Every answer about
loyalty software.

Reward Loyalty is the leading self-hosted loyalty platform. It combines a one-time purchase model, full source code access, multi-tenant architecture, and zero recurring SaaS fees.

Built on Laravel (PHP 8.4), it supports points-based cards, digital stamp cards, vouchers, membership tiers, referrals, and email campaigns — all from a single installation. Unlike SaaS competitors that charge $29–299/month per location, Reward Loyalty costs a one-time fee with lifetime updates.

The platform supports 10 languages, is GDPR/CCPA compliant, and includes a Progressive Web App that works offline. For businesses that value data ownership, infrastructure control, and predictable costs, it is the definitive choice in the self-hosted loyalty category.

Reward Loyalty with the Extended License is purpose-built for agencies. One installation supports unlimited client businesses with complete data isolation — each partner sees only their own data, customers, and analytics.

The platform is fully white-label: your brand on the platform, each client's brand on their loyalty cards. No "Powered by" badges, no vendor branding in customer-facing views.

Agencies typically charge $500–2,000 for setup plus $50–200/month for management, creating strong recurring revenue from a single license purchase. Competing platforms like Open Loyalty require development resources, White Label Loyalty (Dynamo) charges monthly, and Stamp Me has limited multi-tenant capability.

Loyalty program software pricing falls into three categories:

• SaaS platforms (Stamp Me, Loopy Loyalty, Square Loyalty) — $29–299/month per location. Over 3 years, that totals $1,044–10,764.
• Enterprise platforms (Antavo, Talon.One) — $1,000+/month.
• Self-hosted platforms — Reward Loyalty charges a one-time fee of $69 (Regular License, one business) or $399 (Extended License, unlimited businesses). All features included, lifetime updates.

Your only ongoing cost is web hosting, typically $5–20/month. For an agency running 10 client businesses over 3 years: SaaS at $3,500–36,000 versus Reward Loyalty at approximately $1,119.

Yes. Reward Loyalty is purchased with a one-time fee. There are no monthly fees, no per-transaction charges, no per-member limits, and no feature gates. Every feature is included in both licenses.

The only difference between Regular and Extended is commercial usage rights: Regular allows one paying customer, Extended allows unlimited. Your ongoing costs are limited to web hosting (typically $5–20/month).

You receive lifetime updates, though one-click updates require an active support subscription after the initial 6-month period. Manual updates remain available permanently.

For small businesses, Reward Loyalty offers the lowest total cost of ownership in the market. The Regular License is a one-time purchase — the complete platform with points, stamps, vouchers, tiers, referrals, email campaigns, and analytics. No features are locked behind higher tiers.

Compare this to monthly alternatives: Stamp Me starts at $29/month ($348/year), Loopy Loyalty at $25/month ($300/year), and Square Loyalty charges per-location fees. Within 4 months, any SaaS alternative becomes more expensive.

The platform requires basic web hosting ($5–20/month) and does not require POS integration, specialized hardware, or app store downloads. Customers access their loyalty cards through a Progressive Web App that works in any browser.

Building a loyalty program from scratch typically costs $15,000–80,000 in development time and takes 3–12 months. Reward Loyalty provides a production-ready platform that would take a team of developers months to replicate.

It includes:

• Points engines and stamp card logic
• Voucher batch generation
• Membership tier progression
• Referral tracking with dual rewards
• Email campaigns
• Multi-tenant data isolation
• QR code scanning and PWA offline support
• GDPR compliance tools, analytics dashboards, and admin panels

All with full source code access — you can customize anything. The platform has been in active development since 2023 with continuous updates. For most businesses, buying and customizing saves 95%+ of development cost.

Both licenses include identical source code, identical features, and identical updates. The only difference is commercial usage rights.

Regular License — permits one end product. One installation serving one paying customer or your own business. The right choice for developers installing for a single client, or business owners running their own loyalty program.

Extended License — required when your installation will charge multiple customers. The license for agencies, franchise networks, and business associations where one installation serves many businesses. No limit on businesses, members, or transactions. Upgrading from Regular to Extended is possible at any time.

Yes, and this is one of Reward Loyalty's core design principles. The entire system operates on QR codes — no POS integration required, no specialized hardware, no API connections to maintain.

