More direct trade. More repeat visits. Less platform dependency.
Through our partnership with SumUp, we can offer hospitality businesses a card-linked loyalty programme that rewards customers who pay you directly and keeps regulars coming back. It works best where the owner and staff are willing to make it part of how they serve — the mechanics are strong, but enrolment depends on consistent prompting at the point of sale.
Two problems, one fix
Most hospitality businesses lose money in the same two places.
The cost of delivery apps
Delivery apps charge significantly more per order than taking payment yourself. The more orders go through them, the more that gap costs you.
Getting customers to return
A regular customer is worth far more than a one-time visitor. They come back without much prompting and often bring others. But most businesses have no way of staying in touch with them.
Loyalty only activates when customers pay through SumUp — that is the point
Rewards only work when the customer pays through SumUp. That is a deliberate design. It gives people a reason to choose the direct route over a delivery app.
What delivery apps cost you
Taking payment in person through SumUp costs a fraction of what a delivery app charges. Delivery apps add fees on top — and sometimes commission too.
If a good portion of your orders go through a delivery app, you are paying more per order than you would for a direct payment. Every month, that adds up.
How loyalty helps shift the balance
Loyalty only activates through SumUp. It does not force anything — but it gives regulars a reason to choose the direct route.
If some of your regulars currently order through a delivery app, nudging them toward paying direct — through loyalty rewards — can improve your margin without changing your prices.
How SumUp Loyalty helps
Reduce ordering channel costs
When customers pay direct through SumUp — in-person or via your own route — you avoid the platform fees that aggregate delivery channels charge.
Bring back lapsed customers
An automated offer sent to customers who have stopped visiting — a prompt to return, without any effort from you.
Lift weak trading windows
A timed promotion on a quiet Tuesday or a slow mid-afternoon can shift spend into periods that currently sit empty.
Reward your regulars
Stamps for simple repeat occasions. Points where spend varies. Your best customers get recognised without you doing it manually.
Automate retention
Birthday campaigns, sign-up rewards, and at-risk alerts run without your involvement.
Make direct trade more attractive
Loyalty only works when the customer pays through SumUp. That creates a natural incentive for in-person and direct ordering rather than expensive third-party platforms.
Points or stamps — choose the one that fits how your customers spend
Available to our merchants through our SumUp partnership, this loyalty programme gives you two reward mechanics. Use the one that matches your transaction pattern.
Stamp card
One stamp per transaction. Simple, visible, and easy for customers to track. Best where transaction amounts are consistent and visit frequency is the main driver.
Good for: cafés, barbers, fast food, newsstands, food trucks.
Points-based loyalty
Points accumulate with spend. Customers who spend more earn more. Best where basket size varies meaningfully between visits.
Good for: spas, restaurants, grocers, florists, alcohol retailers.
Important: switching between stamps and points resets your customers' progress. Choose at the start and stay consistent.
AutoPilot — retention without the admin
AutoPilot runs five campaign types automatically based on customer behaviour. You configure them once. The system identifies the right customers and sends the right message at the right time — without any ongoing effort from you.
Sign-up reward
A welcome offer when a new customer joins — an immediate reason to use the account from day one.
At-risk prompt
Sent when a customer breaks their usual visit pattern, before they fully lapse.
Lapsed customer offer
An offer to customers who have not visited in a defined period — a prompt to come back.
Lost customer win-back
A stronger offer for customers who have been absent longest — the last prompt before they're gone.
Birthday campaign
An offer timed to a customer's birthday. Tends to land well.
AutoPilot handles the follow-up automatically once it is configured. The part that requires your involvement is the initial setup and making sure your team consistently prompts customers to join at the point of sale. The system works in proportion to the enrolled customer base you build.
Promotions — targeted, timed, and effort-free
Manual promotions let you run time-limited offers to enrolled loyalty customers. You choose the window, the offer, and the audience. The system handles the rest.
Quiet periods
A slow Tuesday evening or a mid-afternoon dip can be addressed directly with a timed offer.
Seasonal pushes
Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Black Friday — a promotion timed to a trading moment turns passive interest into a visit.
New launches
Introduce a new product, service, or location with an offer that gives existing customers a reason to come in and try it.
Tactical trading windows
A promotion during a specific date range or time of day, targeting only enrolled loyalty customers.
Promotion reach depends on the number of enrolled customers who have the SumUp Local app and have opted in to receive offers.
How it works in practice
Realistic merchant scenarios — not fabricated claims.
Payment mix and margin
A busy takeaway was processing roughly a third of orders through a delivery aggregator charging around 3% in fees — on top of commission. Direct in-person orders through SumUp ran at a fraction of that cost.
What changed
By making loyalty rewards conditional on direct SumUp payment, a portion of regular customers shifted toward the lower-cost route. Margin improved on those transactions without changing prices.
Filling the mid-afternoon gap
A café with a strong morning trade saw a clear dip between 2pm and 4pm most days. The quiet slot was costing revenue without being structurally unavoidable.
What changed
A timed promotion running only during that window brought in customers who would otherwise not have visited. The promotion paid for itself in volume.
Birthday and lapsed-customer returns
A restaurant had no system for following up with customers who had visited once or twice and then stopped coming back. Those customers were simply lost.
What changed
AutoPilot birthday campaigns and lapsed-customer offers created a low-effort return mechanism. Some customers returned. The cost of the campaign was nil in staff time.
QR sign-up and in-person payment
A food-hall trader wanted to move more spend toward in-person SumUp payments and reduce reliance on a QR-ordering platform that charged per transaction.
What changed
A visible QR card at the point of payment made it easy to join loyalty on the spot. More customers began paying direct. The loyalty scheme made the in-person route feel worthwhile.
Stamps for frequency
A lunch-led café wanted to encourage daily regulars to visit slightly more often. Basket size was not the issue. Frequency was.
What changed
A stamp card — one per visit, no minimum spend — gave regulars a visible reason to choose this café over the one next door. Visit frequency ticked up among enrolled customers.
Not just a stamp card — shared local infrastructure.
Most loyalty systems are isolated. A merchant sets up their own scheme, pushes their own app, and carries the entire adoption burden alone. Most customers do not bother.
The loyalty system available through our SumUp partnership works differently. Customers download one app and link one card. After that, joining any participating merchant's loyalty scheme is a single tap. The friction is gone once — not once per merchant.
Generic loyalty scheme
- One merchant, one isolated programme
- One isolated push for every new customer
- Customer downloads a separate app for each scheme
- No shared momentum between merchants
SumUp Loyalty model
- One shared app, one card-linking step
- Multiple participating merchants, one entry point
- Repeated visibility across a local merchant cluster
- In shared venues, each new merchant reduces the barrier for the next
This advantage is most visible in food halls, markets, and dense local merchant clusters — where customers interact with multiple merchants in the same space and the app becomes familiar quickly. It matters less for isolated, standalone businesses where the network effect does not apply.
Who this is strongest for
Strong fit
- Cafés and restaurants with regular return trade
- Takeaways wanting to shift more orders to direct payment
- Food-hall traders in high-footfall shared venues
- Lunch operators where visit frequency matters more than basket size
- Owners and staff who will champion enrolment at the point of sale — the programme builds in proportion to how consistently it is offered
Weaker fit
- Catering and event businesses where most trade is non-recurring
- Operators whose customers are predominantly tourists or one-time visitors
- Businesses where all or most ordering goes through a third-party platform that handles payment
- Operators who are unlikely to prompt customers at the till — without consistent enrolment, the system has nothing to work with