How to Create a Loyalty App Like Starbucks Rewards
Jan 5, 2026
When people talk about loyalty programs that actually work, Starbucks Rewards inevitably comes up. It's not just successful—it's become the benchmark against which all other loyalty programs are measured.
The numbers are remarkable. Starbucks Rewards has over 30 million active members who account for more than half of the company's revenue. Nearly half of all restaurant loyalty app users in the US have Starbucks Rewards on their phone. The program has fundamentally changed how people think about coffee shop loyalty. A closer look at the Starbucks Rewards case study reveals that it's not the technology budget driving those numbers—it's the behavioural design underneath.
So here's the question small business owners naturally ask: can I create something like that for my business?
The honest answer is yes—with an important caveat. You won't replicate Starbucks' exact app (they've invested hundreds of millions in development). But you absolutely can implement the key features that make their program so effective, at a fraction of the cost, using modern loyalty platforms designed for small businesses.
This guide breaks down what makes Starbucks Rewards work, which elements you can realistically implement, and how to create a loyalty program that delivers similar engagement for your customers.
What Makes Starbucks Rewards So Effective?
Before building something similar, it's worth understanding exactly why Starbucks Rewards succeeds where so many loyalty programs fail.
1. Frictionless Experience
Everything about Starbucks Rewards is designed to remove friction. Customers can browse the menu, order, pay, and earn rewards—all without waiting in line or fumbling for payment. The entire experience happens on their phone, and it's fast.
This convenience isn't just nice to have; it's the foundation of the program's success. When earning rewards feels effortless, participation becomes automatic rather than a conscious decision. Critically, Starbucks achieves this by making the program accessible through multiple channels—and research shows that loyalty programs without app downloads see up to six times higher adoption rates than those requiring a dedicated install.
The lesson for small businesses: Any loyalty program you implement should be equally frictionless. Quick sign-up, instant stamp allocation, easy reward redemption. If your program slows down service or confuses customers, participation will suffer.
2. Personalised Engagement
Starbucks doesn't treat all customers the same. The app learns individual preferences over time—favourite drinks, usual order times, preferred locations—and uses this information to personalise the experience.
Recommendations feel relevant. Offers align with actual behaviour. Communication feels like it's "for me" rather than generic marketing blasted to everyone.
The lesson for small businesses: Customer data enables personalisation. Even basic information—visit frequency, purchase history, birthday—lets you communicate in ways that feel personal rather than promotional.
3. Simple, Clear Mechanics
Despite its sophistication, Starbucks Rewards is easy to understand. Spend money, earn stars. Collect enough stars, get rewards. The progression is visible, the goal is clear, and customers always know where they stand.
This simplicity is intentional. Complex point calculations, confusing tiers, and unclear redemption rules kill engagement. Starbucks keeps the core mechanic straightforward even as they add features around it. It's the same principle behind a well-designed café stamp card—when customers instantly understand the deal, they engage without hesitation.
The lesson for small businesses: Start simple. "Buy 9, get 1 free" is instantly understood. You can add complexity later if customers want it, but a confusing program from day one will struggle to gain traction.
4. Surprise and Delight
Starbucks excels at unexpected moments that create genuine pleasure. Bonus star days that appear without warning. Birthday rewards that feel like gifts, not marketing. Limited-time challenges that add excitement to routine purchases.
These surprises keep the program feeling fresh. Customers don't just earn rewards mechanically—they experience moments of delight that strengthen emotional connection.
The lesson for small businesses: Build in occasional surprises. A random bonus stamp, an unexpected free item, a "just because" reward. These moments create stories customers tell friends.
5. Consistent Communication
Starbucks stays in touch with members regularly—but valuably. Push notifications remind customers of expiring stars. Messages highlight new seasonal items. Challenges encourage trying new products.
This communication keeps Starbucks top-of-mind without feeling like spam. Each message provides genuine value rather than just asking for another purchase.
The lesson for small businesses: Use your communication channel wisely. Every message should offer something valuable—a reward earned, a relevant promotion, useful information. Quality trumps quantity.
Can Small Businesses Actually Replicate This?
Here's where we need to be realistic about what's achievable.
What You Can't Replicate
Custom app development: Starbucks has invested enormous resources building their proprietary app. Custom development for a similar system would cost tens of thousands of pounds—potentially hundreds of thousands—plus ongoing maintenance, updates, and support. For most small businesses, this isn't practical or sensible.
Deep POS integration: Starbucks' ordering and payment system is deeply integrated with their app. Replicating this level of integration requires significant technical infrastructure that most small businesses don't have. Understanding what actually makes Starbucks' loyalty model work—the behavioural architecture rather than the technology—is what separates realistic planning from expensive imitation.
