9 Best Customer Loyalty Program Software of 2021

Although you can create and manage a loyalty program yourself to encourage customer retention and drive sales, good customer loyalty programs help streamline your operations. The best loyalty program software also provides automation features and unique loyalty elements.

We looked at dozens of available programs to select the nine best loyalty program software for 2021:

• LoyaltyLion: Best loyalty program software for ecommerce businesses
• Yotpo: Best for building user-generated content, including reviews
• TapMango: Best for getting insights into in-store customer behavior
• Zinrelo: Best for creating customer segments and targeted offers
• Annex Cloud: Best for creating a custom loyalty program
• Smile.io: Best automated loyalty program software for online businesses
• Fivestars: Best automated loyalty program software for brick and mortar businesses
• Kangaroo: Best loyalty program software for reaching locals
• CandyBar: Best punch card loyalty program software

How We Evaluated Customer Loyalty Software

When evaluating the performance and quality of the software in this article, we looked for the capabilities that would most effectively keep customers coming back, as well as those that would make your life easiest in the process.

Overall, LoyaltyLion was our top scorer, earning 4.56 out of 5. We found that LoyaltyLion offered some of the best features, integrations abilities, and overall user experience. Additionally, LoyaltyLion sets itself apart through its extensive customization options that allow you to customize every step of your rewards program with the help of an expert developer.

In this article, we compared loyalty program software based on:

LoyaltyLion: Best for Ecommerce Businesses

LoyaltyLion is a high-quality custom loyalty software, rich with loyalty features, data-driven analysis, and customization options for anything from how things look to how you structure your program. LoyaltyLion is best suited for ecommerce companies that want to design their own unique loyalty program and are ready to invest in their customer retention.

LoyaltyLion allows you to customize every interface and piece of text in your customer loyalty program, so your website is seamless and cohesive. LoyaltyLion’s program is rich with custom options and lets you choose from an array of rewards structure so that you can find one that suits your business.

LoyaltyLion is our top-scoring customer loyalty software, with a 4.56 out of 5, due to the breadth of its features and customization options. LoyaltyLion also got top marks for its overall quality and popularity, as well customer satisfaction. A lack of POS integrations and mixed customer reviews, however, brought its score down.

LoyaltyLion Pricing

LoyaltyLion scales its pricing based on the number of orders you have each month with three subscription tiers: Classic (from $399, up to 2,000 orders), Advanced (from $699, up to 4,000 orders), and Plus (from $1,500, up to 10,000 orders). As your business grows and your LoyaltyLion plan changes, you also get access to more features and customization options that are reflected in the price.

LoyaltyLion Features

LoyaltyLion is a comprehensive loyalty program app that offers rewards, points, and tiered membership options to make your business memorable and boost customer engagement (and spending). To start, you design your program and customize your loyalty rewards so that they effectively incentivize return among your unique customer base.

Once the bones of your program are in place, you get to design how your program appears on your website. This stage is completely customizable through the CSS theme editor feature, allowing you to create a loyalty experience that reflects your brand. LoyaltyLion can integrate with most major ecommerce platforms and has also partnered with Vend for a mobile app integration.

Another great option with an even more custom experience is Annex Cloud, which we will explore below.

LoyaltyLion also offers outreach marketing and many other features designed to boost customer engagement.

• Points and Rewards System: Offer customer points for purchases, referrals, reviews, or any other on-site activity. The customers can exchange those points for gift cards, vouchers, or rewards like free shipping or an exclusive discount.
• Tiered-Memberships: Reward customers for engaging with and spending money at your business. Offer platinum, gold, silver, and bronze membership levels, and give better rewards as people climb the ladder.
• Referral Rewards: Reward customers for sharing on social media, via email, or over text through custom referral links or use the LoyaltyLion referrals widget.
• Email Outreach: Reach out to your customers via email to remind them of their points, offer discounts, promote sales, and keep customers interacting with your loyalty program. LoyaltyLion offers different email templates and designs for you to choose from, so your emails can be custom to your message. (LoyaltyLion offers limited email program integrations.)
• Reporting: Access real-time statistics and referral and rewards information through your dashboard so you can better understand and target your customer base.
• Integrations: Integrates seamlessly with most ecommerce software, including Shopify and Magento. LoyaltyLion also offers custom integrations through its dev team via API for both ecommerce and POS integrations.

