It's THE question every owner asks when creating a loyalty card, and oddly, almost no one answers it seriously. Too low, and the reward costs you a fortune for nothing. Too high, and no one gets there — the card demotivates instead of building loyalty. Here's a simple method to settle it.
The golden rule: a 2-to-3-month horizon
A good threshold is measured in time, not stamps: your regular customer should reach the reward in 2 to 3 months. Beyond that, the finish line is too far to motivate; below it, you're giving away more than you need to.
The formula: threshold = monthly visit frequency × 2.5 (rounded). In practice:
- Coffee shop, bakery (2-4 visits/week): 10 stamps, reached in ~3-5 weeks. The classic works.
- Lunch restaurant (1-2 visits/week): 8 to 10 visits.
- Hairdresser, barber (1 visit / 6 weeks): 4 to 6 visits — at 10, it would take over a year, and no one holds on.
- Nail salon (1 visit / 3-4 weeks): 6 to 8 sets.
- Beauty salon, spa (1 visit / month): 5 to 6 treatments.
I'll set my card at the right threshold →
The classic mistake: copying the coffee shop next door
"10 stamps" isn't a law, it's the legacy of the pre-printed 10-box card. If your customers come every six weeks, 10 stamps = 15 months of waiting: your card is dead by the third box. It's the first thing we check with hair salons: their threshold should be twice as short as a coffee shop's.
Baskets all over the place? Switch to points
When a basket ranges from CHF 15 to CHF 300 (wine shop, boutique, tattoo artist), the "one visit = one box" stamp becomes unfair: the big basket counts the same as the small one. The points-based-on-the-amount mode fixes it: every franc counts, and you set the threshold (say 500 points = your reward). At Fidelyz, both modes exist, and the threshold is freely adjustable from 2 to 10,000.
The first stamp is a gift (psychologically)
A customer who starts at 1/10 comes back more than one who starts at 0/10: it's the endowed-progress effect, well documented in consumer psychology. The right move: your customer has just signed up, at the counter, with you — so scan their card right then. They leave with a card already started, not with an empty grid.
And the reward itself?
Three criteria: it must be desirable (your star product, not the leftovers), simple ("1 free coffee," not "−12% from CHF 45 excluding promotions") and profitable (its real cost to you is low: a free coffee costs a few cents to reward ~10 paid visits). If you're torn between two thresholds, take the shorter one with a more modest reward: reward frequency beats prize size.
Key takeaways
- Threshold = what your regular reaches in 2 to 3 months.
- Stamps for consistent visits, points for variable baskets.
- A reward that's desirable, simple, and low-cost.
- And above all: adjustable. Your first threshold is a hypothesis — tune it to your numbers (your dashboard tells you who reaches the reward).
The threshold takes 30 seconds to choose in the Fidelyz assistant, and can be changed at any time: create your card or first see how it works.