Original research · Collected 15 August 2026
2026 loyalty software cost study.
Ten official pricing sources, two explicit operating scenarios, and one rule: measured prices and buyer assumptions never share a label.
- Products checked
- 10
- Measured totals
- 9
- Study window
- 36 months
Read this first
What this study does not claim.
This is not a universal ranking, a feature-equivalence test, or proof that self-hosting always costs less. It compares public software prices, then shows two Reward Loyalty scenarios. We state every infrastructure and labor figure as an assumption.
A useful buying decision still needs the deployment trade-offs behind self-hosted and SaaS loyalty software. A low price cannot answer who runs production, which integrations exist, where data sits, or what happens when the buyer leaves.
Every figure on this page uses USD. The source table keeps each vendor’s real pricing unit instead of turning locations, monthly orders, API projects, and active members into a false common unit.
Findings
Cost follows the unit being sold.
First identify what the plan sells: an account, a location, an order allowance, an API project, or one operated installation. Then the figures become useful.
One business
$5,519
The illustrative self-hosted total is much higher than the $547 public software line because hosting and buyer labor remain real costs. Several free or low-cost SaaS and POS-bundled options cost less in this scenario.
Ten-client agency
$15,947
One shared installation equals $1,594.70 per client over three years, or $44.30 per client-month, under the stated inputs. It is not the cheapest result in the table.
Free can beat owned software
Loyverse publishes a free loyalty program inside its POS product. Smile.io also publishes a low entry price for a limited order band. Self-hosting has no automatic cost advantage for one small business.
Bundling hides attribution
Square Plus bundles loyalty with POS, marketing, inventory, and staff tools. Its full plan price is measurable, but this study cannot assign that price to loyalty alone.
Agency scale changes the comparison
Per-client SaaS multiplication makes some public plans exceed the shared-installation scenario, while Loopy Loyalty, Smile.io, and Loyverse remain lower under these inputs. Agencies should test the numbers against the operating and support model for serving several clients.
Price does not make products equivalent
Before treating a cheaper row as a substitute, compare which loyalty workflows the source-owned application includes. A stamp card, POS bundle, e-commerce extension, and API engine need different implementation work.
Methodology
Official pages in, explicit arithmetic out.
The study records what each vendor published on the collection date. It does not estimate a private quote or add missing products and services.
1. Select
Include loyalty products relevant to a small business, e-commerce store, agency, or integration team. Keep different delivery models visible.
2. Record
Capture the plan, displayed USD price, billing period, pricing unit, included limit, source URL, and collection date.
3. Normalize
Multiply monthly prices by 36 and annual prices by three. Keep quote-only rows blank. Apply the published unit to each scenario.
4. Separate
Show public software prices apart from assumed hosting, email, backup, monitoring, maintenance, onboarding, and labor inputs.
Reward Loyalty’s measured row uses the current one-time license and optional renewal terms captured on 15 August 2026. The larger scenario totals then add the costs the buyer supplies.
Those operating inputs reflect a test case, not a market average. Review the infrastructure and operating duties a self-hosted buyer accepts, replace every input with a real quote, and rerun the arithmetic before procurement.
The ten-client SaaS figures multiply accounts, stores, or locations where the published unit requires it. Voucherify allows three projects on the measured plan, so ten client projects use four accounts. Open Loyalty publishes a platform-fee and active-member basis but no public amount, so both totals stay blank.
Measured public prices
Ten products, with their units intact.
Collected 15 August 2026. Nine rows produce a public 36-month software total. 1 quote-only row remains in the evidence set but outside numeric findings.
Download the exact source table as CSV. The file comes from the same records as this table, including notes and collection dates.
