Café Loyalty Program Costs in 2026: Full Pricing Guide With ROI Breakdown
Feb 12, 2026
The short answer: between £0 and £60 per month for the vast majority of independent cafés. The more useful answer: less than what you're losing every month by not having one.
Café loyalty programmes have become cheaper, simpler, and more effective than at any point in the last decade. What used to require expensive custom software or clunky POS integrations now runs from a QR code and a phone wallet — at a price that's less than most cafés spend on oat milk in a week.
But "how much does it cost?" is only half the question. The other half — "how much does it make?" — is where the real decision happens. This guide covers both sides: what you'll actually pay for a café loyalty programme in 2026, what drives those costs, and the revenue maths that determine whether the investment is worth it for your specific business.
What Determines the Price of a Café Loyalty Programme?
Not all loyalty platforms charge the same, and not all pricing structures work the same way. Understanding what you're paying for helps you avoid overspending on features you don't need — or underspending on a platform that can't do what you need it to.
The platform subscription
This is your primary cost. Most digital loyalty platforms for cafés charge a flat monthly fee, typically between £15 and £80 per month. The price depends on three main factors:
Feature depth. Basic plans include a digital stamp card and reward redemption. Mid-tier plans add push notifications, customer analytics, automated rewards (birthdays, lapsed-customer reminders), and segmentation. Premium plans may include multiple card types, referral programmes, Google Review integration, and advanced reporting.
Branding level. Standard plans use the platform's default design with your logo and colours applied. White-label or fully custom-branded experiences cost more — typically £100+ per month or significant setup fees.
Pricing model. Some platforms charge a flat monthly rate regardless of how many members you have or how many messages you send. Others charge per active user, per transaction, or per push notification — which means your costs scale unpredictably as the programme grows. For a deeper look at how each of these models plays out in practice — including the per-user and per-transaction traps — there's a detailed breakdown of loyalty card software pricing models that covers the fine print most vendors bury.
For a single-location café, a flat-fee platform in the £15–30 range delivers everything you need without the risk of escalating costs. Perkstar starts at £15 per month with no setup fees, no per-transaction charges, and unlimited push notifications — meaning your costs stay fixed even as your membership grows from 50 to 500 and beyond.
The reward cost
This is the cost of the actual rewards you give away. For cafés, this is almost always lower than people expect.
A free coffee — the most common café loyalty reward — costs approximately 30–50p to make (beans, milk, cup, lid). That's your actual cost, not the retail price. After 8 paid visits at £3.50–£4.50 average, you've generated £28–£36 in revenue before giving away 40p worth of product.
The reward cost for a typical café stamp programme is under 2% of cycle revenue. Even if you offer a more generous reward (a free pastry and coffee, for example, costing perhaps £1. That ratio — spending under 2% to retain customers who generate the other 98% — is a core reason loyalty programmes are genuinely profitable for businesses with high visit frequency and low per-unit reward costs.20 in ingredients), you're still well under 5% — comfortably sustainable for any café with healthy margins.
The time cost
The investment that nobody lists on a pricing page but every café owner feels:
Setting up the programme: 30–60 minutes to configure your card, set your reward, customise the design, and print your QR code. This is a one-time cost.
Signing up customers: 20–30 seconds per sign-up. If you sign up 10 customers per day, that's about 5 minutes of total staff time.
Scanning at each visit: 2–3 seconds per transaction. Faster than processing a contactless payment.
Sending push notifications: 5 minutes per message, once or twice per week.
Reviewing analytics and managing the programme: 15–20 minutes per week.
Total ongoing time cost: approximately 30 minutes per week. For context, that's less time than cleaning the espresso machine at close.
The 2026 Pricing Landscape: What Café Owners Are Actually Paying
Here's what the market looks like right now, honestly assessed. If you operate a business beyond the café counter — a salon, gym, or retail shop — the pricing tiers look similar but the feature priorities shift, which is covered in a broader breakdown of how much loyalty programmes cost across industries.
Free loyalty apps
Cost: £0 per month.
