Three layouts, at true size
Each card below is drawn at 85.6 by 54 millimetres — standard wallet and business-card size — to scale on this page, so what you see is what prints. Replace the placeholder shop name with your own, or write it in by hand on a test run before paying for a print job.
The dashed circle is the reward slot. Leaving it open and labelled means the customer sees the finish line from the first stamp, and staff do not have to explain the offer every time a card is handed over.
How to print these at the right size
Set the scale in your browser's print dialog to 100%. "Fit to page" and "shrink to fit" are the most common reason a printed card comes out a few millimetres short and stops fitting a wallet. If your printer offers a "background graphics" option, turn it on, or the circle outlines may not appear.
- Scale: 100%. Never "fit to page".
- Check the first sheet with a ruler before printing a hundred. The card should measure 85.6 mm across.
- Print a test on ordinary paper first, stamp it, and see whether your stamp actually fits inside the circle.
How many stamps should the card hold
Everything else on a stamp card is design. The stamp count is economics, and it is arithmetic you can check rather than a rule of thumb. One free item for every completed card is a discount on list price equal to one divided by the number of paid stamps plus the free one.
| Stamps on the card | Paid before the reward | Discount on list price | Spend before reward, at a 5.00 item |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 5 | 1 ÷ 6 = 16.7% | 25.00 |
| 8 | 7 | 1 ÷ 8 = 12.5% | 35.00 |
| 10 | 9 | 1 ÷ 10 = 10.0% | 45.00 |
| 12 | 11 | 1 ÷ 12 = 8.3% | 55.00 |
Illustrative example — not a customer result. Take the ten-stamp row and a 5.00 drink. The customer pays for nine drinks, so they spend 45.00, and the tenth is free. The discount off the list price of ten drinks is 5.00 on 50.00, which is the 10% in the table. But the cash it costs you is not 5.00 — it is what the free drink costs you to make. At a 70% gross margin that is 1.50, and 1.50 on 45.00 of spend is 3.3%.
That gap between 10% and 3.3% is the argument for a stamp card over a straight discount, and it is the number to check before printing. Substitute your own price and margin; the arithmetic is the same on every row. If your margin is thin — resale goods rather than prepared food and drink — the cash cost climbs toward the list-price discount, and a longer card is safer.
The other check is whether the card is reachable. A customer who visits twice a month needs five months to fill a twelve-stamp card, and a card that outlives their interest is a printing cost with no return. Match the count to how often people actually come in.
What has to go on the back
The front sells the offer. The back prevents the argument at the counter six weeks later, and it is the half most templates leave out. Print these on the reverse, or along the bottom edge if printing single-sided.
- 01What exactly is free?"A free coffee" and "any drink up to 6.00" are different promises. Write the one you mean.
- 02One stamp per what?Per visit, per item, or per minimum spend. Without it, a customer buying four coffees asks for four stamps, and whatever your staff answer becomes your policy.
- 03Does it expire?If it does, say when. If it does not, saying so is a small piece of goodwill that costs nothing.
- 04What happens if it is lost?For a paper card the honest answer is that the stamps are gone. Print it, so it is a rule rather than a bad afternoon.
- 05Who is the shop?Name and one contact route. A card with no name on it cannot bring anybody back.
Paper, stamps and the practical bits
Card stock of 250 to 350 gsm survives a wallet; ordinary 80 gsm printer paper does not last a month. Uncoated stock takes an ink stamp cleanly, while gloss smears until it dries — which matters when the card goes straight back into a pocket. If you are stamping rather than initialling, buy the stamp first and size the circles to it: a 12 mm stamp head inside a 9 mm circle looks like a mistake on every card you hand out.
Where a paper template stops being enough
A printed card is the right tool for a shop that wants a loyalty programme running this week for the price of a ream of card stock, and it stays right for longer than most software vendors admit. But it has three limits no template fixes.
You learn nothing
A stamped card tells you a reward was claimed. It cannot tell you how many cards are half-full, or which customers have not been in for two months.
It cannot be recovered
A lost card is lost progress, and the customer who loses one frequently does not start a second.
The third is that the card lives in a wallet you do not control. When those limits cost more than the card stock, the same mechanic runs as a digital record instead: the balance sits on a hosted member page rather than a pocket, and wallet presentation is available when configured. We built digital stamp cards to run exactly the card above, thresholds, minimum spend and remainder carry included; points versus stamp cards sets out the trade-offs, in-store loyalty covers what happens at the till, and pricing is indexed to your economy rather than one global number. None of that is a reason to skip paper: running it for a month is a good way to find out whether customers want the programme before anyone pays for software.
Questions people ask
What size should a loyalty card be?
85.6 by 54 millimetres, the same as a credit card. That size fits the card slots in a wallet, which is where the card has to survive; anything larger gets folded or left at home. The three templates on this page are drawn at exactly that size, so printing at 100% scale gives a card that fits without measuring anything.
How many stamps should a loyalty card have?
Work it out rather than copying a number. One free item per card is a discount equal to one divided by the total stamps: six stamps is 16.7% off list price, ten is 10%, twelve is 8.3%. Then check the cash cost, which is what the free item costs you to make, not what you sell it for. Also check the card is reachable: a twice-a-month customer needs five months to fill twelve stamps.
Can I print these loyalty card templates for free?
Yes. There is nothing to download, no account, no watermark and no attribution requirement. Open your browser's print dialog, set scale to 100%, and print on card stock. Printing a few on ordinary paper and stamping them is the cheapest way to check the circles fit your stamp before ordering a real print run.
What should I write on the back of a stamp card?
Five things: exactly what the reward is, what earns one stamp, whether the card expires, what happens if it is lost, and your shop's name and one contact route. The back of the card is what settles a disagreement at the counter weeks later. Most templates omit all five, which is why the argument happens at all.
Is a paper stamp card better than a digital one?
Paper is faster to start, costs almost nothing, and for a single small shop it works. What it cannot do is tell you anything: you never learn how many cards are half-full, or who has not visited in two months. A lost paper card is also lost progress. Paper is a good way to test whether customers want the programme before paying for software.
How do I stop customers copying a stamp card?
With a rubber stamp and a scanner, you largely cannot. A distinctive stamp, an unusual ink colour, or initialling in pen raises the effort a little. Most small shops conclude the loss is smaller than the cost of preventing it — a reasonable call, but make it knowingly. A digital record removes the problem because the balance is not in the customer's hands.
Print one, run it for a month, then decide.
If the card fills up faster than you expected, that is the signal it is worth automating.