What LoyaltyLion Is Missing

LoyaltyLion is best suited for ecommerce due to its limited point-of-sale (POS) integration options. Additionally, LoyaltyLion’s user interface can be difficult to understand and master, and its customer support can be difficult to reach.

A better customer loyalty option for brick-and-mortar stores is TapMango. Not only that, but its customer service is highly reviewed and personalized. See its pricing and features below.

Yotpo: Best for Boosting Your Reviews

Coming in just after LoyaltyLion with a 4.54 out of 5, Yotpo is a great customer loyalty program for businesses looking to use reviews and other user generated content (UGC) to bolster their customer retention. Yotpo uses AI to help generate reviews for your website and has social media integrations where you and customers can add social pictures directly to your website.

Yotpo did not just earn a top score for customer loyalty program software from its review feature. It also offers an extensive list of other programs (detailed below) that can help you boost customer loyalty. In addition, Yotpo is an extremely popular option and the majority of users agree that it is a user-friendly and high-quality product. It did, however, lose some points due to its pricing structure, limited POS integrations, and its customer support.

Yotpo Pricing

Yotpo’s pricing scheme is based completely on features and is not scaled with order volume like LoyaltyLion. Yotpo starts at $0 with a free trial with no time limitations and very limited features and then offers a $19/month plan and a $149/month plan with increasing feature availability. From there, there are also Premium and Enterprise plans that offer more custom experiences and are best suited for larger, more established brands.

Yotpo Features

Yotpo offers several different customer loyalty platforms for you to use. Each offers a different way to promote customer engagement and allows you to engage with customers along multiple channels to boost impact. Its platforms include:

• Reviews and Ratings: Gather reviews and display them on your website to build trust and incentive buying.
• Loyalty and Referrals: Create a custom rewards program to give shoppers points and prizes for interacting with your business.
• SMS Marketing: Engage with your customers with SMS messaging and target your audience with the right message for their stage in their relationship with your brand.
• Visual User Generated Content (UGC): Incorporate social media photos and pictures from your reviews onto your website.

Depending on the pricing plan that you choose, Yotpo offers an extensive list of features:

• AI-Driven Reviews Generation: Use AI to collect more reviews, photos, and Q&A through an automated requests system that ensures you ask for feedback in the right way, at the right time.
• On-Site Widgets: Incorporate customizable on-site widgets to your ecommerce site to display reviews, photos, and customer social images.
• SMS Marketing: Send promotions to your customers via text to help boost engagement and promote events. If you prefer to reach your customer via email, try LoyaltyLion for email-focused outreach marketing.
• Visual Marketing Suite: Upload photos to your website from your social media or product pages through social media integrations, and let customers upload their own images to your site.
• Consumer Insights: Access reporting on your reviews and customer feedback to help you understand how customers really feel about your business.
• Customer Q&A: Create custom questions and display customer feedback on your site.
• Marketing Integrations: Integrate Yotpo with your current email or other marketing channels to advertise and boost your loyalty program among your customers.
• Reporting: Access reporting to help you understand the success of your loyalty program and where you can still maximize your bottom line.
• Success Manager: Yotpo gives you a dedicated success manager who can provide best practices and industry insights.

What Yotpo Is Missing

Yotpo lacks a wide variety of POS integrations, and only works seamlessly with Vend and Shopify. The program does, however, provide an extensive list of ecommerce platform integrations. If you are in the market for in-store loyalty programs, TapMango, CandyBar, and Fivestars are great options.

Additionally, Yotpo runs into customer complaints when it comes to pricing. The price tends to increase rapidly and drastically when your program grows. CandyBar and Smile.io offer more affordable options for businesses looking to save some money.

In addition to its pricing, Yotpo’s customer support could use some bolstering so merchants can get their problems solved in a timely manner. If you are interested in working one-on- one with a developer to guide you, consider Annex Cloud or TapMango for top-tier customer support.

