $29/month unless you cancel.

The Free cap is the detail to plan around. Shapo’s pricing FAQ says that once you reach 15 testimonials, “incoming testimonials will not be visible” and imports from third-party sources are restricted. For agencies, Shapo says one workspace can hold a few brands or clients, and separate workspaces each have their own billing.

ShowTrust also has two plans (details on ShowTrust pricing):

• Free ($0, no card): one project, unlimited testimonials, every layout and style, written testimonials on the collection page, 25 email invites a day, and a small “Wall of love by ShowTrust” credit you can switch off.
• Pro ($4.99/month or $49.99/year per project slot): video testimonials, white-label walls, 500 email invites a day, and one more project per slot (one slot gives you two projects). If you cancel, you return to Free; your oldest project stays active and the others are marked inactive, not deleted.

There is no metering by page views or video minutes on either ShowTrust plan.

What video collection costs per year

Annual billing, list prices as of November 2026:

Shapo is cheaper in one case: video with 15 or fewer testimonials in total. Past that, ShowTrust costs a fraction of Shapo Pro, but Shapo Pro also includes things ShowTrust doesn’t offer at any price, such as review auto-sync, surveys and team roles.

Collecting video testimonials

Both tools let customers record a video testimonial in the browser without installing anything. The differences are in plan access, published limits and the recording experience.

How video works in Shapo

• In the form builder, turn on “Accept Video Testimonials” in the Welcome section, add instructions, then share the form link or embed the form on your site (Shapo’s video guide).
• Customers record on a phone or desktop. Submitted videos are managed and moderated in the dashboard and can be shown in any widget.
• Video is included on every plan, including Free, but videos count toward Free’s 15-testimonial cap.
• You can add videos you already have (for example, ones downloaded from YouTube, Loom or Vimeo) through the “Video Testimonial” import source (guide), and download any collected video from the player.
• As of November 2026, Shapo’s public pages don’t state a maximum video length or file size, and don’t mention captions or transcription.

How video works in ShowTrust

• Video is a Pro feature. Each collection page can ask for video and text, video only, or text only; without Pro it falls back to text.
• The recorder works on desktop and phone: a 3-second countdown, your questions shown on screen one at a time, a timer, and a review step with “Record again”. Customers can upload an MP4, MOV or WebM file (up to 200 MB) instead.
• You set the length from 15 seconds to 5 minutes (2 minutes by default). There’s no cap on the number of videos on Pro, and customers can add a star rating and a written note.
• Videos land in Pending with a thumbnail. Once approved, they play inline in your Wall of Love, one at a time.
• Not included: transcription, captions, AI editing, branching question flows, or multiple takes stitched together.

A 15-minute test before you commit

Run the same test in whichever tool you’re considering (Shapo Free covers it; on ShowTrust you need Pro, which you can take monthly):

1. Turn on video for the form or collection page you’ll actually send customers.
2. Record one testimonial on desktop and one on a phone. Try the retake flow.
3. Upload a file instead of recording, if you expect customers to do that.
4. Check where the submission lands and whether it goes live on your site before you approve it.
5. Approve it, then check playback in the dashboard and in the embedded widget.
6. Un-approve or delete it and confirm it disappears from the widget.

For ideas on what makes a strong clip, see these video testimonial collection examples.

Collecting text testimonials and requests

Most testimonials are still written, so the request flow matters as much as the recorder.

Shapo forms and campaigns

• Unlimited forms on every plan. Name and email are required by default; you can switch on extra fields such as website or phone, and add custom fields (2 per form on Free, 10 on Pro), product tags and an NPS question.
• Customers can attach up to three images to a testimonial.
• Forms can be shared as a link or embedded on your site, with a conditional thank-you page.
• Email campaigns are Pro only: upload a CSV of names and emails, personalize with {{name}}, and track opens, clicks and submissions, up to 500 emails a month. Shapo notes that a campaign can’t be stopped once launched (campaign guide).
• A Review Booster page collects your review links in one place and sends customers to review you on the platforms you choose.

ShowTrust collection page and invites

• One hosted collection page per project at showtrust.to/your-name. Customers don’t need an account. You choose fields (role, company, photo, star rating) and up to 5 questions.
• Customers can tap “Autofill with X” to fill their name, handle and photo.
• A permission checkbox (don’t ask, optional or required) records on each testimonial whether the customer agreed, and the flag is included in CSV exports.
• Built-in form text in 9 languages, a printable QR code, a thank-you screen with an optional reward (coupon code or link), and a “Leave a testimonial” button that opens the form in a pop-up on your own site.
• Email invites work on every plan: 25 a day on Free, 500 a day on Pro. Invites are personalized with {{name}}, send one automatic reminder after 3 days, include one-click unsubscribe, and never reach the same person twice within 7 days or after they’ve responded.

Net: Shapo gives you more form flexibility (many forms, custom fields, NPS). ShowTrust puts more of the request process into the free plan: invites, the reminder, and the permission record.

Importing reviews you already have

This is Shapo’s clearest advantage.

