Digital loyalty card: the guide for small businesses

How it works

The principle is the paper card’s, without the paper. Three steps, always the same:

1. You display a QR code at the counter, in the window or on the menu.
2. The customer scans it with their phone camera and adds the card to Apple Wallet (iPhone) or Google Wallet (Android). It takes about thirty seconds.
3. At each visit, you scan their card from your phone. The stamp, points or cashback are added, and the card updates on their phone by itself.

The Wallet is already on your customers’ phones: it is where their bank cards, train tickets and boarding passes live. They have nothing to download, and that changes everything for adoption: hardly anyone installs yet another loyalty app.

Wallet, dedicated app or cardboard: the comparison

	Card in the Wallet	Loyalty app	Paper card
What the customer installs	Nothing	An app and an account	Nothing
Risk of forgetting or losing it	Very low, it’s on the phone	Low	High
You know who comes back	Yes	Yes	No
Messages to customers	On the card and the lock screen	App notifications	No
Stamps added by the customer themselves	Impossible, you do the scanning	Depends on the tool	Possible with a stamp bought online
Cost	Free to a few dozen euros a month	Varies	Printing cards and a stamp

Cardboard keeps one advantage: it doesn’t need a smartphone. For the details, see our paper vs digital loyalty card comparison.

How much does a digital loyalty card cost?

Prices range from zero to around fifty euros a month. What makes the difference is what the free plan really includes, and when you have to start paying:

• The number of customers: some free plans are capped (50 customers at Quardy), others aren’t but keep features for the paid plan.
• Your logo and colours: free with some tools, paid with others.
• Messages to customers, customer export and staff accounts: this is often where the price goes up.

Quardy is free up to 50 customers, then €9.99/month (unlimited customers, messages, gift cards, export), and €24.99/month with team management. Our comparisons cover the main alternatives, and the free loyalty card guide reviews the options with no subscription.

Stamps, points or cashback: which to choose?

• Stamps: one visit, one stamp, a reward at the end (“10 coffees = 1 free”). Ideal when the ticket varies little and customers come often: café, bakery, barber.
• Points: points per euro spent, exchanged for rewards of increasing value. For varied baskets and shops with many products.
• Cashback: a share of each purchase set aside in euros, to spend on a later purchase. The fairest option when amounts vary a lot: hairdresser, restaurant, beauty salon.

Keep the reward within reach: a card that fills in three to six months motivates, a twenty-box card gets forgotten. The guide which rewards to offer has ideas by business type.

GDPR: what you can do

A loyalty card needs very little data: a first name, sometimes a surname, and the visit history. To send marketing messages you need the customer’s explicit consent, which they must be able to withdraw at any time. Choose a tool that hosts data in Europe and lets you delete a card and its history. Quardy hosts its data in Paris, and the export only includes the email of customers who agreed to your messages.

Moving from paper to digital

1. Display the QR code next to the till and offer the digital card to every customer.
2. Let paper cards run out: there’s no need to switch everything at once.
3. Keep the same reward at first, so your regulars feel at home.
4. Within a few weeks, most of your regulars have moved to the Wallet.

By business type

The right setup depends on how often your customers come and how much they spend. Our guides give the recommended configuration with worked examples:

• Bakery
• Café
• Hair salon
• Barber
• Restaurant
• Nail salon
• Beauty salon
• Florist
• All industries

Going further: the card in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, and all guides.