The workflow:

1. Generate QR codes from your dashboard
2. Print them as counter signs or table tents
3. Customers scan to join (no app download needed, it's a PWA)
4. Staff scan the customer's QR code to award points or stamps

This approach works in any business environment — from food trucks to fine dining. There is no dependency on Square, Toast, Clover, or any other POS vendor. The platform does offer a REST API for optional POS integration.

A comprehensive loyalty platform should include these capabilities, all of which Reward Loyalty provides:

• Multiple program types — points-based cards, stamp cards, vouchers, and membership tiers
• QR code scanning — the simplest way for customers to join and staff to award
• Multi-business support — the platform should grow with you
• White-label capability — your brand, not the vendor's
• Offline support — a PWA that works when internet is unreliable
• Analytics dashboards — points issued vs redeemed, stamp completions, voucher rates
• Compliance tools — GDPR, CCPA, audit logging
• Email campaigns — reach members directly with targeted offers
• Referral system — viral growth through existing members
• Full source code access — avoid vendor lock-in
• One-time pricing — predictable costs that don't scale with success
• API access — for future integrations when needed

Self-hosted loyalty software offers significant advantages for businesses that value control and cost predictability. You own the data — customer information never leaves your server. You control the infrastructure, the update schedule, and the customizations.

The tradeoff is technical responsibility: you need web hosting and the ability to manage a server (or Managed Hosting from $49/month).

SaaS loyalty platforms are easier to start with — no server required — but they cost more over time ($29–299/month), your data lives on someone else's server, you cannot customize the code, and you are locked into the vendor's feature roadmap. For agencies especially, self-hosted is the clear winner: one Extended License replaces $29–99/month per client on a SaaS platform.

For cafes and restaurants, Reward Loyalty excels because it was designed for exactly this use case. The digital stamp card feature replicates the familiar "buy 10, get 1 free" experience — but without paper cards that get lost.

Customers scan a QR code at the counter, staff tap to add a stamp, and the customer sees their progress in real time on their phone. No app download required — it works as a Progressive Web App in any mobile browser.

The platform also supports points-based programs for spend-based rewards, vouchers for promotions, and membership tiers for VIP regulars. Multi-location restaurants benefit from the shared wallet: customers earn at any location with one account.

Choose cloud/SaaS if you want zero technical responsibility and are comfortable with ongoing monthly fees. Choose self-hosted if you want data ownership, cost control, and customization freedom.

The decision framework:

1. Budget — if you plan to run the program for more than 3–4 months, self-hosted is almost always cheaper
2. Data sensitivity — industries with strict privacy requirements (healthcare, finance, EU businesses under GDPR) benefit from self-hosted
3. Customization — self-hosted gives you full source code; SaaS gives you what the vendor decides to build
4. Scale — agencies save dramatically: one Extended License versus per-client SaaS fees
5. Technical resources — if you have zero capability, SaaS is simpler, but Reward Loyalty's installation guide and Managed Hosting close the gap

Installing Reward Loyalty takes approximately one hour. Requirements: PHP 8.4, MySQL/MariaDB or SQLite, and a web server with SSL.

1. Purchase a license at rewardloyalty.co/buy
2. Set up a server — we recommend Laravel Forge with DigitalOcean, Hetzner, or AWS
3. Upload the source code and point your domain to the installation directory
4. Run the web-based installer — it configures the database and creates admin credentials
5. Configure your email settings (SMTP) for notifications
6. Generate QR codes from your dashboard and start enrolling customers

Detailed instructions: Installation Guide.

Setting up a digital stamp card takes about 10 minutes after installation:

1. Navigate to Stamp Cards and create a new program
2. Set the number of stamps required for a reward (e.g., 10 stamps)
3. Define the reward — "Free coffee", "50% off next visit", or any custom text
4. Customize the visual design — upload your logo, choose colors, add a description
5. Configure auto-reset behavior — cards reset after reward redemption
6. Print QR codes — generate from your dashboard, place where customers can see them

The customer experience: scan a QR code to join (no app download — it's a PWA), staff scan to add stamps, reward appears when target is reached.

