How to Set Up a Coffee Shop Loyalty Program

The café in this playbook.

The Daily Grind is a fictional café, the same one that runs through our docs and demo. Nothing on this page is a customer story. The settings are the values we would enter on day one, and you can click through every one of them in the live demo.

The problem is the paper punch card. Cards get lost, punches get forged, and when a regular stops coming nobody notices, because the card in the till drawer has no email address on it. The goal: raise weekly visits from the top two hundred regulars and build a list the café can reach.

Still comparing software rather than planning a program? Start with loyalty software for restaurants and cafés, then come back for the setup.

$6.50

average order

3-4

visits a week, regulars

~350

transactions a day

7:30-9:30

the rush

The café's public page with its programs at the counter

The plan: one mechanic first.

Customers need to understand the offer in one sentence, and staff need to run it during a rush. So the program launches in three moves, not one big bang.

Day 1

The stamp card

Ten stamps, one free drink, a $3 minimum. The whole program at launch.

Day 30

The prepaid pass

Coffee Club: ten drinks for $40, sold at the counter to the regulars who are in every day anyway.

Day 60

The win-back voucher

A free drip coffee that goes out to anyone quiet for three weeks. A nightly sweep does the sending.

A points card is missing on purpose. Two currencies at one register confuse week one, and stamps fit a $6.50 ticket better than point math. The member and staff stamp-card views show the tool itself; this page shows one café running it. For a different service rhythm, compare the industry-specific starting points.

Achievements

Achievement strategy for The Daily Grind.

The stamp card stays the one-sentence offer at launch. Achievements show the habit behind the stamps and give the later Coffee Club pass a clear first-use moment. They arrive after staff can run the morning scan without slowing the queue.

Reward Loyalty provides a curated catalog of predefined, one-time milestones. Names, thresholds, measured events, and formulas stay fixed. The business chooses which achievements to activate and whether to attach a reward; reward dates and grant caps remain configurable. Read the achievement setup guide before switching the program on.

5 loyalty days

A customer earns a stamp, uses a pass, or redeems a reward on five different café dates.

Five dates catches the first shift from trial to routine before the ten-stamp card reaches its reward.

Reward or recognition: Recognition with no discount. The stamp card already shows the free drink getting closer.
Guardrail: One busy day still counts once. The $3 minimum on the stamp card protects qualifying stamp activity; achievement rewards and corrections do not count.
30-day check: Compare 5 loyalty days awards with registered members who took a first stamp. A low share points to weak second-week return or missed counter scans.

4-week regular

A customer records at least one loyalty day in four weeks in a row.

Four weeks is long enough to show a morning routine and short enough for a commuter to see progress before the habit fades.

Reward or recognition: One bonus stamp on The Daily Grind Coffee Card. It shortens one cycle without giving away a drink.
Guardrail: Cap the launch grant count and keep the card's daily and transaction stamp limits. The reward stamp can complete a card, so budget for that exposure.
30-day check: Read weekly participants and the members close to a milestone. If many sit one week away and fall out, check staff scan consistency before changing the reward.

First pass used

A Coffee Club holder uses the prepaid pass for the first time at the counter.

The first use turns a $40 sale into a return visit. That matters more than the sale count if passes sit forgotten in wallets.

Reward or recognition: Recognition with no financial reward. The pass already sells ten drinks for less than the menu total.
Guardrail: Enable this after the pass goes live. Staff must record a pass use; a product-page view or a pass pitch does not earn it.
30-day check: Compare First pass used awards with passes sold. A wide gap means buyers need a reminder or staff are failing to scan pass visits.

Launch order: Run the stamp card for 30 days and fix missed scans. Then activate the two habit milestones, add the Coffee Club pass, and switch on First pass used only when that product is live. Attach the bonus stamp after the first month of progress data.

If you attach a reward, set its dates and grant cap before launch, then check delivery and usage in the partner dashboard. The achievement reward limits guide explains the exposure preview, delivery rules, and repair path.

Set it up: six steps.

1. Set up the business page

Business settings, Branding tab: name, tagline, brand color, logo, opening hours. This is the page customers land on when they scan anything. Docs: business settings

2. Give every barista their own staff account

Undo rights are per person, so a shared login makes mistakes untraceable. One account per barista, all in the café's club. Docs: staff accounts

3. Create the stamp card

Title "The Daily Grind Coffee Card", description "Every drink earns a stamp. Ten is a free drink." Then the rules:

Setting	Value	Why
Stamps required	10	The card offers 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, or 12. Daily-visit trades sit at 10 to 12.
Stamps per purchase	1	One drink, one stamp.
Max stamps per day	2	A commuter's second visit still counts.
Max per transaction	2	Two drinks on one ticket get two stamps in one scan.
Minimum purchase	$3.00	No stamp on a glass of tap water.
Stamps expire after	empty	Keep the launch simple. Revisit at day 90.

The reward: "Free drink of your choice", with the physical claim switch on so a barista hands it over, and the reward value ($6.50) kept hidden from the card. The stamp numbers follow the docs' own guidance. Docs: create a stamp card program · stamp card best practices

4. Print the counter QR

Brand the stamp card's code in the QR studio, then download the PNG for a till sticker and the SVG for the A-frame by the door. Docs: brand your QR code

5. Day 30: create the pass

"Coffee Club — 10 Drinks": ten uses, valid 30 days, $40. List drinks average $4.50 to $5.00, so the pass sells ten at the price of about eight. Staff sell it at the counter; the price field can flex for a promo. Docs: set up a prepaid pass

6. Day 60: arm the win-back

Create the voucher first: "We miss you: free drip coffee", a free-product voucher, single use. Then pick it on the club form with 21 days of inactivity and 14 days of validity. A nightly sweep finds the quiet regulars and sends it once each. Docs: win-back rewards

Launch week: the tenth drink is on us.

