A digital loyalty card is a card on your customers’ phones that rewards them for coming back. It lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, your team stamps it with a scan, and after a set number of visits there’s a reward. You can create one in minutes. With Treubar as your digital stamp card, you start free with up to 20 customer passes.
What is a digital loyalty card?
You know the idea from paper: people who come back collect stamps and eventually get something for it. Going digital doesn’t change the idea, only where the card lives. It no longer sits in a purse but in the wallet on their phone, next to boarding passes and concert tickets.
Your customers need no Treubar app or Treubar account. The card lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Google Wallet requires a Google account; if the wallet app is missing, it must be installed. Google’s setup guide explains the requirements. You manage the card yourself in the Treubar app for iOS or Android, or in your browser.
See digital stamp card without an app for what customers and your team need.
Loyalty card, stamp card, rewards card, customer card: which is which?
Here’s how to tell the terms apart:
- Loyalty card: the umbrella term for any card that rewards coming back.
- Stamp card: a loyalty card that counts visits. One visit, one stamp, and a reward after a set number. In American English, a punch card.
- Rewards card or points card: usually means points per euro spent, as at supermarkets and drugstores. In German shops it often goes by “Bonuskarte”, and some shops use the word for a stamp card too.
- Customer card: links purchases to a specific person, often through a customer number. Whether that earns rewards depends on the programme behind it.
Treubar is a digital stamp card, which makes it one kind of loyalty card. You choose the name you use with your customers.
How the loyalty card works in the wallet
- Get the card. Your customer scans the QR code at the counter or reception with their phone camera, enters their first name, surname and date of birth once, and saves the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.
- Stamp. On the next visit they show the card and your team scans it with the Treubar app. A phone is all you need. There’s no connection to your till.
- See progress. The stamp count updates automatically. Without a connection, the display can lag; disabled pass updates in Apple Wallet can also prevent it from updating. Apple explains the delivery limits.
- Redeem the reward. Reaching the stamp target unlocks the reward. After scanning, your team redeems it in the app or saves it for later.
For details on updates and changing phones, see wallet card with no Treubar app for customers. For a move to a new Android phone, Google explains how account-linked cards transfer with the same account.
There is one requirement: your customers need a smartphone with a wallet. If many of your regulars don’t have one, you won’t reach them digitally. Paper stays the better fit for them.
Stamps, points or prepaid credit: Treubar uses stamps
Loyalty cards differ mainly in what they count:
- Stamps count visits. Every visit is worth the same, and the target is clear at a glance.
- Points count spending. That’s fairer when purchases vary a lot, but someone has to record every amount.
- Prepaid credit is paying in advance. The customer tops up and spends it with you later.
Treubar works with stamps. It doesn’t offer points or prepaid credit. That suits you when purchases are similar and the visit itself is what counts: coffee, bread rolls, a haircut, a nail refill, a car wash. If the same customer spends €6 one day and €80 the next, another model may fit better. There’s a decision table in Stamps, points or prepaid credit.
Create your loyalty card: the five steps
- Choose the reward. Pick something customers really want and you can afford. Work it out from your cost of goods, not the sale price.
- Set the stamp target. It depends on how often customers visit. Someone who comes in for an appointment every few weeks needs fewer stamps than someone who buys coffee every day. The maths is in How many stamps should your card have?
- Design the card. Use your logo, your colours and one of 72 templates or your own image. That’s included in every plan.
- Put out the QR code. Print it and place it where customers wait anyway.
- Practise with your team. Add a card, stamp it, redeem a reward, once.
The guide Create a digital stamp card walks through each step.
What does a digital loyalty card cost?
You can start for free. The Free plan includes a real loyalty card in the wallet with your logo and colours, up to 20 customer passes and one location. You don’t need a credit card, and there’s no time limit.
Understand how the 20 customer passes in Free count: every issued pass counts until it is deleted in Treubar, including test cards. For unlimited customer passes you move to a paid plan. Current prices and what each plan includes are on the pricing page.
Two items apply whichever software you use:
- The reward itself. The stamp card cost calculation shows whether the card pays off for you.
- Printing the QR code. A sheet of paper will do to begin with. An NFC stand is optional. The cost guide explains its standalone price and the one-time stand bundles included with your first annual subscription.
Printed loyalty cards can be cheap too, and many printable templates are free. But only the template is free: you still pay for printing, stamps and reorders.
Printed or digital?
Paper isn’t wrong. It’s ready straight away, needs no smartphone, and some customers like seeing the stamp land on the card. On the other hand, it tends to get left in another bag, a stamp design can be bought online, and you can’t see how many cards are in circulation.
A digital loyalty card comes along with the phone, can’t simply be stamped at home, and shows you on Free how many cards are active and how often you stamp. The full comparison and the step-by-step switch are in Paper vs. digital stamp cards.
For what the card can look like in your business, see the examples for nail and beauty salons, bakeries and gyms. You’ll find the rest under industries.
Start your loyalty card
Create your loyalty card for free, with up to 20 customer passes and no credit card.