Apple Wallet and Google Wallet loyalty cards: a guide for small businesses

An Apple Wallet loyalty card is your stamp card saved as a pass in the Wallet app on a customer’s iPhone, and Google Wallet does the same on Android. The customer adds it once, it sits next to their bank cards and boarding passes, and it shows their stamps, their rewards and a code for your till. For a small business, it is the closest thing to a paper card that never gets left at home.

What a wallet loyalty card is

Apple calls this kind of pass a store card, made for loyalty cards, points cards, discount cards and gift cards. Google Wallet has its own loyalty card pass. Either way, the pass is not an app: it is a card your loyalty system creates, signs and hands to the customer, usually through a button on a web page, a link or a QR code.

Because it lives in the phone’s own wallet, the customer finds it where they already look at the counter. They don’t search for an app, remember a password or scroll through an inbox for a link.

What it can do for you

Keep itself up to date

Apple’s developer pages say passes can be updated with push notifications, so when a stamp lands the card on the customer’s phone changes too. They don’t need to open anything or refresh anything. Google’s Wallet API works the same way, with your system updating each pass as the card changes.

Tell customers when something happens

Apple describes loyalty passes as a way to send real-time alerts about points, balances, seasonal campaigns and offers, shown on the lock screen. Used well, that means a short alert when a reward is ready or a gift has landed on the card, which is often enough to bring someone back that week.

Come up when they’re nearby

Apple passes can carry a relevant time and a relevant location, so the card can appear on the lock screen at the right moment, such as when the customer walks past your shop. That fixes the paper card’s biggest weakness, which is that people forget they have it.

What it can’t do

A pass can’t add itself. Customers choose to save it, so you still need to ask, and some will prefer to keep the card in their browser or not to bother at all.

Alerts are not a marketing channel to lean on, either. Customers can switch notifications off for a pass, and Google’s documentation sets a limit of three messages that trigger a notification in any 24 hours, for each pass. Treat alerts as news the customer wants, such as a reward that’s ready, rather than a weekly promotion.

And a pass is only as current as the system behind it. Apple notes that if the certificate used to sign passes expires, passes already on phones keep working, but no new passes can be issued and no updates can be sent. Someone has to look after that.

Making passes yourself or using a loyalty app

It is possible to issue wallet passes on your own, but there is more to it than designing a card. Apple requires every pass to be signed with an Apple-issued certificate associated with your Apple developer account. Google requires a Google Wallet API issuer account. Then you need a server that creates each customer’s pass, signs it, and updates it every time a stamp or reward changes, for every customer, on both platforms.

For a café or a salon, that is rarely worth building. Loyalty apps that support wallet passes handle the certificates, the issuer accounts and the updates, and you design the card in their editor instead.

What to check in an app’s wallet support

Not every “works with Apple Wallet” means the same thing. A few questions sort them out quickly:

1. Is the whole card in the wallet, or only a member number? Some apps put just an ID in the wallet for scanning, and the stamps stay in their own app. Our comparison of digital stamp card apps notes which is which.
2. Does it cover both wallets? If your customers carry iPhones and Android phones, you want Apple Wallet and Google Wallet.
3. Does the pass update by itself when staff add a stamp, without the customer doing anything?
4. Can your team scan the pass at the till the same way as any other card?
5. Which events send an alert, and how often? A pass that buzzes too much gets its notifications turned off.

Getting customers to add it

The best moment is the first one. When someone joins your card at the counter, the button to add it to their wallet should be right there on their screen, and a member of staff can say “pop it in your Wallet so you don’t lose it”. Later, a line on your till sign or a mention when a reward is ready catches the rest.

Be clear about what adding it means, too. If the card will send alerts about rewards or offers, say so beside the button, so the customer agrees to them knowingly.

How NextStamp does it

NextStamp is our product, and both wallets are live in it. A customer’s card screen shows Add to Apple Wallet on an iPhone and Add to Google Wallet on Android. The pass carries your logo, the same stamp grid as the card in the browser and the card’s QR code, which your till scans like the card itself.

The pass updates quietly for ordinary stamps and alerts the customer only when something lands on the card: a reward ready, a lifetime tier reached, a campaign gift, double stamps switched on, a reward expiring in three days, or, on Google Wallet, a deal starting. A card gets at most one campaign alert a day. Pin your outlets on the map and the pass can come up when a customer is nearby, only at outlets where the card works. The words beside the button say what the alerts will be, and adding the card records the customer’s agreement. The help article on wallet passes covers each step.

Questions owners ask

Do customers need an iPhone?

No. Apple Wallet is for iPhone and Google Wallet for Android phones, so a good loyalty app offers whichever matches the customer’s phone. With NextStamp, anyone who doesn’t add a pass keeps the card in their browser, where it works the same way.

Does it cost customers anything?

Customers pay nothing to save a pass. The cost of issuing passes sits with whoever runs the loyalty system.

Can I use a wallet card and a paper card side by side?

You can during a switch, but keep the overlap short. Two cards for one programme confuse customers and make your records harder to trust. Our guide to replacing paper stamp cards covers how to move people across.