If you are searching for the best Tolstoy alternative, you probably like shoppable video and dislike your bill. Good news on both counts: Moast replaces the core Tolstoy experience, carousels, stories, product tags, and social imports, on a flat plan with unlimited views, and the migration takes about an afternoon. This is the complete step-by-step guide.

Why Brands Switch From Tolstoy to Moast

Tolstoy is a capable platform, and this guide will not pretend otherwise. Brands switch for a structural reason: pricing. Tolstoy's paid plans reach the $50 to $150 per month range as usage grows, and metered models in this category charge more as your videos succeed. Moast's model is the opposite bet: a free plan with unlimited video views and product tagging, and a single flat Pro tier at $15 per month, so the bill never grows because a video went viral.

Fitness accessories brand TuffWraps is the reference case: they switched from Tolstoy to Moast, kept their shoppable video experience, and eliminated roughly $3,600 per year in fees. The full head-to-head is on our Moast vs Tolstoy comparison page, and the category-wide billing analysis is in our 2026 shoppable video pricing breakdown.

One honest caveat before you commit: Moast focuses on shoppable UGC video, carousels, stories, grids, popups, social import, and a creator marketplace. If your Tolstoy usage centres on interactive video quizzes or AI-generated presenter videos, those are different products, and you should weigh that before switching. If your usage is shoppable video on your store, which is most Shopify usage, everything below applies.

Before You Start: A 10-Minute Inventory

Three notes to make before touching anything, so nothing gets lost mid-move.

List your videos and where they came from. Most Tolstoy libraries were built from TikTok, Instagram, or files you own. Knowing the original source matters, because re-importing from the source is often faster than downloading from Tolstoy.

Note your product tags. Product tags do not export from any video platform, Tolstoy included. Write down (or screenshot) which videos are tagged with which products; retagging in Moast takes minutes with bulk tools, but only if you know what to retag.

Note your placements. Which pages carry widgets, and which widget types: carousel on PDPs, stories on the homepage, and so on. You will rebuild these one-for-one.

Step 1: Get Your Videos Out of Tolstoy

Tolstoy lets you download videos individually from its library. Per Tolstoy's own help documentation, go to the Library panel, select a video, click the three dots on its upper right, and hit Download. Repeat per video; there is no bulk export, so a large library takes patience.

The faster path for most brands: skip the downloads for any content that originated on social. If a video came from your TikTok or Instagram, or a customer's public post, you will re-import it directly from the source platform in step 2 at full quality, no per-file downloading required. Reserve manual downloads for videos that exist only inside Tolstoy, such as direct uploads whose originals you no longer have.

Before you uninstall anything, also screenshot your Tolstoy analytics. Historical performance data does not transfer between platforms, and you will want the baseline for comparison.

Step 2: Import Everything Into Moast

Install Moast from the Shopify App Store; it carries the Built for Shopify badge, Shopify's quality standard for performance and integration. Then bring your content in through whichever routes fit your inventory list, per the Moast getting started guide:

Bulk upload from device. Drag in every file you downloaded from Tolstoy in one go.

Import from Instagram. Paste your profile URL to pull your latest posts at once, paste a specific Reel URL, or use Profile Mentions to import posts from customers who tagged your handle, per the Instagram import guide.

Import from TikTok. Same pattern, up to 48 posts per import depending on method, with options to import only videos and to keep imports hidden from widgets until you are ready, per the TikTok import guide.

One time-saver to use aggressively: Moast lets you tag products during import, so content can land in your library already shoppable. That collapses steps 2 and 3 into one pass for a lot of your library.

Step 3: Rebuild Your Product Tags in Minutes

For anything not tagged during import, open the Media Library, select a video, and under Products choose Select products (the parent product) or Select variants (a specific colour or size), then save, per the product tagging guide.

The tool that makes retagging fast is bulk tagging: select multiple videos at once, hit the Add product button that appears in the top right of the library, choose the product, done. If twenty videos feature the same bestseller, that is one action, not twenty. Work through your tag inventory from the pre-migration checklist and this step rarely takes longer than a coffee.

Tag every visible product in each video, not just the hero item; complete tagging is what turns multi-product content into discovery and bigger baskets.

