How many stamps should a loyalty card have? A simple way to decide

How many stamps a loyalty card should have comes down to rhythm. Count how often your good customers come in, decide roughly how long the reward should take to earn, and the number of stamps follows. There is no single right number, which is why a card copied from a coffee shop rarely works for a barber.

Start from how often people come

Think of a customer you would love more of: not your most loyal regular, and not someone who popped in once, but the steady middle. How many times a month do they visit? A coffee stop on someone’s way to work may see them most weekdays. A bakery might see them once or twice a week, a restaurant once a month, and a hairdresser every five or six weeks.

That one number does most of the work. A card that takes ten visits feels close to a daily coffee drinker and impossibly far away to someone who books a cut every six weeks.

Decide how far away the reward should feel

Next, decide how long a steady customer should take to fill the card. Too quick, and you give away a lot and the reward stops feeling special. Too slow, and the card sits half full, forgotten, because the finish line is out of sight. Most owners aim for something a regular can picture: weeks, or a few months, rather than most of a year.

Then multiply. Visits a month, times the number of months you want the reward to take, gives you the stamps.

These are starting points to adjust, not rules. If your quietest month and your busiest look very different, set the card for a typical one.

Check what it costs you

Now look at it the other way round. A ten-stamp card that ends in a free coffee gives away one coffee for every ten that are paid for. What that costs you is the coffee itself, the milk, the cup and a minute of someone’s time, not the price on your board. For most cafés that is a modest share of what those ten visits brought in, which is why the classic coffee card has lasted so long.

Do the same sum for your own reward. A reward that costs you little and feels generous to the customer, like a pastry with their coffee or a deep-conditioning treatment after a cut, lets you keep the card short. A reward with a real cost, such as a full meal or a free service, needs a longer card or a smaller reward. The reward cost calculator works this out for you from your own numbers.

Give them a head start

People are more likely to finish a card that already has some stamps on it. In a field study by Nunes and Drèze (2006), car wash customers got either an eight-stamp card or a ten-stamp card with two stamps already filled. Both needed eight more visits, but 34% of the head-start group finished against 19% of the others.

You can borrow that directly. A stamp or two for joining makes the card feel already under way, without making the reward any cheaper to earn than you intended. Count the welcome stamps when you set the total: a ten-stamp card with two welcome stamps is an eight-visit card that feels shorter.

Put something halfway

A second study, by Kivetz, Urminsky and Zheng (2006), followed customers of a café’s buy-ten-get-one-free coffee card. They bought more often as the free coffee got closer, slowed down after earning it, and sped up again as the next reward came into view.

The slow part is the start of the card, when the reward feels furthest away. On a longer card, a small reward along the way, such as a free extra shot at stamp five, gives people a nearer target and keeps the middle of the card moving. It works best when the halfway treat is clearly smaller than the main one, so the end of the card still matters.

Signs your card is the wrong length

You can tell from what happens once the card has run for a few months:

• If it’s too long, you’ll see lots of cards stuck on two or three stamps and few rewards claimed. Shorten the card, add welcome stamps or put a reward halfway.
• If it’s too short, rewards come round so often that they start to feel like a discount, and the cost shows in your margins. Lengthen the card for new customers, or make the reward a little smaller.
• If it’s about right, regulars claim a reward every so often and come straight back to start the next card.

If you change the length, change it for the next card rather than the one a customer is halfway through. Nobody likes the finish line moving while they’re running.

How NextStamp handles card length

NextStamp is ours, so this is how the card editor helps with all of the above. A card can need anywhere from 1 to 100 stamps, and a new one starts at ten, ready to change. You can give welcome stamps to everyone who joins, add up to 18 rewards along the way, and set lifetime tiers for your most loyal customers. A preview shows the card as customers will see it.

When you change a live card and publish it, customers keep the stamps and rewards of the round they are on, and the next round brings your new length and rewards. Their card screen tells them what the next round looks like, so nobody is surprised. Limits per visit and per day are different: they change for everyone as soon as you publish.

Questions owners ask

Is ten stamps the standard?

Ten is familiar because so many paper cards use it, and it suits a frequent purchase like coffee. It isn’t a rule. For a service people buy every few weeks, a card of five or six is often the better fit.

Should one visit ever earn two stamps?

It can, for a big order or a group, but decide it in the card’s rules rather than at the counter, so every customer gets the same deal. In NextStamp, raise the card’s stamps per visit first: new cards start at one a visit and five a day, and the till won’t give more until you change it.

Do stamps need to expire?

Not necessarily. An end date can nudge people to finish a card, but a deadline that comes too soon for a slow-visiting customer will annoy them more than it helps. Our guide to loyalty card expiry explains the options.