TapMango: Best for In-Store Customer Behavior Insights

TapMango offers some of the best reporting in the customer loyalty program software market, providing insights into customer behaviors and program performance. The TapMango reporting hub gives you access to tons of information and analysis about your customers, allowing you to better understand and target their needs and wants. TapMango is perfect for any brick-and-mortar businesses trying to better understand its customers or those looking for data-driven loyalty initiates.

TapMango earned a score of 4.51 out of 5 in our evaluation because of its reporting and other great loyalty features. TapMango offers lots of different omnichannel marketing initiatives to help you grow your program and engage with customers. Additionally, TapMango has a highly regarded and personalized customer support system to help you along the way.

The TapMango software lost points, however, for its ecommerce compatibility limitations. If you are looking for an option better suited to an online business, try Annex Cloud, Yotpo, Kangaroo, Smile.io, or Zinrelo.

TapMango Pricing

TapMango has a base price of $239/month that scales based on your business’s revenue. TapMango comes with a tablet for in-store use with no associated fee and can accommodate multiple locations with multiple tablets as you scale. If you are looking for more affordable options, consider CandyBar, Smile.io, or Kangaroo.

TapMango Features

TapMango allows you to connect to your customers through a branded loyalty app where you can give rewards to customers for spending and interacting with your business. Customers can sign into their loyalty account through the in-store tablet, giving them access to all their rewards history and adding more as they make purchases. They can also access their loyalty info through the TapMango app and see their member status and points history there.

TapMango allows you to customize your entire program—from your loyalty actions to your user interface. If you are looking for a program that comes with a more templated interface, try CandyBar, Kangaroo, or Zinrelo.

This software also comes with lots of other features that will help to grow your business.

• SMS, Push Notification, and Email Outreach Marketing: Connect with your customers with automated or manual emails, texts, or app notifications. All emails are fully customizable to your brand.
• In-Store Sharing: Customers can take photos to share on their social media directly through the sign-in table. You can then use this UGC in ads for your business.
• Keytags: Branded keychain style tag that customers can carry around and use to scan into your tablet and access their rewards. These tags can also function as gift cards.
• Referral Program: Automatically provides referral codes to all customers to share with their friends.
• Surveys: Send out surveys through TapMango’s loyalty platform that will bolster your Google reviews.
• Online Ordering: Customers can order ahead through their loyalty profile online or in the app and ask for pickup, shipping, or curbside delivery.
• Reporting: The TapMango reporting feature allows you to see how your program is performing and determine where you can improve.
• Expert Assistance: TapMango pairs you with a rep that can help you understand your reporting, customize your program, use your software, and answer any questions.

What TapMango Is Missing

TapMango, unfortunately, does not have any website integrations, so it will not appear on your ecommerce site when customers are shopping. You can look to Annex Cloud, Yotpo, Smile.io, Zinrelo, and Kangaroo for programs that offer website integrations.

Zinrelo: Best for Customer Segmentation and Targeted Offers

Zinrelo offers a customer loyalty program that uses data insights to segment customers based on their journeys and sends shoppers targeted reward opportunities that make sense for their positions. Through its Data Science practice, Zinrelo offers custom program insights, deep data analytics, and machine learning. Zinrelo is a great option for any business that wants to focus on data to improve the efficacy of its customer loyalty program.

Zinrelo’s data-focused approach is not the only thing that earned this customer loyalty software a 4.28 out of 5 score. It also offers a variety of loyalty programs structures, an easy-to-use merchant interface, and omnichannel capabilities. The software’s point losses came into play due to its limitations in POS integrations, SMS marketing, and customization options.

Zinrelo Pricing

Zinrelo offers two packages—one for growing businesses (the SMB plan) and one for large-scale businesses (the Enterprise plan). The SMB plan is less expensive and comes with fewer features, whereas the Enterprise plan is on the pricey side but offers more features and customizations.

