Create a Loyalty Program with Square
If you’re using the Square App, Square Invoices, or Square Online and are designated as a business, you can subscribe to Square Loyalty and create a digital rewards program to reward customers for their purchases or create a Square Loyalty promotion to drive repeat visits and boost sales. Loyalty points can be applied to cash and card purchases. Your customers can sign up quickly and easily by entering their mobile number directly in the register, when submitting an invoice payment or online when completing a purchase – and earn points no matter how they pay.
To earn points, customers must provide the same phone number for each payment method used at your business. A new profile will be created in your customer Directory if the customer uses a different phone number.
Note: If you’re using Android, you’ll need to disable Skip Receipt Screen and Automatically Print Receipts in order to see the Loyalty screen at checkout.
Set Up a Loyalty Program
You can get started with creating your own Square Loyalty program from the Loyaltysection of your online Square Dashboard or by selecting More > Add-ons > Loyalty from the Square Point of Sale app. The steps to set up your Square Loyalty account are listed below.
If signing up for Square Loyalty through the Add-on library in your Square Point of Sale app, you’ll be given a 30-day free trial for your program. Make sure that you add a subscription payment method for your Square Loyalty program within the 30-day period from the Pricing & subscriptions section of your online Square Dashboard; otherwise, your subscription will expire and both new and existing customers will be prevented from participating in your program.
Step 1: Customise Terminology
Customise the terminology of your loyalty program to fit your brand (Examples: Star/Stars, Point/Points, Punch/Punches). To customise:
Under Terminology, click Edit.
Enter your preferred singular and plural term > Save.
Reward names can be up to 100 characters in length. However, we recommend to keep reward names around 50 characters or less for better display options across different platforms, like your Point of Sale and receipts, and during the enrolment process for buyers.
Step 2: Choose how Customers Earn a Point
You can customise your program type and purchase minimum to define how your customers earn rewards; either visit-based, total amount spent or item/category-based:
Visit: Reward points based on a per-visit minimum. For example, if your customer spends more than $5, they’ll earn one point per item/visit. This program type also allows you to exclude items from accruing points.
Amount Spent*: Reward points based on the total amount spent before tip. For example, one point per every $5 spent on a purchase.
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Any Item or Category: Reward points based on purchasing a specific item or category. For example, a drip coffee earns one point, a latte earns two points and a sandwich earns three points.
Note: New items added to your item library will be eligible to earn Loyalty Points unless they’re added to an excluded category. You’re responsible for communicating any Loyalty exclusions you set to your customers.
To change your earning points in Settings:
Under Earning Points, click Edit.
Choose between Visit, Amount Spent*, A Specific Item or Any Item in a Category.
Choose your preferences, then click Continue.
*Note: The total Amount Spent can be tax-inclusive (default) or exclusive.
Step 3: Choose how Customers Get Rewarded
You can reward your customers by offering a:
Discount on the Entire Sale: Set a fixed percentage or dollar discount for the entire sale.
Discount on an Item or Category: Set a fixed percentage or dollar discount on specific items. For example, 20% off all coffee.
Free Item: Select a specific free item. For example, a free latte.
To choose redeeming rewards in Settings:
Click Add a New Reward.
Choose the Reward Type.
Choose the reward values.
Enter the percentage/dollar discounts and maximum discount or select free redeemable items.
Enter the reward name.
Click Create Reward.
Note: To edit or delete rewards, click ••• on the existing reward.
Manage Rewards Applied to Modifiers
If you select an item or category for a reward, any modifiers applied to that item will be included in the reward and given the same discount. If you’d like to charge for modifiers applied to items that are part of a Loyalty reward, follow these steps:
When creating your Loyalty program, select Partial Discount on an Item.
Select the item(s) that qualify for the reward.
Set a reward value equal to the item price before any modifiers are applied.
The reward will be deducted from the purchase total so that the item is free but the modifiers are not.
If you already have an active Square Loyalty program, existing customers will receive a text message notification with the offer. New customers will be notified of the offer upon enrolling in your Loyalty program.
Exempt items from accruing points
If you set up a spend-based Loyalty program, you can exclude certain items or categories from accruing points. To do so:
Go to Loyalty in your online Square Dashboard > Settings.
Select Edit next to the Eligible items and categories section.
Use the filter or search bar to locate items, and deselect any items you want to prevent from accruing points. Any items that are uncategorised will be located at the bottom of this list.
Click Done.
If you exclude a category, then any new items you create in that category will automatically be excluded from accruing points as well.
Note: The option to exclude items from accruing points is only available for spend-based Loyalty programs and is not available for visit-based, item-based or category-based programs at this time.
Incentivise Customers to Provide Their Email Addresses
While Square Loyalty tracks your customers’ points and rewards by their phone number, you can still collect their email addresses for use with Square Marketing.
When you enable the Collect Contacts feature in Square Loyalty, new customers will receive a text message offering an additional amount of points in exchange for their email addresses. Customers who provide their email addresses are automatically added to the Reachable and Loyalty Participant groups in your Customer Directory.
To enable this feature:
Visit the Settings tab of your Loyalty dashboard.
Toggle on Offer customers points in return for their email addresses.
Enter amount of points being offered for an email address.
Click Save.
To enable this feature on an existing program:
Head to Customers > Loyalty tab in online Square Dashboard.
Click Actions > Edit.
In the Settings tab > enable Offer customers points in return for their email addresses.
Enter amount of points being offered for an email address.
Click Next to continue with setup > Save.
Set up Locations
Select which locations you’d like to have participate during program setup. Your customers will be able to earn points and redeem rewards at any of your participating locations.
To create additional locations, visit Locations in Square Dashboard and click Create Location. Once you add a new location, you cannot delete locations, but you can deactivate a location at any time. Inactive accounts will still be visible and can be reactivated at any time.
Note: If you’d like to offer a free item as a loyalty reward, you must select an item or category from each location’s Item Library in the ‘Reward’ field. This must be done to ensure coupons are redeemable across all business locations. Your customers won’t be able to redeem coupons at any locations that don’t have an item selected.
Set up Team Members
In order to create and manage a Loyalty program, including viewing the Loyalty section of your Square Dashboard, team members will need the Manage and Subscribe to Services and View, Edit, Create and Delete Customer Directory Data permissions enabled for their profile. Learn more about managing team members.
Learn more about managing your Square Loyalty Program and how to promote your Square Loyalty Program.