For most small businesses, between 5 and 10. Pick a number your regulars can fill in about two to three months at their normal pace, and a reward worth roughly a tenth of what they’ll have spent to earn it.
Start with how often your regulars come back
A card should feel finishable. If a regular would need a year to fill it, most people give up halfway, and the ones who finish would have come anyway. A good rule: count how many times a regular visits in two to three months, and make that the number of stamps.
Stamps and rewards by type of business
| Business | How often regulars come | Stamps | Reward idea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coffee shop | Several times a week | 10 | A free drink |
| Bakery or deli | About once a week | 8 to 10 | A free pastry or sandwich |
| Restaurant | Weekly to monthly | 6 to 10 | A free entrée or dessert |
| Food truck | Weekly or less | 6 to 8 | A free entrée |
| Barbershop | Every 2 to 6 weeks | 6 to 8 | A free cut or beard trim |
| Hair salon | Every 4 to 8 weeks | 5 or 6 | A free add-on treatment |
| Nail salon | Every 2 to 3 weeks | 8 to 10 | Free nail art or an upgrade |
| Car wash | Weekly to monthly | 5 to 10 | A free wash |
| Auto repair or oil change | Every 3 to 6 months | 4 or 5 | A free oil change |
| Farmers market (market-wide) | Weekly, in season | 5 to 10 market days | $5 to spend at any stall |
Starting points, not rules. Adjust once you see how quickly your regulars actually fill the card.
Work out what the reward costs you
Divide the reward’s price by what a customer spends to earn it. On a ten-stamp coffee card with a $5 average drink, a regular spends about $50 to earn a $5 drink: a 10% reward. Your real cost is lower, because the free drink costs you what it costs to make, not its menu price.
Somewhere between 5% and 15% is a sensible range. Much less and the card isn’t worth carrying; much more and you’re mostly paying people who would have come anyway.
Give people a head start
People try harder to finish something they’ve already started. In a 2006 study by Joseph Nunes and Xavier Drèze, car wash customers got loyalty cards that each needed eight more washes. Some had an eight-stamp card; others had a ten-stamp card with two stamps already filled in. 34% of the head-start group finished, against 19% of the others.
The practical version: stamp the card on the visit a customer joins, so it never starts at zero.
Pick a reward people can picture
“A free coffee” beats “10% off your next purchase,” even when they cost you the same. A specific item is easier to want, to explain at the register, and to remember. Save percentage discounts for services whose prices vary too much to give one away.
Keep the rule to one sentence
If staff can’t say it in one breath (“every tenth coffee is free”), customers won’t remember it. Leave out spending minimums and exclusions wherever you can.
Decide whether rewards expire
An expiry date gives people a reason to come back sooner, which suits businesses people visit often, like coffee shops. For businesses people visit a few times a year, like auto shops, an expired reward mostly annoys your most loyal customers. On The Usual, expiry is optional and set per card.