Loyalty resources for practical decisions

Five guides, in the order a new program needs them

Each guide stands alone, but they were written to be read in this order: decide what you are buying, cost it, pick the mechanic, choose the format, then put something in a customer's hand.

1. 01
   How to start a loyalty programFour decisions and one sentence: the behaviour you are buying, what the reward costs at cost of goods, which mechanic fits, and how customers join. Then the line staff say at the till, and a pre-launch checklist.
2. 02
   How much a loyalty program costsTwo costs, and only the small one is a subscription. A worked total-cost model for a small café, a busy restaurant and a multi-site retailer, plus the costs nobody budgets for.
3. 03
   Loyalty points vs stamp cardsA decision table, two illustrative examples and a seven-question worksheet with a scoring key, so the choice is made from how customers actually buy.
4. 04
   Digital loyalty cards, explained for small shopsPaper, an installed app and a pass in the phone's wallet, compared on join friction, loss, updating, running cost and fraud. Includes how to serve the customer without a smartphone and how to migrate from paper without erasing progress.
5. 05
   Loyalty card templateThree print-ready layouts at wallet size, the arithmetic for choosing how many stamps a card should hold, and the fine print a stamp card needs on the back.

Which guide answers what

If you arrived with one question, start with the row that matches it.

One formula under all five

A reward is a discount with a delay, and every guide here reduces to the same division: what the reward costs you, divided by the spend a customer needs to earn it. A stamp threshold is that discount rate in disguise, so moving the threshold moves the rate.

Illustrative example — not a customer result. The $5.50 visit and the $1.30 reward cost are placeholders; substitute your own. Cost the reward at what it costs you to make when the free item would not otherwise have been bought, and at its menu price when it displaces a real sale: the same ten-visit card is 2.4% on the first basis and 10% on the second.

Points follow the same rule. One point per dollar with 100 points buying $5 off is a flat 5%, which is why choosing between points and stamps is a question of clarity for staff and customers, not of cost. For the full model, including the software line, read how much a loyalty program costs.