Zinrelo Features

Zinrelo’s customer loyalty program can reward a variety of different loyalty actions and uses data-driven insights to help you create the best customer retention strategy for your unique customers. Its program options include:

• Discount Program: Let customers exchange their points for discounts, gift cards, or store credit that they can use in-store via your POS or online on your website.
• Status Program: Customers can move up in loyalty tiers as they interact with your business, giving them access to better rewards and benefits.
• Paid Program: Customers can pay an annual subscription to be in your VIP program and get access to discounts and benefits.
• Low-Margin Program: Customers earn points for every purchase they make that passes a set minimum amount. This program structure is designed to reward large-volume purchases.

Once you select the program option(s) that make sense for your business, customers can begin earning both in-store and online and can interact with their rewards profile through your website. Features include:

• Data Sciences: Zinrelo provides extensive reports and insights on your customers, segmenting them into groups, analyzing their behaviors, and helping you figure out how best to target different customers at their unique shopping stages.
• Professional Support: For an additional cost, Zinrelo has expert support to help streamline integrations, make aesthetic changes, perform premium reporting, or even manage your loyalty program for you.
• Loyalty Action Options: Reward customers for referrals, reviews, purchases, social media activity, brand engagement, and custom behaviors. You get to choose what your program looks like and what actions get rewarded.
• Messaging Service: Built-in messaging service to boost customer engagement and let them know about their rewards opportunities while they are shopping on your site.
• Loyalty Promotions: Zinrelo lets you run exclusive promotions for your loyal customers so that your sales are building retention rather than bargain hunters.
• Email and Notification Marketing: Send your loyal customers emails and notifications through the app to remind them of their rewards and keep them engaged with your brand.
• Tiered Program: You can make your program tiered with Zinrelo, rewarding more loyalty with a higher tier and better rewards.
• Customer Profile: Customers can access their points history, see their purchase log, add points, and upgrade tiers through their loyalty profile.

What Zinrelo Is Missing

Zinrelo has little to no customization options and few integration capabilities. Annex Cloud, on the other hand, offers a completely custom experience for its users. Zinrelo also lacks an SMS marketing program, and its customer support access is limited. Look to Fivestars, TapMango, Kangaroo, CandyBar, and Yotpo for programs with SMS marketing options. TapMango also has strong customer support.

Annex Cloud: Best for Creating a Custom Loyalty Program

Annex Cloud is a great loyalty program for businesses looking to create something completely custom from the ground up. Annex Cloud takes you step-by-step through the process of creating a loyalty program. From integrations to your analysis—you work with a developer to make everything appear and operate just how you want and need it to. This also ensures that your loyalty program integrates seamlessly into your current platforms and software and your unique marketing needs can be met.

1. Integration: Annex Cloud builds a program that is custom to the needs of your business’s current POS system, website engine, apps interface, and other programs so your customer loyalty program can fit seamlessly into your operations.
2. Recruitment: Annex Cloud will help you devise a marketing scheme to get your loyalty program off the ground and recruit new members.
3. Registration: Create channels for customers to easily and conveniently register to your program.
4. Create a program: Design a program that makes sense for your business—reward specific loyalty actions with the custom rewards.
5. Redemption: Choose how your customers can redeem their rewards—whether that be in-store, online, or anywhere else.
6. Marketing: Create a marketing plan that is effective at keeping your customer base coming back repeatedly.
7. Analyze: Annex Cloud’s reporting system allows you to look deeply into every step in your customer’s journey and act on them to prevent churn and boost engagement accordingly.

This in-depth customization ability is a big part of why Annex Cloud scored so well with a 4.16 out of 5. The breadth of what you can do with Annex Cloud is fantastic, and little is left wanting when it comes to features. Additionally, because of its custom structure, your Annex Cloud loyalty program will be able to fit seamlessly into your website or brick-and mortar-operations. The software lost points for its operational structure, length of its contract, and quality concerns.

Annex Cloud Pricing

Due to its custom nature, pricing is done on a case-by-case basis, depending on the program you create, the features it includes, its necessary integrations, and its overall size. When you work with Annex Cloud, you will create a program and then go under a yearlong contract specific to your project that includes all of your pricing information. Be warned, however, Annex Cloud is on the expensive side according to reviews, so if you are looking for an affordable option, consider CandyBar, Fivestars, or Smile.io.