Step 4: Recreate Your Widgets

Moast's widget types map directly onto the placements you ran in Tolstoy. In the Moast dashboard, open the Widgets tab and click New widget, per the widget editor guide. You choose:

A widget type: Carousel (the classic PDP row), Stories (tappable circles, the mobile-native format), Pop up (the floating player), or Grid (the wall layout for homepages and lookbook pages).

A placement: Product, for product pages, or Anywhere, for homepage and landing pages.

A product source, if you chose Product: Smart Auto-Match is the setting most Tolstoy switchers want, because it automatically shows each product page the videos tagged with that product, no per-page assignment. Custom Product Feeds exists for manual control when you want it.

For product and collection pages, also turn on the Show media dynamically toggle, which makes one widget serve your whole catalogue correctly, per the dynamic display guide.

Step 5: Add Moast to Your Store

From the widget editor, adding to your store sends you into the Shopify theme editor to position and style the widget before saving. Prefer doing it manually? Online Store, Themes, Customize, Add Section, scroll to Apps, select the Moast widget, and place it where the Tolstoy block used to sit.

Running an older vintage theme without app block support? There is an embed code path for every widget type, including product-filtered embeds for Liquid templates.

While you are in the theme editor, remove the old Tolstoy blocks or embed snippets from each page as you replace them, so you are never loading two video apps at once.

Step 6: QA, Then Say Goodbye

Before uninstalling Tolstoy, run a five-minute check: preview your top product pages and confirm the right videos appear with the right tags, test the full-screen player and add-to-cart flow on mobile, and confirm your homepage placement looks right. Then uninstall the Tolstoy app, confirm your plan is cancelled, and keep your downloaded files and analytics screenshots archived.

One bonus worth switching on the same day: Moast's Shop app integration, which automatically syncs your tagged vertical videos into Shopify's Shop app. Tag once, appear everywhere, at no extra cost.

How Long the Whole Thing Takes

TuffWraps described their migration as taking minutes, and that matches what the steps above add up to for a typical store: social re-imports run in batches, bulk tagging collapses the biggest job, and Smart Auto-Match removes per-page widget assignment. A library of 50 to 100 videos with a handful of placements is realistically an afternoon, including QA. The largest variable is manual downloads for Tolstoy-only videos, which is why the inventory in step zero matters.

And once you are moved, the same library starts compounding: import flows keep new social content arriving, and every tagged video works across product pages, collections, and the Shop app. For what that maturity looks like, see the brands in our shoppable video examples breakdown, several of which are former users of metered platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Tolstoy alternative for Shopify?
For Shopify stores focused on shoppable video and UGC, Moast is the strongest Tolstoy alternative: it covers carousels, stories, grids, popups, product tagging, and TikTok and Instagram import, carries the Built for Shopify badge, and runs on a free plan with unlimited views plus a single $15 per month Pro tier instead of metered pricing. Brands whose Tolstoy usage centres on interactive quizzes or AI presenter video should evaluate that gap first.

Can I export my videos from Tolstoy?
Yes, individually. In Tolstoy's Library panel, select a video, click the three dots, and choose Download. There is no bulk export, so for content that originated on TikTok or Instagram it is usually faster to re-import directly from the source platform into Moast at full quality.

Do my product tags transfer from Tolstoy to Moast?
No video platform exports product tags, so tags are rebuilt in Moast. It is faster than it sounds: you can tag products during import, and bulk tagging lets you apply a product to many videos in one action. Screenshot your Tolstoy tags before migrating and the retagging step typically takes minutes.

Will switching affect my store's speed or my existing pages?
Replace placements one for one and remove Tolstoy's blocks or embeds as you go, so only one video app loads. Moast is Built for Shopify, which requires meeting Shopify's performance standards, and its widgets install as native theme app blocks, with an embed option for vintage themes.

How much will I save by switching from Tolstoy to Moast?
It depends on your current tier: Tolstoy's paid plans reach the $50 to $150 per month range, while Moast is free with unlimited views or $15 per month for Pro. TuffWraps eliminated roughly $3,600 per year making this exact switch with no loss of functionality they used. The full math is in our pricing breakdown and the Moast vs Tolstoy comparison.

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Related reading: How much does shoppable video cost? The 2026 pricing breakdown · Best shoppable video apps for Shopify (2026) · Shoppable video examples: 10 Shopify brands doing it right