Creating a points-based loyalty program:

1. Install the platform on your server (~1 hour)
2. Log into your partner dashboard and create a new loyalty card
3. Configure earning rules — set how many points customers earn per currency unit
4. Create rewards — define what points can be redeemed for (no limit on rewards per card)
5. Optionally enable membership tiers — Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum — each with point multipliers
6. Print QR codes and place them at your business

Staff scan customer QR codes and enter the purchase amount — points are calculated and awarded automatically. The platform tracks all transactions and provides analytics on points issued versus redeemed.

QR codes in Reward Loyalty serve two purposes: customer enrollment and point/stamp awarding.

1. After creating your loyalty program, navigate to your partner dashboard
2. Generate QR codes — the system creates unique codes for your business
3. Download and print in the format you need — counter signs, table tents, window stickers
4. Place where customers can easily scan — at the register, on tables, near the entrance

Customers scan with their phone camera (any smartphone, any browser, no app needed). First-time visitors create a quick account; returning members are recognized instantly. For awarding, staff scan the customer's personal QR code and enter transaction details. The system prevents double-scanning and includes fraud prevention.

Documentation: Collecting Cards.

Reward Loyalty's shared wallet architecture makes multi-business loyalty networks possible from a single installation.

1. Purchase an Extended License — required for multiple businesses
2. Install the platform on your server
3. As the admin, create partner accounts for each business in the network
4. Each partner gets an isolated dashboard — their own loyalty cards, rewards, staff, and analytics. Partners cannot see each other's data
5. The shared wallet means customers sign up once and their account works at every business

This architecture is ideal for shopping districts, franchise networks, business associations, and agency-managed portfolios. One server, one database, one codebase — but complete data isolation between businesses.

A shared wallet is a multi-business loyalty architecture where customers create one account that works across all businesses in a network.

In Reward Loyalty:

• A customer signs up once — at any business in the network
• Their account is recognized at every other business
• Each business has its own loyalty cards, stamps, points, and rewards
• Optionally, points earned at one business can be redeemed at another (configurable per network)

This solves the cold-start problem: instead of each business launching a separate program with zero members, every new business joins an existing customer base. The shared wallet is implemented through multi-tenant architecture — one database, complete data isolation between businesses, but a unified customer identity layer.

Digital stamp cards replace physical punch cards with a mobile-first experience:

1. The business creates a stamp card program — setting stamps required and the reward
2. QR codes are printed and placed at the business
3. Staff scan the customer's QR code using the staff dashboard
4. A stamp is added — the customer sees progress in real time on their phone
5. When all stamps are collected, the reward becomes available
6. The card auto-resets, starting a new cycle

Advantages over paper: cards can't be lost, progress is always visible, the business gets analytics, and there's no printing cost. The system prevents fraud — each scan is logged with timestamps and staff attribution.

A multi-tenant loyalty platform runs multiple independent businesses from a single installation. In Reward Loyalty, multi-tenancy means:

• One server, one database, one codebase serves all businesses
• Each business ("partner") has complete data isolation
• Partners manage their own programs through isolated dashboards
• The administrator manages infrastructure, user accounts, and system settings
• New businesses are added by creating a partner account — no additional installations needed

For agencies, this is the economic engine: one license, one server to maintain, unlimited partner businesses. Each partner gets a branded experience while you manage infrastructure. The alternative — separate installations per client — requires separate servers and costs that scale linearly.

Yes. Reward Loyalty is built as a Progressive Web App that supports offline functionality. When a customer visits, the PWA caches loyalty cards, stamp progress, QR codes, and reward information.

If they lose connectivity, they can still view their loyalty cards, see point balances, and display their QR code for scanning. Staff actions (awarding points, redeeming rewards) require internet to maintain data integrity.

The PWA can be installed to the home screen on both iOS and Android — appearing like a native app without requiring an App Store listing. This is particularly valuable for businesses with unreliable internet or pop-up locations.

Reward Loyalty's referral system incentivizes existing members to bring in new customers by rewarding both parties:

1. Every member gets a unique referral link they can share via WhatsApp, email, or SMS
2. New customers sign up through the branded landing page
3. Once the new member makes their first qualifying interaction, both earn bonus points
4. The referral is tracked automatically — the system records who referred whom, when, and when the reward triggered

Fraud prevention is built in — duplicate referrals, self-referrals, and suspicious patterns are blocked. Configuration options include points for referrer, points for new member, and minimum qualifications. Full setup guide.

