Comparison
Wallet loyalty cards vs branded loyalty apps
The case for a branded app is real: you own the channel, you can send push notifications, and your icon sits on the customer’s home screen. The case against is that almost nobody installs it.
Install friction is the whole game
A wallet card is a scan and a tap. An app is a store visit, a download, an account and a password.
Apps are built for scale you may not have
Push notifications are worth a lot at a thousand branches. At one, the audience you lose at install outweighs the channel you gain.
Wallets are already trusted
Customers keep boarding passes and bank cards there. A loyalty card is a smaller ask than a new app.
You can have both later
Start where the friction is lowest. An app makes sense once you have enough regulars to justify one.
What you actually give up
Two things. Unrestricted push notifications: wallet updates and notifications are subject to Apple and Google platform capabilities, so you cannot message customers as freely as an app allows. And a home-screen presence: your café will not be an icon on anyone’s phone.
What you gain
Sign-up rates that are not gated behind an install. For an independent café, the number of members is the constraint on whether a loyalty program does anything at all — a perfect channel to an audience of forty people is worth less than an imperfect one to four hundred.
The honest middle ground
If reaching customers directly matters most to you, collect an email or phone number at sign-up and use it. That gets you a channel you own without asking anyone to install anything.
Common questions
- Can I send customers offers without an app?
- You can collect contact details at enrollment if you choose to ask for them. Wallet-based messaging is possible but limited by what Apple and Google allow, and we do not claim more than the platforms deliver.
- Is a wallet card worse than an app?
- It is worse at messaging and better at sign-ups. For most independent cafés, sign-ups are the binding constraint.
Keep reading
Digital loyalty cards vs paper punch cards
Paper punch cards are free, instant and universally understood. Here is an honest account of what they cost you, and when switching is worth it.
Standalone loyalty vs your POS loyalty module
Your till probably offers a loyalty add-on. Sometimes that is the right answer. Here is how to tell whether it is yours.
Put your loyalty card in your customers’ pockets
Publish a branded card in about five minutes. 14-day free trial, no card required.