Annex Cloud Features

This highly customizable customer loyalty program enables you to monitor your customers at every step in their experience, so you can target them with ads and rewards that are best suited for keeping them engaged and boosting their loyalty to your brand.

Annex Cloud offers an extensive list of features that you can choose from when creating your custom program.

• Customizable Loyalty Actions: You can reward customers for the actions of your choosing, including leaving a review, making online purchases, sharing a referral, or engaging with your social media.
• Reward Options: Choose rewards that are best-suited to your customer base and business model, including discounts, free samples, flash sales, or sneak peek access.
• PWA Model: The progressive web app model allows users to access many of the loyalty features in offline mode, including product browsing, cart pages, and rewards statuses.
• Social Media Integrations: Customers can connect their social media to their rewards account for more rewards points. This allows you to reward shoppers for social shares and referrals through social media channels and gives you access to more data about your customer base.
• Native Receipt Scanning: Customers can scan their receipts from anywhere and get rewards for their purchases.
• Gamification: Create tiers, badges, or levels to make your rewards program like a game and promote buying.
• Integrated Online Checkout: Rewards are integrated into the checkout process, so customers can easily redeem their points and offers.
• Promotion Engine: Advanced customer tracking ensures that the right ads and promotions are being sent to the right customer—whether that be one of your regulars or a shopper who hasn’t visited in a while.
• Recency, Frequency, and Monetary (RFM) Data: Use RFM data to segment customers and better understand your customer base.
• Custom Email Triggers: Decide what actions you want to trigger promotional emails.
• A/B Testing: Annex Cloud uses A/B testing to ensure that the best CTAs are in use across customer segments.

What Annex Cloud Is Missing

With Annex Cloud you have limited control through your merchant portal, so any time you want to make a change to your program, you have to work with Annex Cloud developers. This is unique to Annex Cloud, and all the other programs in our list offer control and adjustment options through their merchant portal.

Additionally, Annex Cloud is an investment, and unlike other services that offer free trials and monthly subscriptions, Annex Cloud works under yearlong contracts.

Smile.io: Best Automated, Low-Maintenance Loyalty Program Software for Online Businesses

Due to its automated functionality, Smile.io is extremely low maintenance and requires little oversight. This makes the Simile.io software a great option for a solo operation or business running with a very small staff.

With an overall score of 3.88 out of 5, Smile.io is a cost-effective option with good value for your dollar. It lost some points due to its limited ability to work for in-store applications and its customization restrictions.

Smile.io Pricing

Smile.io offers a competitive pricing scheme that scales based on both company size and features and has a wide range of price options to suit your business. For businesses testing the waters, Smile.io offers a free loyalty program package with very limited functionality and features that allow you to see how your customer base will respond to the introduction of a loyalty program.

Then comes the Smile.io Starter plan, which is best for businesses that are just starting out and comes in at only $49 per month. Then you have the Growth plan for $199/month for businesses looking to expand their current customer base and get access to more features. Finally, there is the Pro plan that costs $599/month and is for large businesses.

Smile.io Features

Smile.io lets you use rewards, referral, and VIP loyalty programs to keep customers interacting with your business. Through a web-based application, you can create a place on your website where customers can sign up for your loyalty program as well as check and redeem their rewards over time.

Smile.io has a simple, intuitive rewards structure—when customers perform the loyalty actions of your choosing, they earn rewards. Additionally, if you opt for a premium plan, you can create a tiered program that gives VIP members access to exclusive discounts, deals, and rewards. You can also find this popular feature in Zinrelo, LoyaltyLion, Annex Cloud, CandyBar, and Yotpo.

To enhance its loyalty programs and make them effective, Smile.io uses an array of different features:

• Loyalty Action Options: You can choose what actions you want to reward based on what you think will incentivize and engage your unique customer base the most. Your loyalty actions can be anything from account creation to spending $100—there are no limitations.
• Reward Options: Offer dollar discounts, percent discounts, free products, or free shipping as your loyalty rewards.
• Customization: You can customize your Smile.io widget and name your rewards points yourself so that your loyalty pages maintain your brand experience.
• Tiered Program: Create a VIP program where customers sign up for exclusive discounts or rewards, and move through your membership tiers to unlock better prizes.
• Referral Program: Within their rewards profile, customers will have access to a referral link that they can share to earn rewards.
• Reports and Administration: Control your loyalty program and check in on its performance through your administration page.
• Emails and Nudges: Reach out to your customers and keep them engaging with your brand with custom-designed emails and remind them of their rewards with on-site nudges.

