If you’ve been using Ecologi for your Shopify store and something isn’t quite working, you’re not alone. Merchants searching for an ecologi shopify alternative are usually asking the same questions: Is there something cheaper? Is there something that verifies impact more rigorously? Is there something that doesn’t go down when I’m in the middle of a busy sale?
This post gives you an honest, side-by-side look at three of the most popular Shopify tree planting apps: Ecologi, Evertreen, and GoodAPI. We’ll cover pricing, how each one actually works, how (or whether) they verify the trees being planted, and which type of merchant each is best suited for.
No fluff. Just the comparison you need to make the right call.
What All Three Apps Do (and Why It Matters)
Each of these tools connects your Shopify store to a tree planting program, so that a tree gets planted automatically when a customer places an order. The appeal for merchants is clear: it adds a layer of purpose to the purchase, gives customers something to feel good about, and differentiates the brand in a market where sustainability messaging is increasingly table stakes.
Beyond that core mechanic, the three platforms diverge pretty significantly.
Ecologi: The Established Option
Ecologi is the most widely known of the three. It has been around longer than the others, it has a recognisable brand in sustainability circles, and its Shopify app lets you configure planting triggers per sale, per order, or per dollar amount.
Cost: Ecologi charges around $0.80 per tree. There’s a free tier that covers the first 50 trees, which is generous for getting started, but costs add up quickly at scale.
Features: Merchants can choose from a range of global reforestation projects, set monthly spending caps, and customise the on-store widget. The interface is straightforward, and setup is relatively quick.
Where merchants run into trouble: The App Store reviews tell a mixed story. Some merchants report server errors, billing inconsistencies, and slower-than-expected support responses. For high-volume stores during peak seasons (Black Friday, product launches), reliability matters a lot, and a few merchants have flagged that Ecologi’s infrastructure doesn’t always hold up under pressure.
Verification: Ecologi lists its project partners but doesn’t make the verification methodology especially prominent. Merchants who care about being able to show customers exactly where, when, and how their trees were planted may find the level of transparency underwhelming.
Best for: Merchants who want name recognition in the sustainability space and don’t have a particularly high order volume or strict verification requirements.
Evertreen: The Newcomer
Evertreen is a newer entrant with a smaller user base. It bills itself on simplicity: the setup takes about two minutes, and merchants get a public forest profile on evertreen.com that they can share with customers as a proof-of-impact page.
Cost: Evertreen doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing, which makes direct comparison difficult. You’d need to contact them or install the app to get a quote. This can be frustrating for merchants doing due diligence.
Features: Planting can be triggered per order or per dollar amount. The public forest profile is a genuine differentiator: it’s a shareable page that shows your cumulative impact in a visual, customer-friendly format. For brands that lean heavily into sustainability storytelling, this is useful.
Where merchants run into trouble: With only a small number of App Store reviews, there simply isn’t enough data to assess long-term reliability, support quality, or edge cases. The five-star rating is promising, but it’s hard to draw conclusions from a small sample.
Verification: Like Ecologi, Evertreen doesn’t detail its verification methodology in publicly available materials. The public forest profile is a transparency feature, but it’s more of a display mechanism than an independent audit.
Best for: Smaller merchants or newer stores that want a clean, lightweight setup and like the idea of a shareable impact page for social media and email campaigns.
GoodAPI: The High-Volume, Dual-Impact Option
GoodAPI takes a different approach. It’s built primarily for Shopify merchants who want to move beyond tree planting as a marketing badge and toward sustainability as a verifiable, scalable part of how their business operates.
Pricing
At $0.43 per tree, GoodAPI costs roughly half what Ecologi charges. For a store planting 500 trees a month, that’s a difference of $185 every month. Over a year, that’s more than $2,200 in savings, without compromising on the number of trees planted or the quality of the programme.
The breakdown of what goes where is also public: around $0.22 goes directly to reforestation partners, $0.18 covers operations and growth, and $0.03 covers payment processing. Merchants who want to understand exactly what they’re paying for appreciate this level of transparency.
Dual Impact: Trees and Plastic Removal
This is the feature that most clearly separates GoodAPI from the alternatives. In addition to planting trees per order, GoodAPI lets merchants automatically remove ocean-bound plastic, measured in bottles, alongside every purchase.
For a store that wants to make a credible claim about environmental impact, offering both reforestation and ocean plastic removal is meaningfully different from planting trees alone. Customers increasingly want to see specific, measurable actions, not just a general sustainability commitment. A checkout message that says “We plant a tree and remove 5 plastic bottles for every order” hits harder than “We plant a tree.”
Veritree Verification
GoodAPI’s reforestation partner is Veritree, a verified reforestation organisation with global projects. Every tree planted through GoodAPI is tracked, geolocated, and supported through its critical first years of growth. Veritree uses geospatial data, on-site photography, and independent third-party audits to verify that planting actually happened and that trees are surviving.
This matters because “planted a tree” is one of the easiest claims to make and one of the hardest to substantiate. When a customer asks your brand “but did the trees actually get planted?”, being able to point to Veritree’s independent verification is a much stronger answer than a project listing on a marketing page.
Review Volume and Merchant Satisfaction
With over 300 App Store reviews at a 5.0/5 rating, GoodAPI has one of the largest verified review bases of any Shopify sustainability app. Reviews consistently highlight support quality, fast implementation, and zero impact on store load speed. Customer support being specifically praised across hundreds of reviews is a strong signal for merchants who’ve had bad experiences with unresponsive platforms.
Features
- Per-order triggers for both tree planting and plastic removal
- Real-time impact dashboard for merchants and customers
- Automated monthly sustainability reports
- No negative effect on store performance
- Setup under two minutes
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Ecologi | Evertreen | GoodAPI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per tree | ~$0.80 | Not disclosed | $0.43 |
| Dual impact (trees + plastic) | No | No | Yes |
| Independent verification | Limited | Limited | Veritree certified |
| App Store rating | 4.8-4.9/5 | 5.0/5 | 5.0/5 |
| Review volume | ~20 reviews | ~4 reviews | 300+ reviews |
| Real-time impact dashboard | Basic | Forest profile | Full dashboard |
| Setup time | Standard | 2 minutes | Under 2 minutes |
| Support reputation | Mixed | Unknown | Consistently praised |
Which One Should You Choose?
If you’re a small store just getting started with sustainability and want the simplest possible setup, Evertreen is worth a look. The public forest profile is a nice touch for social-first brands.
If you’ve been with Ecologi and the costs or reliability issues have become a friction point, GoodAPI is the most direct replacement. You get more impact for less money, stronger verification, and a substantially larger track record of happy merchants.
If you’re a higher-volume store, or if your brand identity is genuinely built around verified environmental impact (not just the mention of it), GoodAPI’s dual-impact model and Veritree certification put it in a different category entirely.
The Bottom Line
Searching for an ecologi shopify alternative usually comes down to two things: cost and trust. GoodAPI addresses both. At $0.43 per tree versus Ecologi’s $0.80, the savings compound quickly. And with Veritree’s independent verification behind every tree planted, you’re not just planting trees. You can prove it.
If you’re ready to switch, or want to see what a more transparent, lower-cost, dual-impact sustainability programme looks like for your store, you can install the GoodAPI app directly from the Shopify App Store.