Several platforms offer free tiers — typically a basic stamp card with limited features. These can work as a trial run, but the trade-offs are significant: no push notifications (your most important retention tool), no customer analytics, no automated rewards, limited or no branding customisation, and often third-party ads displayed to your customers.
A free app gives you a digital stamp card. It doesn't give you a loyalty programme — because a programme requires communication, automation, and data. If you're testing whether your customers will use a digital card at all, a free tier serves that purpose. Knowing which loyalty platform features actually matter — and which are marketing padding — helps you decide whether a free tier's limitations are deal-breakers or irrelevant for your stage. But don't expect it to meaningfully impact your retention or revenue.
Budget platforms (£10–20/month)
Cost: £10–20 per month.
This is where the value equation becomes genuinely compelling for cafés. Platforms in this range — including Perkstar's entry tier at £15/month — typically include a digital stamp or points card, push notifications, basic analytics, and a scanner app. Some include automated birthday rewards and lapsed-customer reminders at this price point.
For a single-location café, this tier delivers 90% of the functionality you'll ever need. The features that matter most for retention (push notifications, reward mechanics, automated reminders) are all included. If you're comparing options in this range, the key is evaluating total cost of ownership — subscription plus time plus hidden fees — rather than sticker price alone, which is where most affordable loyalty software comparisons fall short. You're not paying for enterprise features you won't use.
Mid-tier platforms (£30–80/month)
Cost: £30–80 per month.
Higher tiers add features like multiple card types, referral programmes, Google Review Rewards, advanced segmentation, and richer analytics. These are worth the premium for cafés with larger customer bases, multiple revenue streams (retail products alongside drinks and food), or a desire to run more sophisticated marketing through their loyalty platform.
Perkstar's higher tiers fall in this range and add referral programmes, Google Review Rewards, and multiple card types — features that actively generate new customers and build your online reputation, not just retain existing ones.
POS-integrated loyalty (£50–300+/month)
Cost: £50–300+ per month, sometimes with setup fees.
POS loyalty modules (through Square, Lightspeed, Toast, etc.) integrate stamp or point collection directly into the payment process. The advantage is automated earning — no separate scan required. The disadvantage is typically weaker loyalty-specific features (limited push notifications, no referral programme, no Google Review integration) at a significantly higher price point.
For most cafés, the few seconds saved by automated POS scanning don't justify paying three to ten times more per month for fewer loyalty features. The same logic applies to custom-branded apps: the perceived prestige of a custom app versus a wallet loyalty card rarely justifies the development cost, ongoing maintenance, and low download rates that small venues consistently experience. A dedicated platform with a quick manual scan is both cheaper and more capable.
Enterprise solutions (£2,000+/month)
Cost: £2,000–15,000+ per month, plus potential build costs of £15,000–500,000.
Custom-built or white-label enterprise platforms for café chains with dozens or hundreds of locations. Unless you're operating at that scale, this category isn't relevant — and the ROI maths that work at £15/month don't change just because the platform costs more.
The Revenue Side: What a Café Loyalty Programme Actually Generates
The cost is straightforward. The return is where it gets interesting.
The basic calculation
Take a café serving 80 customers per day, with an average transaction of £4.
Without a loyalty programme: Revenue depends entirely on location, product quality, and hope. Customers who enjoy their visit may or may not return. You have no way to influence that decision, no way to communicate between visits, and no data on customer behaviour.
With a loyalty programme (200 members after 3 months):
If the programme increases visit frequency by just 15% among members — one extra visit per month for customers who previously came six or seven times — that's 30 additional visits per month.
30 visits × £4 average = £120 additional monthly revenue.
Monthly programme cost: £15 (platform) + ~£5 (rewards) = £20.
Net monthly gain: £100. ROI: 500%. Running these numbers for your own café — factoring in your actual transaction value, visit frequency, and reward cost — is the most reliable way to determine whether your loyalty programme will be profitable, and the maths almost always says yes.
