Concepts referenced in this article, defined.
Run rigorous A/B tests and personalize every visit on Shopify or any storefront โ no engineers required.
Nosto is an ecommerce-first personalisation platform built specifically for Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and similar storefronts. It's the faster, more accessible option for D2C brands that want product recommendations, dynamic content, and onsite personalisation without a major implementation project. Dynamic Yield is a broader, more technical personalisation platform (now owned by Mastercard after a McDonald's acquisition) built for enterprise-scale use across web, mobile, email, and kiosk. It suits large retail organisations that have complex personalisation infrastructure needs. For most D2C brands, Nosto is the pragmatic choice. Dynamic Yield is genuinely an enterprise platform, and it takes significant technical investment to deploy.
Nosto is a Commerce Experience Platform founded in Finland in 2011, with strong traction in the Shopify ecosystem. It offers personalised product recommendations, dynamic popups, on-site content personalisation, segmented email content blocks, and A/B testing. Nosto integrates natively with Shopify, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and BigCommerce. Pricing is based either on a percentage of revenue influenced (performance-based) or on a flat monthly fee at higher tiers. Entry-level plans for smaller stores start around $99 to $249/month, while mid-market and enterprise pricing is custom.
Dynamic Yield is an enterprise personalisation and experience optimisation platform acquired by McDonald's in 2019 and sold to Mastercard in 2022. It offers web and mobile personalisation, product recommendations, A/B and multivariate testing, behavioural email personalisation, and server-side testing. Large retail, financial services, and media companies use it. Pricing is enterprise custom, typically $60,000 to $300,000+/year, which puts it out of reach for organisations without significant CRO budgets.
| Feature | Nosto | Dynamic Yield |
|---|---|---|
| Product recommendations | Yes (ecommerce-native) | Yes |
| Dynamic content personalisation | Yes | Yes |
| A/B testing | Yes | Yes |
| Behavioural segmentation | Yes | Advanced |
| Email personalisation | Yes (content blocks) | Yes |
| Server-side personalisation | Limited | Yes |
| Mobile app personalisation | Limited | Yes |
| No-code setup | Yes | Partial |
| Shopify native integration | Yes | Yes |
| AI recommendation algorithms | Yes | Yes (advanced) |
| Price transparency | Partial | No (custom) |
| Entry price | ~$99 to $249/month | ~$60,000+/year |
| Ecommerce focus | Core focus | One of many use cases |
| India market support | Yes | Limited |
The pricing gap between Nosto and Dynamic Yield is wide.
Nosto:
For an Indian D2C brand doing โน5 to 20 crore/month in revenue, Nosto's mid-market pricing (roughly โน40,000 to โน1,60,000/month) is a meaningful cost, but one you can justify if personalisation drives measurable uplift.
Dynamic Yield:
Dynamic Yield is priced for enterprise retail at the scale of a Tata CLiQ, Myntra, or a global fashion retailer. For brands under โน200 crore in revenue, Dynamic Yield's pricing is prohibitive.
Nosto's product recommendations are its main feature, purpose-built for ecommerce. Out of the box, Nosto provides:
These recommendations go in via drag-and-drop placement in Shopify's theme editor, so non-technical teams can set them up.
Dynamic Yield's recommendation engine is similarly capable, with more configuration options: real-time behavioural weighting, multi-objective optimisation (balancing revenue vs discovery vs novelty), and real-time affinity learning. The extra sophistication comes with more implementation complexity. Dynamic Yield's recommendation setup typically requires data engineering work to connect product catalogue feeds and train initial models.
For a D2C brand like a cosmetics store or a sportswear brand with a catalogue of 200 to 2,000 SKUs, Nosto's recommendations will drive measurable revenue lift without extensive setup. Dynamic Yield's extra algorithmic sophistication matters more at larger catalogue sizes (10,000+ SKUs) and higher traffic volumes.
Dynamic Yield's main strength is the depth of its personalisation across channels. It can personalise:
This multi-channel depth is why McDonald's acquired it (to personalise its digital menu boards globally) and why Mastercard continues to invest in it.
Nosto is mostly a web and email personalisation tool. Its channel coverage centres on the on-site experience, which is the highest-leverage channel for D2C ecommerce brands. App and kiosk personalisation are not core use cases.
Both Nosto and Dynamic Yield include A/B testing, mostly for testing personalisation variants: which recommendation algorithm performs better, or which content block drives more engagement. That's useful, but it's focused on personalisation testing specifically.
For broader A/B testing, such as testing page layouts, CTA copy, pricing display, checkout steps, and promotional messaging, a dedicated testing platform is a better fit. Personalisation and A/B testing do different but complementary jobs. Personalisation tailors the experience to user segments, while A/B testing identifies which experience variants convert better for the general population.
If you're evaluating Nosto or Dynamic Yield for your D2C stack, you'll also want a dedicated A/B testing tool. CustomFit.ai integrates with Shopify and handles the A/B testing side, testing specific page changes, conversion funnel optimisation, and pricing experiments, while Nosto or Dynamic Yield handles product recommendation personalisation. Together, they cover both proving what works (A/B testing) and scaling it for each user segment (personalisation). Start a 14-day free trial and improve your store's conversion rate from day one.
Who owns Dynamic Yield now? Dynamic Yield was acquired by McDonald's in 2019 and sold to Mastercard in 2022. It operates as part of Mastercard's data and services division.
Does Nosto work with WooCommerce? Nosto's primary integrations are Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. WooCommerce integration is available but less feature-complete than the Shopify integration.
Can Nosto personalise email content? Yes. Nosto provides email content blocks that embed real-time personalised product recommendations into email campaigns sent through platforms like Klaviyo or Mailchimp.
What is "performance-based" pricing for Nosto? Some Nosto plans charge a percentage of GMV that Nosto attributes to its recommendations (influenced revenue), rather than a flat monthly fee. This aligns cost with value but can become expensive at high GMV.
Is Dynamic Yield available for Indian D2C brands? Dynamic Yield is available globally but primarily serves enterprise accounts. Its price point and implementation requirements make it impractical for most Indian D2C brands.