Reward ideas for your loyalty programme, trade by trade

Two questions are enough to judge a reward idea. The first: what does it really cost me? Not the listed price, the cost price. A free coffee does not cost you the price on the board, it costs you the dose, the milk and the cup. Reasoning in selling prices makes you give up on rewards that, in practice, weigh almost nothing.

The second question: when to bring it out? A free pizza on a Friday at 8 pm takes a spot in your oven while the phone is ringing. The same pizza given away as a takeaway on a Tuesday costs you almost nothing. The reward is identical, but its real cost is completely different depending on the time slot. Write the rule beforehand, not during the rush.

Then there is the pace. In a SumUp survey carried out from 18 to 22 April 2026 among a representative sample of 1,500 people in France, 65% of respondents say they prefer small immediate rewards to bigger but distant benefits. That is exactly what the counter shows: a pastry after ten visits brings people back, a big voucher after forty does nothing at all, because nobody can picture themselves getting there.

Digikart's free plan allows one reward, which is plenty to get started. The Plus plan allows up to three tiers in the same cycle, and that is where the settings become precise: a small treat early on, the real reward at the end, with the customer deciding at the counter whether to take the first one or keep collecting. The ideas that follow are sorted by trade, each with what it costs you and when to give it.

These are the easiest trades to set up: the customer comes often, and the product you give away costs little in raw materials.

• Bakery. A free pastry or baguette on the tenth visit. Cost: your raw material cost, nowhere near the selling price. When: with no restriction, including Sunday morning, one more croissant takes nobody's place. See the bakery loyalty card page.
• Café. The tenth coffee free. Cost: the dose, the milk, the cup. When: at any time, but write “a free coffee” and not “a free drink”, otherwise the reward changes category with the first clever customer. See the café loyalty card page.
• Tea room. A free cake with the tea on the eleventh visit. Cost: the slice, plus the space it took up in the display. When: preferably on weekdays. On Sunday afternoon, when you are turning people away, it is the reward that costs you the most. See the tea room loyalty card page.
• Ice cream parlour. The eleventh ice cream free. Cost: one scoop and a cone. When: all season, provided you write “one-scoop cone” on the poster, otherwise people will ask you for the one-litre tub. See the ice cream parlour loyalty card page.

In these four trades, the threshold matters more than the gift: a regular should get their reward in a few weeks, not in six months. The Plus plan's welcome bonus helps a lot: the card starts with one or two stamps already on it, and a card that has been started gets finished.

Here, one rule comes before all the others: never give away the main course. Give away what has the biggest gap between selling price and raw material cost. The reward will seem generous to the customer and stay light for you.

• Restaurant. A free starter or dessert, in points mode (one euro taken, one point), at around 150 points. Cost: the ingredients of the dessert, the lowest on your menu. When: announced when ordering, never after the bill, otherwise it serves no purpose. See the restaurant loyalty card page.
• Pizzeria. Ten pizzas, the eleventh free. Cost: dough, sauce, cheese. When: keep it for takeaway or weekdays. A free pizza on a Friday evening takes up a spot in the oven that you would have sold. See the pizzeria loyalty card page.
• Crêperie. The galette, crêpe and bowl of cider set menu at 100 points. Cost: flour, egg, a simple filling, cider. When: at weekday lunch service. Specify the galette from the short menu, not the full salmon one. See the crêperie loyalty card page.
• Food truck. Eight meals, the ninth free. Cost: a whole meal, the most expensive reward on this entire list. Own it: it is also the most motivating. When: outside the lunchtime peak; if the queue gets longer, suggest the customer takes it the next day. See the food truck loyalty card page.
• Bar. A free small beer or soft drink on the tenth visit. Cost: very low on draught beer and soft drinks. When: before the evening rush. And write “a small beer or a soft drink”, otherwise the reward becomes a cocktail. See the bar loyalty card page.

The common principle: the reward must be named precisely on the card and on the poster. “A free drink” gets negotiated at the counter, “a free small beer or soft drink” does not. You spare yourself the discussion during service, that is, at the worst moment of the day.

In the food trades, the basket varies too much to count visits: points mode, one euro equals one point, is the only fair one. And the reward can do a second job: getting the customer to taste a product they would never have picked up on their own.

• Butcher. Ten euros off the basket, or the Sunday roast chicken, at around 200 points. Cost: the two are not equal. Ten euros off the basket costs you a full ten euros; the free chicken only costs you its purchase price, so much less than its price tag. When: the chicken works better on Saturdays, because it decides the next day's meal. See the butcher loyalty card page.
• Cheese shop. A cheese of the customer's choice within a limit you set, for example twelve euros, at 120 points. Cost: your purchase price, plus the cutting. When: all year round. It is the reward that sells best: a customer who tastes an unfamiliar cheese comes back to buy it. See the cheese shop loyalty card page.
• Greengrocer. The seasonal basket at twelve visits. Cost: whatever you have plenty of that week, since you are the one putting the basket together. When: in high season, not in the depths of winter when everything is expensive. See the greengrocer loyalty card page.
• Wine merchant. A bottle from a selection you define, at around 300 points. Cost: your purchase price on that selection, so an amount you fully control. When: at the counter, taking the time to explain the bottle. If you would rather not give away alcohol, a discount on the next purchase or an accessory (glasses, corkscrew) does the same job. See the wine merchant loyalty card page.
• Delicatessen. Your signature product free at 200 points: your oil, or that terrine you talk about so well. Cost: your purchase price, probably the most profitable discovery budget in the shop. When: after the holidays, when the average basket comes back down. See the delicatessen loyalty card page.