And that's the conservative scenario, counting only the visit frequency uplift. It doesn't include:
Revenue from customers who buy additional items when redeeming their free coffee (average add-on spend at redemption: £2–3)
New customers acquired through referrals (zero advertising cost)
Increased Google reviews driving organic discovery
Lapsed customers recovered through automated reminders
Birthday rewards generating goodwill worth far more than their cost
The break-even reality
At £15 per month, your programme breaks even with approximately four additional customer visits per month. Four visits. At a café serving 80 people daily, that's one additional customer every week choosing your café instead of an alternative — because a push notification reminded them, or their stamp card is one visit from a reward, or their friend referred them.
Most cafés hit break-even within the first week of operation. By month two or three, the programme is generating meaningful net revenue — and the membership base is still growing.
Real-World Example: A Year in a Café's Loyalty Economics
An independent café in a suburban high street launches a Perkstar programme at £15 per month with an 8-stamp card and a free coffee reward.
Months 1–3 (building the base): Staff ask every customer to join. Sign-up rate averages 25% of daily customers. By month three, the café has 220 loyalty members. First push notifications go out — "Double stamps today" on the quietest day of the week. Wednesday traffic increases noticeably. Total platform cost so far: £45. Estimated additional revenue from early engagement: £250.
Months 4–6 (programme matures): Automations are running — birthday rewards, lapsed-customer reminders after 21 days, reward-ready notifications. Membership reaches 340. Referral programme enabled; 15 new customers acquired through member referrals at zero advertising cost. Google Review Rewards generate 12 new reviews over the quarter. The café's Google rating climbs from 4.3 to 4.6, improving local search visibility. Total platform cost months 4–6: £45. Estimated additional revenue: £500.
Months 7–12 (compounding returns): The membership base stabilises around 450 active members. Push notifications drive consistent traffic on quiet days. The referral programme continues generating 3–5 new customers per month. Google reviews reach 60+ total, making the café the top-rated option in the neighbourhood on Google Maps. Lapsed-customer automations recover 4–6 drifting customers per month who would otherwise have been lost silently. Total platform cost months 7–12: £90. Estimated additional revenue: £1,200.
Full year totals:
Platform cost: £180
Estimated reward costs: £80–100 (free coffees at ~40p each)
Total investment: ~£280
Estimated additional revenue: £1,950+
ROI: approximately 600%
No other marketing channel available to an independent café delivers a comparable return at this cost.
Modern Take: Why the Cost Question Has Changed in 2026
Five years ago, "how much does a loyalty programme cost?" was a question about affordability. The cheapest digital options were £40–50 per month, which felt like a meaningful expense for a small café. The decision required careful consideration.
In 2026, with platforms starting at £15 per month, the cost question has shifted. It's no longer "can I afford a loyalty programme?" — it's "can I afford not to have one?"
During a cost of living crisis, customers are consolidating their spending with businesses that reward their loyalty. A café with a programme that recognises regulars, sends birthday rewards, and offers a free coffee after eight visits creates a tangible financial incentive for customers to keep choosing it. A café without one is hoping that product quality alone is enough — and while quality matters, it's not a differentiator when every café on the street serves good coffee.
At £15 per month — less than the cost of a single day's Instagram advertising, less than four cappuccinos at your own counter — a loyalty programme is the lowest-risk, highest-return marketing investment available to an independent café. For cafés still hesitant about the outlay, the practical steps for launching a loyalty programme on a tight budget confirm that the financial barrier in 2026 is essentially zero — the only real cost is the delay itself. The question isn't whether you can afford it. It's how many months of revenue you're willing to lose while you decide.
Getting Started
A café loyalty programme in 2026 costs between £15 and £60 per month for the vast majority of independent businesses. The rewards cost under 2% of the revenue they generate. The time investment is 30 minutes per week. And the return — measured in additional visits, recovered lapsed customers, referral-acquired new customers, and Google reviews — typically exceeds the total cost by a factor of five to ten within the first year.
Perkstar starts at £15 per month with a free 14-day trial and no credit card required. Digital loyalty cards in Apple and Google Wallet, unlimited push notifications, automated rewards, a scanner app, and analytics — everything you need to start building loyalty from day one. No setup fees. No contracts.