Two weeks, counter-led, no discounting. An A-frame by the door, a sticker at the till, one line on the cup sleeve.

The A-frame

Ten stamps. One free drink.

Scan, sign up with your email, show your code next time. No app to install.

The barista's line

"Do you have our coffee card? Ten stamps is a free drink, it lives on your phone. Scan this and I'll add today's stamp."

Joining: the customer scans the till QR, the card page opens, they join with an email and a one-time code, and the barista adds stamp one on the spot.

Redeeming: at stamp ten the card flips to "reward ready". The customer taps Collect Reward and shows the reward QR; the barista scans it, taps Claim reward, and makes the drink. The card resets in place and extra stamps carry over.

Mistakes to avoid

Promising "the app". There is nothing to install; the card runs in the browser.
Stamping without a qualifying purchase. The $3 minimum will refuse it, and the customer hears "no".
Launching stamps and a points card together. One currency per register.
Hanging the reward poster where customers can scan it. The till QR is for joining; reward claims are staff scans of the customer's screen.

The Add stamp screen a barista sees, with progress and the purchase amount

At the counter.

Pitch only when the queue allows. Between 7:30 and 9:30 the sleeve line does the selling.
Identify: the customer shows their code. No phone? Search by name.
Add: scan, glance at the name, enter the purchase amount, tap Add stamp. Two drinks on one ticket: set the selector to 2.
Redeem: scan the customer's reward QR, tap Claim reward, hand over the drink.
Fix: Undo recent stamp reverses your own last one. Anything older goes to the owner's dashboard.
Speed it up: a $20 USB scanner at register one reads customer codes like a keyboard.

What the customer sees.

Day 1. Maya buys a flat white, scans the till QR while she waits, and joins with her email. Stamp one lands before her name is called.

Week 2. Stamp five. Her phone shows the halfway note; the card sends it on its own at 50, 80, and 100%.

Week 4. Stamp ten. The card reads "reward ready", she orders the free oat-milk latte, the barista claims it, and the card resets with her eleventh stamp carried over.

Week 5. She is in every weekday anyway, so she buys the Coffee Club pass at the counter.

Sunday, back office. The owner opens the stamp dashboard: 214 members, completion rate 47%, four rewards waiting to be claimed.

A customer wallet with the café's cards in it

The staff screen that ticks one drink off the prepaid coffee pass

The ten-drink coffee pass with visits left and its expiry date

The commuter pass.

At day 30 the counter starts selling the Coffee Club: ten drinks for $40, valid 30 days. Cash in the till today, ten visits committed.

Sold passes are snapshots. A later price change touches future sales only, so get the price right in week one.

The pass sends its own receipt, and one reminder when it enters its final week with drinks left. When it runs out, the barista sells the next one at the till.

Read the numbers.

The stamp dashboard tracks stamps issued, completed cards, rewards claimed, and views. A healthy card completes at 40 to 60% inside 2 to 4 weeks; under 40% means the reward sits too far away.

The pass dashboard adds passes sold with recorded revenue, visits used, active passes, and the number owners forget: paid visits that expired unused.

Every transaction sits in a ledger with staff attribution, exportable as CSV, TSV, or JSON.

The stamp program dashboard with stamps issued and completions for the month

30, 60, 90.

Day 30

Completion under 40%? The reward sits too far out; plan the next card at 8 stamps rather than editing this one mid-flight. Over 60% with margin intact: leave it alone. Scan the ledger for same-minute double stamps. When scans are clean, enable 5 loyalty days and 4-week regular; leave First pass used off until Coffee Club is live.

Day 60

Arm the win-back voucher and check the pass math: passes sold times $40 against the cost of the drinks redeemed. Unused expired visits are margin, and a churn warning at the same time.

Day 90

Refresh the card design for the season, same rules. Consider a 180-day stamp expiry on the next card if dormant cards clutter the dashboard. Add points only if regulars ask for spend-based rewards.

Questions

Before you print the A-frame.

How many stamps should a coffee shop loyalty card have?

Ten. The card offers 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, or 12 stamps, and the guidance in the docs is 10 to 12 for a trade people visit every day. Ten also reads as "buy nine, the tenth is free" without a word of explanation.

What is a good reward for a coffee shop loyalty program?

A free drink of the customer's choice. Aim for a reward worth 10 to 15% of the spend it took to earn: ten drinks at $4.50 to $6.50 each makes one free drink the right size. A reward that needs a paragraph of terms kills the card.

Do customers need to download an app?

No. The card runs in the phone's browser and can save to the home screen. Customers scan a QR at the till, join with their email, and show their code on later visits.

How do staff add stamps during the morning rush?

Scan and tap. The barista scans the customer's code, checks the name, and taps Add stamp. Three to five seconds. A $20 USB scanner at the register saves reaching for a phone, and the pitch waits until the queue is short.

What stops someone from faking stamps?

Staff add every stamp from a signed-in staff account, and the card's rules block the edge cases: a minimum purchase per stamp, a cap per day, and a cap per visit. Every stamp lands in a ledger with the staff member's name on it.

How much does a coffee shop loyalty program cost?

Reward Loyalty is a one-time license, $349, plus ordinary web hosting at about $10 a month. There is no per-member or per-stamp fee, so the program costs the same at 40 regulars as at 4,000.

Can a café run a stamp card and a prepaid coffee pass together?

Yes, and this playbook does: the stamp card from day one, the 10-drink pass from day 30. They answer different customers. The stamp card rewards a habit, the pass banks it up front. One scan at the counter handles both.

How to set up a coffee shop
loyalty program.

The café in this playbook.