Okendo to Yotpo Migration Guide: Move Reviews, UGC & Loyalty Without Losing Anything

Switching review platforms is one of the few migrations where you can permanently destroy an asset you spent years building. Reviews, photo UGC, verified-buyer flags, and loyalty balances all live inside Okendo — and none of it moves automatically. This guide walks through the full Okendo to Yotpo migration: what exports cleanly, what needs Yotpo's help, how to protect your Google star ratings, and the order of operations that keeps everything intact.

Step 0: Confirm Yotpo Is Actually the Right Destination

Most stores migrating off Okendo are doing it for one of three reasons: they want loyalty, reviews, and SMS billed and managed by one vendor; they were offered Yotpo bundle pricing; or their agency runs Yotpo everywhere else. All are legitimate. But if you have not compared the two platforms head-to-head recently, read our Yotpo vs Okendo comparisonfirst — Okendo has closed a lot of the loyalty and Klaviyo-integration gaps that drove migrations two years ago. If reviews display and moderation are your only requirements, a lighter tool may serve better than either suite; our best reviews software guide covers the full field including Judge.me, Stamped, and Junip.

What Transfers Cleanly (and What Doesn't)

Step-by-Step Migration

1. Export everything from Okendo first

In the Okendo admin, export your full reviews dataset as CSV. Do this before changing anything else and store the file somewhere safe — this is your permanent backup regardless of how the migration goes. Verify the export includes: product identifier (handle or SKU), star rating, review title and body, reviewer name and email, submission date, verified-buyer flag, and media URLs for photo/video reviews. If you run Okendo Loyalty, export the member list with current point balances as a separate file.

2. Install Yotpo alongside Okendo — do not uninstall anything

Install the Yotpo Reviews app while Okendo keeps running. Yotpo's free tier is enough for the setup and verification phase; you only need a paid plan once volume features, Google Shopping syndication, or loyalty enter the picture (plans scale with monthly order volume — verify current pricing with Yotpo, as their packaging is modular across Reviews, Loyalty, SMS, and Subscriptions). Uninstalling Okendo now would pull its widgets off your product pages before Yotpo is ready — the single most common self-inflicted wound in this migration.

3. Map your CSV to Yotpo's import template

Yotpo's importer expects its own column layout. The mapping that matters most is the product identifier: if your Okendo export references products by SKU and Yotpo matches on product handle (or vice versa), reviews will import but attach to nothing. Build the mapping in a spreadsheet, spot-check 20–30 rows against live products, and pay attention to products you have deleted or merged since the reviews were written — those orphaned reviews need to be re-pointed to a current product or dropped deliberately.

4. Import reviews — involve Yotpo support for media

Text reviews import self-serve. For photo and video reviews, the dependable route is a support-assisted import: Yotpo's team ingests the media URLs from your CSV and rehosts the files. Ask for this during onboarding — it is a standard request for stores switching from a competitor, and doing it up front avoids the situation where Okendo's media CDN links die after you cancel and your imported reviews are left with broken images.

5. Migrate loyalty balances (if applicable)

If you are moving from Okendo Loyalty to Yotpo Loyalty, the transfer is a CSV of member emails and point balances. Three rules keep this painless: freeze point earning in Okendo the day you export (a moving balance sheet cannot be reconciled), announce the switch to members before balances move so nobody thinks their points vanished, and match tier thresholds in Yotpo before import so VIP customers land in the right tier on day one. Stores that pair loyalty with email flows should also read our Klaviyo vs Yotpo retention stack comparison— the answer to "which tool owns the winback flow" changes once Yotpo holds your loyalty data.

6. Swap widgets and strip Okendo code from your theme

Place Yotpo's star ratings and review widget on your product template, the reviews carousel wherever Okendo's equivalent lived, and then remove Okendo's script tags and liquid snippets from the theme. Do the removal properly — leftover Okendo code keeps loading dead JavaScript on every page view and, worse, can keep emitting review structured data. Duplicate them and pick your moment: make the swap on a duplicated theme, preview it, and publish during a low-traffic window.

