The best loyalty card apps for small businesses
Six loyalty apps compared on price, wallet format and messaging channels, using figures fetched from each vendor's own pricing page in October 2026.
On this page
- What actually differs between these apps
- Rewardly: a wallet card built for the till, not the inbox
- FaveCard: a real free tier, with a ceiling on what it can send
- Loyalzoo: three channels through the till, metered by credit
- Perkstar: the closest price match, with a cut of your card payments
- Loytap: no wallet pass, and no way to sign up yourself
- What Passumo does differently
- Who should pick which
- Frequently asked questions
- Where to go next
There is no single best loyalty card app. There is a best app for what you actually need, and that depends on three questions: what format the card takes, which channels you can message a customer on afterward, and what the plan in front of you actually costs once you add up the parts a homepage does not put in the headline price.
This piece checks six apps against those three questions, using the price and features each one currently publishes on its own site, fetched and dated below rather than remembered from an old review.
Key takeaways
- A loyalty “card” is three different things depending on the vendor: an Apple or Google Wallet pass, a card inside the vendor’s own app, or a bookmarked web link. Only the first lands on a lock screen without the customer installing anything.
- Push-only apps are common and often cheap or free. FaveCard and Rewardly both stop at push; neither sends email or SMS at any price.
- Loyalzoo and Perkstar sell all three channels, push, email and SMS, but meter SMS by credits or charge a small fee on card payments once you are past the entry tier.
- Passumo’s single plan includes push, email and automations, with SMS sold in packs on top, at £59 a month in the UK ($78 in the US), fetched from its live pricing catalog on October 24, 2026.
What actually differs between these apps
Before comparing a single price, check what the card itself is. “Digital loyalty card” covers three different formats, and the format decides what a business can send once someone joins.
An Apple or Google Wallet pass installs itself to the customer’s phone with one tap and can push a message straight to the lock screen. A card that lives inside the vendor’s own branded app needs the customer to download that app first, and the business shares the lock screen with everyone else using it. A “branded loyalty link,” the phrase Loytap uses for its own card, is a bookmarked web page: nothing installs, and nothing can push a notification on its own.
| App | Card format | Starting price | Channels at entry | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rewardly | Apple/Google Wallet | €29.90/mo | Push only | 14 days, card required |
| FaveCard | Web card (Pro adds Wallet) | Free, or $39/mo for Wallet | Push only | 30 days premium, no card |
| Loyalzoo | Apple/Google Wallet | $77/mo (currency unstated) | Push, email, metered SMS | 7 days |
| Perkstar | Apple/Google Wallet | £15/mo (£30/mo for email/SMS) | Push only at £15; all three at £30 | 7 days, no card |
| Loytap | Branded link, not a wallet pass | £35/mo | Push, email, no SMS | None; sales-led only |
| Passumo | Apple/Google Wallet | £59/mo ($78/mo) | Push, email, automations; SMS by pack | 7 days |
Prices as published on each vendor’s own site, retrieved October 24, 2026, except Passumo’s figure, read from its live pricing API the same day.
Rewardly: a wallet card built for the till, not the inbox
Rewardly is the closest feature match to Passumo in this list: a card builder, a customer database, analytics, and point-of-sale integrations. Its pricing page lists three tiers, €29.90, €49.90 and €79.90 a month, plus a custom Enterprise tier, with a 14-day free trial that requires a card on file before you start.
Every tier sends push notifications. None of them lists email campaigns or SMS, and the pricing page does not mention either channel at any tier (Rewardly, retrieved October 24, 2026). For a shop whose main use case is a lock-screen reminder and nothing else, that is not a missing feature. For a shop that also wants a monthly email or a win-back text, it is a channel Rewardly’s plans do not sell.
FaveCard: a real free tier, with a ceiling on what it can send
FaveCard’s free plan has no end date: one active card, one location, a web-based card page, and counter QR scanning, all at no cost. Upgrading to its Pro tier, $39 a month, is what adds the Apple and Google Wallet pass itself, your own branding, and customer details like emails and birthdays. Business, at $59 a month, adds the messaging and campaign tools, including birthday automation and win-backs (FaveCard, retrieved October 24, 2026).
The free tier is a genuine way to test whether a loyalty card does anything for your shop before paying for one. The channel ceiling sits above it: even on FaveCard’s highest tier, the page describes “customer messages” and campaigns, never email sending or SMS as named channels. A wallet pass has a field for lock-screen text and nothing built in for an email body or a text message, and that limit carries up through every FaveCard tier regardless of price.
Loyalzoo: three channels through the till, metered by credit
Loyalzoo sells loyalty as a layer on top of your point-of-sale system, with direct integrations for Clover, Epos Now, Square and Shopify. Its Grow plan, listed at $77 a month, includes stamp or points loyalty plus push, email, and SMS marketing, though SMS draws down a credit balance you buy separately. Smart, at $167 a month, adds 5,000 messaging credits and tiered loyalty (Loyalzoo, retrieved October 24, 2026). The pricing page shows both figures with a dollar sign and gives no currency selector, so check which dollar applies before you budget against it.