Shapo lists 30+ import sources as of November 2026, including Google, Facebook, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, LinkedIn, X, Reddit, Product Hunt, the App Store and Play Store, Etsy, Zillow, and Shopify review apps such as Judge.me, Okendo, Yotpo and Loox (imported by store URL). With auto-sync, Shapo checks a source every 24 hours, imports new reviews, marks them public by default and emails you a summary (auto-sync guide). On Free, imports count toward the 15-testimonial cap and stop there; Shapo lists its 30+ platform imports and automatic imports as Pro features.

ShowTrust imports from four routes: an X post by link, an App Store listing by link, a CSV file with columns matched for you, or pasted text from G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, LinkedIn or an email, which AI splits into name, quote and rating. You review every row before saving, duplicates are skipped, and each card can keep a “via G2” or “via X” badge. There’s no live sync and no direct Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp or Tripadvisor connection; those reviews have to be copied and pasted.

If Google reviews are the main thing you want on your site, a direct connection like Shapo’s saves real time. For other options, see these checks for showing Google reviews on your website.

Moving from Shapo to ShowTrust

As of November 2026, Shapo’s help center doesn’t document a CSV export. Two workable routes:

1. Through Shapo’s API. The GET testimonials endpoint returns name, title, company, rating, source and message, up to 50 per call, rate-limited to 60 calls an hour (API guide). Save the results as a CSV and use ShowTrust’s CSV import.
2. From the original sources. Re-import X posts and App Store reviews by link, and paste G2, Capterra or Trustpilot text.

ShowTrust’s import routes cover written testimonials, not video files. Download your Shapo videos for your records, and invite those customers to record again on your ShowTrust collection page.

Displaying testimonials on your site

Shapo lists eight widget types as of November 2026: grid, single review, carousel, multi-carousel, marquee, review list, floating review toast and review badge. It also has a Wall of Love page (on your own subdomain with Pro), a “Load more” button, and total-review and average-rating displays. Widgets are pasted as HTML into Shopify, WordPress, Webflow and similar builders.

Shapo can also generate Google review schema code for a page (schema guide). Keep Google’s rules in mind: its review snippet guidelines treat reviews a business hosts about itself as self-serving and don’t show stars for them on LocalBusiness or Organization pages. The same guidelines say not to aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites, which matters if the markup counts reviews imported from Google or Trustpilot. Stars aren’t guaranteed either way.

ShowTrust embeds a Wall of Love with a script plus a container div. The script is small (under 8 kB) and async, and it renders inside a shadow root rather than an iframe, so your site’s CSS doesn’t leak in unless you opt in. You get six layouts (masonry, horizontal scroll, vertical columns, carousel, polaroid scatter, quote wall), 8 card styles, 6 palettes and light or dark mode. Each project has one design. Other display options:

• A hosted wall page at showtrust.to/w/your-name, showing your testimonial count, average rating and topic filters.
• Social-proof popups and a rating badge.
• Single testimonials shared as images or embedded on a pricing page.
• Impression, click and video-play analytics.

The ShowTrust widget doesn’t add review schema.

On Shopify, both tools install the same way: paste the snippet into a Custom Liquid section. Neither needs a Shopify app.

Team access, integrations and API

Shapo

• Team members per workspace with Owner, Admin, Editor and Viewer roles (team guide).
• Form webhooks on Pro: a form.submitted POST you can send to Zapier, Make and similar tools (webhook guide). Shapo has no native Zapier app.
• API on every plan: adding testimonials is limited to 30 an hour, and reading to 60 calls an hour. Review imports through the API need Pro.
• AI, NPS and feedback surveys run from the same account.

ShowTrust

• One login per account. There are no team seats or roles; approval is the owner moving a testimonial from Pending to Approved.
• Slack, Discord and signed webhooks on every plan (integrations). Events are testimonial.created and testimonial.approved, signed with HMAC-SHA256 and retried once. They work with Zapier (Catch Hook), Make or n8n. There’s no native Zapier app.
• REST API for projects, testimonials, wall settings, the embed snippet and invites, plus an AI-agent install where a coding agent signs up, configures the wall and adds the snippet.
• AI is limited to parsing pasted imports. No AI summaries, sentiment or translation.

Shapo or ShowTrust: which should you choose?

Choose Shapo if you’re a local business, store or agency whose reviews already live on Google, Facebook, Yelp or a Shopify review app and you want them pulled in automatically, or if a team needs shared access. It’s also the better free option if 15 testimonials, video included, is enough for now.

Choose ShowTrust if you’re a SaaS founder, indie maker or small team collecting testimonials directly from customers, you’ll pass 15 testimonials, and you want video without a $29 monthly bill. Accept its limits: no live review sync, no team seats, no captions.

For a wider field, see the best testimonial collection and display tools, the Testimonial.to vs Shapo comparison, or all ShowTrust comparisons.

The short answer

Shapo is the broader tool: it collects video even on its free plan, imports and auto-syncs reviews from 30+ sites, and adds team roles and surveys, at $29/month once you pass 15 testimonials. ShowTrust is the narrower, cheaper one: unlimited written testimonials for free and video at $4.99/month per project slot, without live review sync or team seats. Decide on where your testimonials come from (your own requests or existing review sites), then run the 15-minute video test in the tool that fits.