7. Re-point review request emails and Klaviyo flows

Turn off Okendo's review request sequence the same day Yotpo's goes live — overlapping sequences mean customers get two review requests for one order. If your requests run through Klaviyo, swap the Okendo event triggers and template blocks for their Yotpo equivalents. Yotpo can also send requests for a window of historical orders after go-live; use it once, deliberately, to recover the review flow for orders placed during the cutover.

8. Verify rich snippets before you celebrate

Confirm exactly one review schema source is live (see the SEO section below), run a handful of product URLs through Google's Rich Results Test, and check that review counts on-page match what you imported.

9. Run parallel, then cancel

Keep the Okendo subscription through at least one full weekly cycle of review requests, moderation, and widget rendering on Yotpo. When new reviews are flowing in, media displays correctly, and Search Console shows no rich-result errors, cancel Okendo — and keep that Step 1 CSV backup forever.

SEO: Keeping Your Stars in Google

The review stars in your organic listings come from product structured data, and both Okendo and Yotpo inject their own. The failure modes are running both at once (duplicate review markup, which can get rich results dropped entirely) or running neitherfor weeks (stars quietly disappear). The correct sequence: enable Yotpo's rich snippets in the same deploy that removes Okendo's markup, then monitor Search Console's product snippet report. Expect a re-crawl period of days to a few weeks where individual pages flip over; total review counts staying consistent through the import is what preserves your snippet eligibility. If you syndicate reviews to Google Shopping, re-verify that pipeline inside Yotpo — it does not carry over from Okendo's feed.

Timeline and Budget

• Reviews-only migration: 1–2 weeks including parallel running. The import itself is a day; verification is the rest.
• Reviews + loyalty: 2–4 weeks. Loyalty adds member communication, tier mapping, and a reconciliation pass.
• Cost overlap: budget for one billing cycle where both platforms are active. Yotpo's packaging is modular (Reviews, Loyalty, SMS priced separately) and negotiable in bundles — verify current pricing directly and use the migration as leverage in that conversation.

Common Migration Mistakes

• Uninstalling Okendo first — kills widgets and schema before Yotpo is live. Always overlap.
• Forgetting the verified-buyer column — reviews import fine but lose the trust badge that makes them convert.
• Ignoring media hosting — photo URLs pointing at Okendo's CDN break after cancellation. Get media rehosted during import.
• Double review-request emails — two platforms both emailing customers is a fast path to spam complaints.
• Letting loyalty balances drift — export and import against a frozen snapshot, then reconcile.
• Not re-checking rich results — schema errors are silent on-page; only Search Console or the Rich Results Test will tell you.

FAQ: Okendo to Yotpo Migration

Q: Can I import Okendo reviews into Yotpo?
A: Yes. Export a CSV from Okendo, map it to Yotpo's import template (product handle or SKU, rating, review body, reviewer name and email, date, verified-buyer flag), and run it through Yotpo's reviews importer. Photo and video reviews are best handled as a support-assisted import.

Q: Will I lose my Google star ratings when switching?
A: Not if you swap the structured data atomically — Yotpo's snippets on, Okendo's markup off, in the same deploy — and keep review counts intact. Google refreshes stars over days to a few weeks as it re-crawls.

Q: Can Okendo loyalty points move to Yotpo Loyalty?
A: Yes, via a CSV of emails and balances, typically with Yotpo onboarding assistance. Freeze earning during the cutover and tell your members before balances move.

Q: How long does the whole migration take?
A: 1–2 weeks for reviews only; 2–4 weeks with loyalty. Most of that is parallel running and verification, not data transfer.

Related Articles

• Yotpo vs Okendo vs Loox: Reviews App Verdict
• Best Okendo Alternatives
• Best Reviews Software 2026
• Smile.io vs Yotpo for Loyalty
• Klaviyo vs Yotpo: Retention Stack Comparison