What these five rewards have in common: they are capped. “A free cheese” with no limit means the thirty-six-month aged Comté on a Saturday morning. Write down the cap, in euros or as a specific product, and the question will never come up at the counter again.

In appointment-based trades, the scarce resource is not the product, it is the chair. A free service costs you a slot you could have sold. A free product costs only a dose. Choose according to the state of your diary, not according to what looks most generous on the poster.

• Hair salon. The eleventh service at half price, or a free treatment. Cost: the half-price service costs a whole slot, the treatment costs a dose and ten minutes. When: diary full, offer the treatment. Diary empty on Tuesdays, offer the service and steer it towards those days. See the hairdresser loyalty card page.
• Barber. The ninth service free. Cost: one sitting in the chair. Lighter version: a free line-up between two cuts, just a few minutes, and it brings the customer back between two appointments, which is the whole point. When: on weekdays, early in the afternoon. See the barber loyalty card page.
• Beauty salon. The express treatment free at 200 points. Cost: a treatment room for a short while, plus the product. When: in a slot you suggest, not at the moment the client asks for it. See the beauty salon loyalty card page.
• Nail bar. The seventh service at half price, or free nail art on the current set. Cost: nail art costs almost nothing in product, just a few minutes of work. When: nail art has a decisive advantage, it is given straight away, which makes it more effective than a discount promised for next time. See the nail bar loyalty card page.

These trades are also where the Pro plan's birthday reward finds its best ground: on the day itself, your little gesture lands on the client's card on its own, without you having to think about it. Few businesses do it, and the client who receives it remembers it for a long time.

These two trades escape the logic above, for exactly opposite reasons: in one, the reward can be very expensive, in the other it costs almost nothing.

• Florist. The free bouquet at around 150 points. The trap is well known: a bouquet has no set price. Set a cap, or rather offer a fixed amount off the bouquet, or else the seasonal bunch. Cost: your purchase price, which varies a lot from flower to flower, hence the cap. When: above all not in the week of Mother's Day or of Valentine's Day, when every stem sells at full price. See the florist loyalty card page.
• Gym. Twenty sessions validated, then the reward. Cost: near zero as long as the gym is not full. A month of locker use, a drink, bringing a friend along for a session: none of that comes out of your till. A personal training session, on the other hand, costs a coach's slot, so keep it for the highest tier. When: at any time, a gym has no mad rush. And think of the Pro plan's automatic win-back of inactive customers, which alerts the member after the number of days without a visit that you set (30 days by default): on a membership, bringing someone back before they drop off counts as much as the gift itself. See the gym loyalty card page.

For trades that are not on this list, the all trades page and the loyalty software for local businesses page follow the same logic. And one rule applies everywhere: offer what you sell. The key ring, tote bag or mug bought elsewhere costs you real money, brings nobody back and says nothing about your business.

The threshold is not chosen at random, it follows from your customers' real pace. Take your average regular and count: if they come once a week, ten stamps take two and a half months, which is doable. If they come once a month, ten stamps take almost a year, and nobody holds out for a year for a croissant. In that case, lower the threshold, or switch to points so that the amount counts as much as the visit.

If your programme is already running, tiers change the game. The Plus plan allows up to three tiers in the same cycle: a small treat early on, a mid-sized reward in the middle, the big one at the very end. When a tier is reached, the customer chooses at the counter: take their reward, and their counter goes back to zero, or keep collecting towards the next tier. That choice is the whole point: the customer in a hurry leaves happy from the first tier, the patient one goes for the jackpot, and you never pay for all three.

Changing the reward along the way is allowed, but you have to say so. A customer who was aiming for the free cheese and finds a discount instead feels short-changed, even if the value is similar. From the Plus plan (3 notifications a month), a notification goes out to every card at once, without a single billed SMS: give two weeks' notice, honour the old reward for those who are already well along, and nobody will grumble. The Pro plan's statistics and CSV export will then tell you how many rewards were reached, and at what pace: that is the best judge of your choice.

Start small: one reward, a reachable threshold, written in black and white on the counter poster. Digikart's free plan is enough for that, with no bank card and no limit on customers. After a month, you will know whether the threshold is right, and you will adjust it. Prices are detailed on the pricing page, and automatic messages (birthday, win-back, Google review) on the automations page.