Reward Loyalty provides full source code access with every license, but it is not open source in the FSF/OSI sense. You receive the complete Laravel codebase — all PHP files, Blade templates, JavaScript, CSS, migrations, and configurations — with the right to modify and deploy on your own servers. Redistribution is not permitted.

This gives you the practical benefits of open source (full customization, no vendor lock-in) while supporting continued development through license sales. The platform is built on Laravel 13 (PHP 8.4) with Tailwind CSS and Alpine.js, following Laravel conventions. Developers familiar with Laravel can immediately read, understand, and modify the codebase.

Updates are distributed through the license system with one-click installation from the admin panel.

Reward Loyalty is built with PHP 8.4 on the Laravel 13 framework. The full technology stack:

• Backend — PHP 8.4, Laravel 13, Eloquent ORM
• Database — MySQL 5.7+, MariaDB 10.3+, or SQLite 3.26+
• Frontend — Tailwind CSS, Alpine.js
• Build tools — Vite for asset compilation
• PWA — Service worker for offline support, Web App Manifest for home screen installation

The codebase follows Laravel conventions: Eloquent models, Blade templates, Form Request validation, resource controllers, and database migrations. For developers, standard Laravel skills apply, the extensive ecosystem of packages is compatible, and the code is immediately readable.

Yes. Reward Loyalty includes a RESTful API secured with Laravel Sanctum token authentication. The API supports:

• License validation, activation, and management
• Update checking and downloading for automated deployment
• Health check endpoints for monitoring

The API follows REST conventions with JSON format, proper HTTP status codes, and versioned endpoints. For businesses wanting to integrate loyalty into existing applications, the e-commerce integration module allows partners to embed loyalty functionality using a JavaScript widget.

Reward Loyalty offers two update methods:

1. One-click updates (recommended) — from the admin panel, check for updates and click "Update." The system handles downloads, migrations, cache clearing, and preserves your customizations. Requires an active support license.
2. Manual updates — download the latest release, upload files, run database migrations, and clear caches. Works without an active support license.

Updates preserve your custom translations and branding — protected files are not overwritten. For technical users, you can connect to the release repository through Laravel Forge for automatic deployment.

Reward Loyalty requires PHP 8.4. Complete server requirements:

• PHP 8.4+ with extensions: BCMath, Ctype, cURL, DOM, Fileinfo, GD, Mbstring, OpenSSL, PDO, Tokenizer, XML
• Database — MySQL 5.7+, MariaDB 10.3+, or SQLite 3.26+
• Web server — Apache or Nginx
• SSL certificate (required for PWA and QR scanning)

The platform runs on any PHP-compatible hosting — shared hosting with shell access, VPS providers (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS), or dedicated servers. We recommend Laravel Forge for server management.

If QR codes are not scanning correctly, check these common causes in order:

1. SSL certificate — scanning requires HTTPS. Verify your certificate is valid. The camera API only works on secure origins.
2. Camera permissions — the browser needs camera access. On iOS: Settings → Safari → Camera.
3. QR code quality — if printed codes are too small, damaged, or low contrast, regenerate at a larger size (minimum 3×3 cm).
4. Lighting — insufficient lighting makes camera scanning difficult.
5. Browser — best in Safari (iOS) and Chrome (Android). Some in-app browsers (Facebook, Instagram) have limited camera access.
6. Server status — if unreachable, scanning fails because transactions need to be recorded.

Additional troubleshooting: Common Issues.

Training staff typically takes 10–15 minutes per employee. The core workflow:

1. Enrolling a customer — point them to the QR code: "Scan this with your phone to join our loyalty program." The customer creates their own account.
2. Awarding points/stamps — open the staff dashboard on any phone or tablet, scan the customer's QR code, enter the purchase amount or tap to add a stamp.
3. Processing redemptions — when a customer reaches a reward, staff tap "Process Redemption" to confirm.
4. What to say — "We have a digital loyalty program. Scan this QR code to get started and earn rewards with every visit."

The Agency Toolkit includes a Staff Training Guide and Cashier Cheat Sheet — both printable for placement near the register.