This is the one app on this list genuinely built around the till rather than around the customer’s wallet, and it is worth it specifically if you already run one of its supported POS systems and want loyalty inside the same dashboard you use for sales.
Perkstar: the closest price match, with a cut of your card payments
Perkstar is the sharpest price comparison on this list. Its Starter tier is £15 a month for Apple and Google Wallet cards and push notifications. Growth, at £30 a month, adds email campaigns with a 10,000-email monthly allowance and pay-as-you-go SMS, plus automations and referrals. Scale, at £65 a month, adds advanced automations and point-of-sale integrations (Perkstar, retrieved October 24, 2026). A 7-day trial needs no card upfront.
The detail worth reading past the headline price: Growth and Scale carry a fee on customer payments processed through the card, 1% and 0.5% respectively. For a shop running real transaction volume through loyalty redemptions, that is a cost the monthly price alone does not show.
Loytap: no wallet pass, and no way to sign up yourself
Loytap prices a single plan at £35 a month, or £315 a year, with push messaging, email and customer groups included. Its own site never says “Apple Wallet” or “Google Wallet,” and calls what the customer keeps on their phone a “branded loyalty link,” which its page describes as a card on the phone rather than a pass that installs to a wallet (Loytap, retrieved October 24, 2026).
Every call to action on the site leads to a contact form rather than a signup page, so starting a program means booking a call first. That can suit a shop that wants a done-for-you setup rather than a dashboard to configure, but it rules out testing the product tonight.
What Passumo does differently
Passumo is a paid product, and this is one of the things we sell, so it is worth saying plainly. One plan covers the wallet card, push notifications, email campaigns and automations. The current price, read from Passumo’s live pricing catalog on October 24, 2026, is £59 a month in the UK or $78 a month in the US, with additional locations at £39 a month ($51 in the US) and SMS sold in packs on top of what is already included. A 7-day free trial applies.
The difference from the apps above is not that Passumo has three channels and they don’t. It is that all three sit behind one plan rather than being split across tiers, metered credits, or a product the card does not include at all. What the three channels are for is worth reading before deciding how many of them a new program actually needs on day one.
Who should pick which
Wants to test the idea before spending anything. FaveCard’s free tier, or any app with a genuine no-cost plan, is the right starting point. There is nothing to lose by trying a card before paying for one.
Already runs Square, Clover, Epos Now or Shopify, and wants loyalty inside that dashboard. Loyalzoo is built for exactly that, with the trade-off that SMS draws from a metered credit balance rather than a flat allowance.
Wants the cheapest plan with all three channels. Perkstar’s Growth tier is the lowest priced option on this list that includes email and SMS, provided the 1% payment fee at that tier fits your margins.
Doesn’t want to build or configure anything. Loytap sells a fully set-up program for a flat monthly fee, with the trade-off that there is no wallet pass and no way to start without a sales call.
Wants one plan, one price, and push, email and SMS together without juggling separate credit balances or add-on products. That is what Passumo is built to be. Current pricing has the live figures.
Frequently asked questions
Is any one of these apps simply the best? No single app wins on every measure. The honest comparison is format (wallet pass, in-app card, or web link), channels, and total monthly cost, weighed against what your shop actually needs to send.
Do all of these send push notifications to a phone’s lock screen? Only the ones issuing a real Apple or Google Wallet pass can. Loytap’s “branded loyalty link” and FaveCard’s free web card do not, because neither is a wallet pass.
Which of these is cheapest if I only need push? FaveCard’s free tier costs nothing for a single location and card. Rewardly starts at €29.90 a month for the same single channel through a Wallet pass.
Which of these includes SMS without a separate credit purchase? None of the six does at its very lowest tier. Passumo sells SMS in packs on top of an included plan; Loyalzoo and Perkstar’s higher tiers meter it by credit or a pay-as-you-go balance.
Where to go next
Free loyalty cards: what the free options really cost you goes deeper on FaveCard’s free tier and what a push-only channel costs you even at no price. Square Loyalty and Toast loyalty program cover the other category this piece leaves out on purpose: loyalty bundled into a point-of-sale system rather than sold as its own app. Loyalty card templates: printable or digital card maker is the piece to read if you are still deciding between a printed card and any app at all. Current plans and what each includes are on the pricing page.
Sources: Rewardly pricing, FaveCard pricing, Loyalzoo pricing, Perkstar pricing, and Loytap pricing, all retrieved October 24, 2026. Passumo’s figures were read directly from its live pricing API the same day. Every vendor’s own page is linked above so a reader can verify any figure directly, since self-serve SaaS pricing changes without notice.