Scale-driven features: Some Starbucks features (like their rewards marketplace or music partnerships) only make sense at massive scale.
What You Absolutely Can Replicate
Points-based rewards: Starbucks uses Stars; you can use points. Perkstar's points card lets customers earn based on spend and redeem at multiple tiers—exactly like Starbucks.
Frictionless participation: Modern loyalty platforms deliver the same seamless experience—quick sign-up, instant rewards tracking, easy redemption.
Personalised communication: Push notifications, birthday rewards, and targeted offers are all available through small business loyalty platforms.
Simple mechanics: The core earn-and-redeem structure that makes Starbucks Rewards work is exactly what platforms like Perkstar deliver.
Surprise and delight: Bonus points, scratch-and-win promotions, and unexpected rewards are all achievable.
Consistent engagement: Direct messaging to customers' phones, automated campaigns, and re-engagement tools are standard features.
The key insight is this: the elements that actually drive Starbucks Rewards' success aren't the expensive custom development—they're the strategic choices about how to engage customers. Those choices are available to any business.
How to Build Your Own Starbucks-Style Loyalty Program
Here's a practical roadmap for creating a loyalty program that delivers Starbucks-level engagement without Starbucks-level budgets.
Step 1: Choose the Right Platform
Instead of building from scratch, use a digital loyalty platform designed for small businesses. These platforms provide the technology—apps, customer management, analytics—while you focus on strategy and execution.
What to look for:
Wallet integration: Cards that save to Apple Wallet and Google Wallet mean customers don't need to download a dedicated app. This mirrors Starbucks' convenience without requiring custom development.
Push notifications: The ability to message customers directly is essential for Starbucks-style engagement. Ensure notifications are unlimited and included in pricing.
Automation: Birthday rewards, milestone celebrations, and re-engagement campaigns should trigger automatically. Manual management doesn't scale.
Flexible reward structures: Starbucks uses points (Stars)—make sure your platform offers a points-based card type, not just stamps. You might also want memberships, multipasses, or gift cards as you grow. Choose a platform with multiple card types. Not all wallet-based platforms are equal, though—some are developer infrastructure requiring technical teams, while others are ready-to-use, and understanding the difference between PassKit and Perkstar illustrates this distinction clearly.
Customer data: Visit tracking, behaviour insights, and segmentation enable the personalisation that makes Starbucks Rewards feel tailored.
Perkstar offers eight card types including a points card that directly replicates the Starbucks Stars model—plus stamps, memberships, multipasses, discounts, coupons, cashback, and gift cards. All at a fraction of custom development cost, starting at £15/month.
Step 2: Design Your Core Program
Here's where you can directly mirror Starbucks' approach. Their program runs on Stars—a points-based system where customers earn points based on spend and redeem them for rewards of varying values.
Perkstar's Points Card: Your Stars Equivalent
Perkstar offers a points card that works exactly like Starbucks Stars:
Earn points per pound spent: Set your earning rate (e.g., 1 point per £1 spent, or 2 points per £1 for promotions)
Multiple reward tiers: Customers can redeem at different point thresholds—50 points for a small reward, 100 for medium, 200 for your signature item
Flexible redemption: Unlike stamps where you're locked into one reward, points let customers choose what they want to redeem for
This is the exact model Starbucks uses. Customers see their points balance grow, understand the value they're accumulating, and feel rewarded proportionally to their spending.
Why points work for some businesses:
Higher spenders earn faster (rewarding your best customers proportionally)
Multiple reward options keep the program interesting
Customers feel progress with every purchase, not just complete transactions
You can run "double points" promotions just like Starbucks' Bonus Star days If your business suits a simpler earn-and-redeem model, it's worth weighing the digital punch card vs paper loyalty card comparison—digital wins on every metric that matters for long-term engagement.
Stamps vs Points—which to choose:
If your transactions are fairly consistent (like a café where most orders are £3-5), stamps work beautifully. If you have variable transaction sizes and want to reward bigger spenders proportionally, points are better. Perkstar supports both, so you can choose what fits your business.
Set achievable thresholds: Starbucks requires about 150 stars for free drinks—roughly 6-7 purchases. Your threshold should be similar: achievable within a few weeks for regular customers, creating a sense of progress without feeling impossible.
Step 3: Add Starbucks-Style Features
Once your core program is running, layer in the features that make Starbucks Rewards special:
Birthday Rewards
Starbucks' birthday reward is one of its most beloved features. Customers feel celebrated, and the reward drives a visit during a specific window.
Set up automated birthday rewards through your loyalty platform. A free item, a special discount, or bonus stamps all work. The key is automation—you shouldn't need to remember each customer's birthday.