What Smile.io Is Missing

Smile.io does not have many POS integrations and is difficult to implement for in-store applications. Additionally, there are limited messaging customization options for your emails and texts, and Smile.io lacks a reviews program.

If you are interested in more customization, Annex Cloud and LoyaltyLion are great options. And, as we covered previously, Yotpo is the best software for boosting those reviews.

Fivestars: Best Automated Loyalty Program Software for Storefronts

Fivestars is a great automated option for businesses that don’t want to worry about the ongoing management of their customer loyalty program. Through its AutoPilot campaigns, businesses can set up automated marketing outreach triggers that go out automatically at the right time. Fivestars will work for businesses with limited staff and no time for marketing, or those who simply prefer an automated program.

With a score of 3.41 out of 5, Fivestars was rewarded for its features and automated functionality. However, it does lack a referral and reviews program, and the reporting system is not as complex as many of the other software options we explore in this article.

Fivestars Pricing

Fivestars offers two basic loyalty packages that increase in price with more customer acquisition features. The Fivestars Essential Plan is best for businesses trying to grow their base and start their loyalty program. Then the Pro Package offers more messaging and marketing features designed to help grow your customer base rapidly. Fivestars plans start at $250 per month, and prices go up both by package selection and company revenue.

Fivestars Features

Fivestars is a completely automated customer loyalty program. You start by working with Fivestars to create a rewards program that gives customers points for making purchases at your business. Then you create automated campaigns to do things like bring back customers who haven’t visited in a while, celebrate birthdays, and welcome new loyalty members.

For your in-store recruitment, Fivestars provides a tablet where customers can sign in and employees can redeem points. Additionally, Fivestars can integrate with your POS system, and lets users track their rewards through their profile on the Fivestars app or website.

Its features include:

• One-Time Promotions: Send out one-time promotions in addition to your automated campaigns to boost customer engagement or market an event.
• Fivestars Dashboard: Customer profiles allow shoppers to check their rewards balance and see their prizes; this is available both through the Fivestars app and website.
• AutoPilot Campaigns: Create targeted campaigns that go out according to certain triggers like lapsed visits, new membership, and special occasions.
• Mobile App: Customers can download the Fivestars mobile app to make it easier for them to track their points and engage with your business.
• SMS, Email, and App Notification Alerts: Send your promotions as emails, texts, or notifications through the Fivestars app.

What Fivestars Is Missing

Fivestars lacks some of the control and customization options that you see in other programs. Also, the types of rewards programs that you can create through Fivestars are not as extensive as we see with other, higher-scoring programs in this list like LoyaltyLion and Annex Cloud.

Kangaroo: Best for Attracting Locals

Kangaroo is an affordable option with GPS-based notifications to help draw local traffic into your store. This is a great program for anyone with a highly localized customer base or businesses located in areas with heavy foot traffic.

Kangaroo’s GPS-based notification system sets it apart from its competitors, and its automated marketing outreach and coinciding customer app also help to bolster its score. Kangaroo did, however, lose some points with limited features and overall quality, giving it a score of 3.32 out of 5. For options with more features and better quality, try LoyaltyLion, Yotpo, or Annex Cloud.

Kangaroo Pricing

Kangaroo offers a flat pricing structure with all of its features coming in at $149/month. This option will work for most small businesses; however, there is a customer pricing option for larger enterprises, franchises, or multistore businesses. Also, be warned that there is a one-time setup fee for the Kangaroo sign-in tablet.

If you would rather have more pricing options and ranges, the rest of the providers in the article have tiered pricing that is based on your company’s size and needs.

Kangaroo Features

Kangaroo offers a customer loyalty program that gives its members rewards for customer “Visits” or “Spend,” and helps you track and target customers at specific points in their shopping journey. Kangaroo also allows you to analyze your customer base and the success of your loyalty program through its in-depth reporting system.