| Product and model | Published unit | Public price | One business 36 months |
Ten clients 36 months |
Official source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reward Loyalty Self-hosted application · One installation license with two optional annual renewals | Per installation | $349 once, then $99/year optional after year one | $547 | $547 | Pricing page One installation can contain several businesses. Full operating costs appear in the separate self-hosted scenarios. |
| Loopy Loyalty Standalone SaaS · Starter annual | Per account, one location, one card design | $250/year | $750 | $7,500 | Pricing page The annual list price is lower than twelve monthly payments. The ten-client scenario uses ten Starter accounts. |
| Stamp Me Standalone SaaS · Lite | Per account, one location | $49/month | $1,764 | $17,640 | Pricing page The benchmark uses the displayed USD list price and excludes temporary promotion codes and extra-location fees. |
| Kangaroo Rewards Managed SaaS · Core | Per account with one integration | $79/month USD reference price | $2,844 | $28,440 | Pricing page The source is the vendor’s Australia page, which displays both a USD reference and local AUD price. This study uses the displayed USD reference. |
| Smile.io E-commerce SaaS · Essential | Per store, up to 500 monthly orders | $15/month | $540 | $5,400 | Pricing page The totals exclude the required commerce-platform subscription and order overages. |
| LoyaltyLion E-commerce SaaS · Classic | Per store, 500 monthly orders | $199/month | $7,164 | $71,640 | Pricing page The totals exclude the required commerce-platform subscription, optional add-ons, and order-volume changes. |
| Loyverse POS-bundled SaaS · Free POS loyalty program | Included with the POS account | $0 loyalty software subscription | $0 | $0 | Pricing page The totals exclude hardware, payment processing, and optional per-store add-ons. Loyalty remains tied to the Loyverse POS model. |
| Square Loyalty POS-bundled SaaS · Square Plus | Per location | $49/month per location | $1,764 | $17,640 | Pricing page Square Plus bundles loyalty with POS, marketing, inventory, and staff tools. This study cannot assign the full plan price to loyalty alone. |
| Voucherify API-first SaaS · Business | Per account, three projects and 25,000 API calls/month | $650/month | $23,400 | $93,600 | Pricing page The ten-client scenario assigns one project per client and therefore needs four three-project accounts. The totals exclude interface and integration development. |
| Open Loyalty Enterprise SaaS · Custom | Platform fee plus monthly active members | Quote required | Quote required | Quote required | Pricing page The vendor publishes the pricing basis but not the inputs needed for a public 36-month total, so the study leaves both totals blank. |
Scenario 1
One business over 36 months.
One owner-operated business, one production installation, modest email use, and no custom integration. These are editable assumptions, not observed market averages.
Software license and two optional renewals
$349 once, then $99/year optional after year one
Measured public price
$547
Application hosting
$12/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$432
Transactional email
$5/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$180
Off-server backups
$5/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$180
External monitoring
$5/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$180
Installation and launch
8 hours × $50/hour
Scenario assumption
$400
Maintenance and update work
2 hours/month × 36 months × $50/hour
Scenario assumption
$3,600
Illustrative 36-month total
$5,519
Scenario 2
Ten-client agency over 36 months.
Ten client businesses share one production installation. The agency supplies the infrastructure and first-line technical operation. These are editable assumptions, not observed market averages.
Software license and two optional renewals
$349 once, then $99/year optional after year one
Measured public price
$547
Application hosting
$40/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$1,440
Transactional email
$50/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$1,800
Off-server backups
$15/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$540
External monitoring
$20/month × 36 months
Scenario assumption
$720
Installation and launch
24 hours × $50/hour
Scenario assumption
$1,200
Ten client onboarding sessions
5 hours/client × 10 clients × $50/hour
Scenario assumption
$2,500
Shared maintenance and update work
4 hours/month × 36 months × $50/hour
Scenario assumption
$7,200
Illustrative 36-month total
$15,947
Outside the benchmark
Costs the public pages cannot settle.
An exclusion is not zero. It means the buyer must supply the figure before treating a row as a budget.
- Sales tax, VAT, currency conversion, temporary promotions, negotiated discounts, and future price changes.
- Reward cost, discounts funded by the business, payment processing, customer acquisition, and any claimed revenue or retention lift.
- Required Shopify, POS, commerce, hardware, or payment products unless their cost is the published loyalty plan itself.
- Migration, custom integrations, API implementation, campaign management, client support, and incident work beyond the stated self-hosted labor inputs.
- Feature-equivalence claims. A stamp-card service, a POS bundle, an e-commerce app, an API platform, and a source-owned application solve different jobs.
Limitations
Use the number inside its boundary.
Prices can change after the collection date. The CSV preserves the source URL and date, not a permanent vendor promise.
Public entry plans do not share a feature floor. This study does not score integrations, service levels, data portability, implementation effort, or product quality.
The self-hosted labor rate and hours are scenario inputs. A capable team can spend less; an unfamiliar team, security incident, migration, or custom integration can cost far more.
The ten-client model assumes each client needs one SaaS unit unless the published plan provides a different multi-project unit. It does not claim each vendor permits agency resale or white-label delivery.
Before purchase, read the license and source-access boundary for the owned option. Commercial rights are not implied by a cost table.
Update history
Revision log.
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Initial release. Collected ten official pricing sources and published the one-business and ten-client agency scenarios.