Perkstar includes automated birthday rewards that trigger without any manual intervention.
Surprise Bonuses
Starbucks' "Bonus Star" days create excitement because they're unexpected. Replicate this with periodic surprise rewards:
Random double-stamp days
Surprise free items for your most loyal customers
Flash promotions that appear without warning
The element of surprise is what makes these powerful. If customers can predict them, they become routine rather than delightful.
Gamification Elements
Starbucks uses challenges ("Try these 3 items by Friday for bonus stars") to encourage exploration and engagement. You can do the same:
Double points days (just like Starbucks' Bonus Star promotions)
Limited-time bonus point offers
Challenges to try new menu items
Streak rewards for consecutive visits
Perkstar's platform supports bonus point periods and promotional campaigns that create this gamified engagement.
Re-engagement Campaigns
When Starbucks members haven't visited recently, the app reminds them—often with an incentive to return. This win-back approach recovers customers who might otherwise drift away.
Set up automated messages for customers who haven't visited in a defined period: "We miss you! Here's a bonus stamp on your next visit."
Step 4: Communicate Consistently (But Valuably)
Starbucks stays in touch without becoming annoying. Every message offers value:
"You're 2 stars away from a free drink"
"Try our new seasonal item"
"Your birthday reward is waiting"
Follow the same principle. Each push notification should answer the question: "Why would the customer be glad they received this?"
Good notification types:
Reward earned/redeemable
Progress updates ("You're almost there!")
Relevant promotions (genuinely interesting offers)
Birthday and anniversary messages
New items the customer might actually want
Avoid:
Generic "we miss you" messages without offers
Too-frequent promotions that feel like spam
Irrelevant offers that show you don't know the customer
Step 5: Use Data to Personalise
Starbucks' personalisation comes from data—they know what you order, when you visit, and how you respond to offers. Your loyalty platform provides similar information:
Visit frequency by customer
Popular times and days
Reward redemption patterns
Response to promotions
Use these insights to segment customers and personalise communication. Your top 10% of visitors might receive different offers than customers you're trying to win back. Regular morning visitors get different messages than weekend brunchers.
This isn't complex personalisation requiring AI—it's basic segmentation that any business owner can implement.
What This Costs vs. Custom Development
Let's be direct about the investment comparison:
Custom Starbucks-style app development:
Initial build: £50,000-£200,000+
Ongoing maintenance: £1,000-5,000+ per month
Updates and improvements: additional project costs
Timeline: 6-12 months to launch
Digital loyalty platform (like Perkstar):
Setup: Included
Monthly cost: £15-60
Updates: Included automatically
Timeline: Launch in hours
The mathematical reality is that custom development makes sense only for very large businesses where the loyalty program is central to their competitive strategy. For businesses watching every pound, there are proven strategies for building a loyalty program on a limited budget that still deliver measurable retention improvements. For 99% of small and medium businesses, a platform-based approach delivers the same customer-facing features at a tiny fraction of the cost.
What Kinds of Businesses Benefit from This Approach?
The Starbucks model works for any business with repeat customers:
Obvious fits:
Cafés and coffee shops (the direct parallel)
Restaurants and takeaways Restaurants in particular benefit from points-based systems because they can tie rewards to average spend rather than visit count—a digital loyalty approach built for restaurant operations accounts for the complexity of varied order sizes and peak-hour workflows.
Bakeries and food retailers
Bars and pubs
Strong fits in other industries:
Hair salons and barbershops
Beauty and nail salons
Gyms and fitness studios
Car washes
Retail shops with regular customers
Perhaps surprising fits:
Professional services with repeat clients
B2B suppliers with regular orders
Any business where customers return periodically
The core question is: do you have customers who could visit more frequently or spend more if properly incentivised? If yes, this approach can work.
Start Building Your Starbucks-Style Program
You don't need Starbucks' budget to deliver Starbucks-quality engagement. The features that actually drive their success—frictionless participation, personalised communication, surprise and delight, clear mechanics—are all achievable through modern loyalty platforms.
The key is starting. A basic program launched today will outperform a perfect program planned indefinitely. You can refine and add features over time, but you need a foundation first. Even if you're running your business solo, the setup doesn't require a team—plenty of owners have successfully launched a loyalty program as a one-person operation and seen results within weeks.
Perkstar gives you that foundation: wallet integration for frictionless participation, push notifications for direct communication, automated rewards for birthday and milestone celebrations, and analytics to understand your customers. The 14-day free trial lets you build and test your program without commitment.
Create your own Starbucks Rewards—scaled for your business, priced for your budget.