Capturing local traffic is one of Kangaroo’s unique areas of focus. When a customer joins your rewards program they can also download your loyalty app where they check their rewards status and available rewards. When the rewards app is downloaded, the app will be able to track your customer’s location and send out notifications when they are physically close to your store.

Kangaroo also offers an extensive lineup of other features:

• Interface Customization: Work with the Kangaroo team to create a loyalty program interface within your loyalty app and sign-up portal that reflects your brand.
• Quickscan: Allow customers to earn and redeem their rewards by simply scanning their in-app QR code.
• Traffic Booster: This allows you to send out automated promotions during slow times.
• Marketing Outreach: Kangaroo analyzes and segments your customer base so that you can understand their relationship with your brand, and target them with the best, customized ad. Additionally, Kangaroo has push notification, email, and SMS marketing capabilities.
• Digital Gift Cards: Reward customers with digital gift cards that you can customize to your business.
• Social Media Referral Tool: Reward customers for sharing your brand on social media.
• Reporting: Extensive reporting is available on the merchant dashboard, where you can see both how your loyalty program is performing as well as analysis of customer behaviors.

What Kangaroo Is Missing

As we previously mentioned, Kangaroo lacks some features such as customization and tiered memberships. Additionally, overall, its offerings are somewhat basic. For more diverse offerings, you can look to programs like Yotpo, LoyaltyLion, TapMango, and Zinrelo.

CandyBar: Best Punch Card Option

CandyBar is an affordable option that is great for anyone looking to implement a classic punch card loyalty program. This system is best suited for businesses that want to reward frequent visits as opposed to occasional large purchases like coffee shops or convenience stores.

CandyBar knows its niche; because of this, it lacks some of the major customization, outreach, and rewards options that we were scoring for in this article. However, CandyBar did bring in points for overall quality as well as the number of features you get for the price. It scored 3.12 out of 5.

CandyBar Pricing

CandyBar offers two packages at different price points based on available features and the number of messages you are able to send each month. The first package is the Standard package that is billed monthly at $45 and is best for businesses with a smaller customer base. The second package, the Enterprise plan, has more features and is better for larger businesses; that plan is billed annually at $3,999, which is just about $335/month.

CandyBar Features

CandyBar is a loyalty platform that creates a punch card system to reward customers for frequent purchases. Customers sign into your store using their phone number, and then their purchases are automatically logged in to their account.

Each time a customer makes a purchase, they will receive a text with a link to CandyBar’s Facebook messenger line. Here, customers can check their rewards balance or share feedback. Once they have made enough purchases to get a reward, they can redeem them through their phone number-linked account.

• Loyalty Card: The digital punch card system is the cornerstone of this program. You can choose to give stamps, the CandyBar point currency, for either number of purchases or dollars spent.
• Tiered Rewards: Offer three different levels of rewards that customers can earn based on their degree of engagement with your brand.
• Prepaid Bundles: Allow customers to pre-buy bundles of popular items in bulk that they can redeem in smaller quantities over time.
• Birthday Rewards: Automatically send rewards to customers on their birthdays.
• Store Credit: Customers can purchase store credit to spend later.
• Promotional Messaging: Segment and send SMS messages to your customers based on what will be most effective at fostering their loyalty.
• Reporting and Analytics: Track the performance of your loyalty program and get insights into your customers’ behaviors using the reporting and analytics dashboard on your CandyBar account.

What CandyBar Is Missing

Unlike all the other programs, there is no outreach marketing through CandyBar. There are also no reviews of referral programs. And, where the other programs offer apps and online profiles, CandyBar lacks a profile or portal for its members.

Bottom Line

Customer loyalty software is a great way to keep customers engaged with your brand and spending at your business. The best customer loyalty programs will offer comprehensive features that make it easy for you to interact with your customers, and your customers to interact with your brand. Use the guide above to learn about the top customer loyalty software on the market, and choose the best program for your business.

To check out our top pick for customer loyalty software, visit LoyaltyLion, which offers a free 14-day trial.

LoyaltyLion

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