Thinking about a free customer loyalty program — is it enough to start, or should we buy a system?

We started with a free plugin back when we had 500 customers. Six months in, we realized 75% of customers had never spent their points. Because the system lacked automated SMS or expiration reminders, those unspent points just sat on our balance sheet like an unbacked liability.

A loyalty program isn't a discount dispensary; it's a mechanism to guide customer behavior. Free systems usually just award points based on spend; they can't highlight specific product categories or offer tiered rewards based on basket size.

Instead of paying a 500 SAR monthly software fee right now, set up a simple formula: give 5 SAR worth of points for every 100 SAR spent, and announce that points expire in 60 days. Also, download a weekly Excel backup of your customer list to your computer.

note: I wrote this based on my own experience, it might not apply to everyone.

Loyalty software is way too premature an investment for a shop with 450 customers a month. Greeting your customer by name at the register, following up on their order via WhatsApp, and providing fresh products will build far more loyalty than any points program at this stage.

free programs that dont sync the physical checkout and the website at the same time are a headache. tbh if customers cant see the points they earned in-store on the site they complain right away watch out for that.

Do your POS software at checkout and your e-commerce site share a unified inventory and customer database? If you're running a separate POS system at the register, it won't be possible to keep both sides synced using free tools.

We used a free points plugin during our first year. When we upgraded to professional software in year two, we couldn't migrate the old points because the plugin stored the data in an encrypted format. We had to argue with dozens of loyal customers just trying to explain the situation.

As long as you can export your data with a single click, start with a free one; switch to a professional system once your customer count pushes past 1,500.

The cheap-looking path usually ends up costing more later. Splitting your budget without knowing where you're losing users is just throwing money in the dark.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

i think differently but anyway when we decide without measuring we always end up in the same place.

i'm also curious if anyyone does it differently.

Thanks for writing this, that's the right way. When you try to change everything at once, nothing settles.

When making decisions, write down the worst-case scenario too, not just the best.

let me write how its done in practice. if you dont write this down from the start it leads to arguments later.

this is my opinion I'm not claiming it's abolute truth.

My questions are cleared up, thanks.

I agree.

Absolutely. If I were to add anything: Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

Everything goes well for the first three months; problems arise in the fourth. If you post the result here, it will help others too.

I'd say don't rush. If you don't write this down from the start, it leads to arguments later.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

This is exactly what we experienced. Calculate this based on total annual cost, not the monthly bill.

Thanks a lot, I'll try it today. Don't enter any agreement without an exit plan.

Hope this helps.