Reference · last reviewed 31 August 2026
Wallet loyalty programs in Canada.
How they work, what they cost, and what the law asks of you.
This page exists because most of what is written about digital loyalty is written by someone selling it, in language designed to avoid a number. We sell it too — but the figures below are real, current and in Canadian dollars, and where the honest answer is “this might not be worth it for you”, that is what it says.
What a wallet loyalty pass is
A wallet loyalty pass is a digital loyalty card stored in the customer’s phone wallet — Apple Wallet on iPhone, Google Wallet on Android — rather than in a downloaded app or on a piece of card. It holds the customer’s balance, shows what the next reward is, and updates itself when the business changes something. It is added by scanning a QR code, and requires no app, no account and no password.
The technology is not new and it is not proprietary. Apple introduced Wallet passes in 2012 and Google has offered an equivalent since. Airline boarding passes and event tickets use the same mechanism. What has changed is that the platforms for issuing them have become cheap enough for a single café to use.
How it works, end to end
One scan at the counter
The customer scans a QR code on a table tent, counter card or receipt. A short page opens, they tap “Add to Apple Wallet” or “Add to Google Wallet”, and the card is installed. Keporia collects a first name only; no email address or phone number is required.
Staff scan the phone
On each visit, staff scan the barcode on the customer’s pass on a web page on the phone or tablet behind the counter. The balance updates on the customer’s screen within a second or two. No dedicated hardware is involved.
The card reaches back
The business can update every issued pass at once, send a message to every card, or have the pass surface on the lock screen when the customer is near the premises. Apple allows up to ten locations per pass.
What it costs in Canada
Three honest routes, with the trade-off named. Prices are Canadian dollars unless stated.
| Route | Typical cost | What you still have to do yourself |
|---|---|---|
| POS-bundled loyalty Square, Toast, Clover |
Often included in a plan you already pay for, or roughly $45–$120/month as an add-on. Check your own plan first. | Everything except the software: design the reward, train staff, write and push every campaign, and interpret the numbers. |
| Self-serve wallet platform Loopy Loyalty, Passcreator, Tap2 and similar |
Roughly $25–$80/month for one location, more per additional location. Billing is sometimes per four weeks rather than per month, which is thirteen charges a year, not twelve. | Build the pass, source the artwork, configure geofences, generate and print the in-store material, train staff, run campaigns, read the analytics. |
| Done-for-you agency Keporia and similar |
$99 once, then $149/month for one location; +$49/month per additional location. Three-month minimum, then monthly. | Approve the reward structure, and give about an hour of your time at setup. |
Ranges for third-party products are indicative and change; check the vendor’s own pricing page before relying on them. Keporia’s figures are exact and current.
Wallet pass, app, paper, or POS loyalty
| Wallet pass | Branded app | Paper punch card | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer has to install something | No | Yes | No |
| Can be lost or destroyed | No | No | Constantly |
| Reaches the lock screen | Yes | Yes | No |
| Tells you who your regulars are | Yes | Yes | No |
| Realistic build cost | Hundreds | Tens of thousands | Under $100 a print run |
| Ongoing cost per message | Nil | Nil | — |
POS-bundled loyalty deserves its own sentence, because it is the honest competitor: if you already pay for Square or Toast, some version of this is probably already switched on. The question is not whether the software exists — it is whether anyone is designing your reward, writing your monthly offer and reading the numbers back to you. If you have four hours a month to do that yourself, use what you already pay for.
What Canadian law asks of you
Summary, not legal advice. Get advice specific to your program before you launch.
Consent, identity, unsubscribe
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation governs commercial electronic messages. Capture express consent at enrolment, identify the business clearly in every message, and give the customer a way to stop — for a wallet pass, removing it. Keep the consent records; the burden of proving consent is on the sender.
You are accountable for the data
The business collecting customer information is accountable for it, including when an agency or platform processes it on your behalf. You need a privacy policy that says what you collect and why, and you should know where the data is stored — most wallet platforms host outside Canada, which is permitted but must be disclosed.
Rewards and the $30,000 line
Loyalty rewards have GST/HST consequences that depend on how the reward is structured. Separately, if your business is not yet registered, the small-supplier threshold is $30,000 in trailing revenue. Ask your accountant how your specific reward is treated.
Read the data clause
Before signing with any provider, check three things: who owns the customer list, how quickly you can get it exported, and what happens to issued passes if you leave. If those answers are not in writing, that is the answer.
What you need to run one
- Apple side
- An Apple Developer Program membership, $99 USD a year, plus a Pass Type Identifier and signing certificate for each brand issuing passes. An agency running passes for several merchants needs a separate identifier per merchant.
- Google side
- A Google Wallet API issuer account, free, with a business profile and publishing access granted by Google. Review typically takes a few working days.
- A pass platform
- The service that issues, updates and tracks the passes. This is the recurring cost.
- In-store material
- Something physical carrying the enrolment QR — a counter card at minimum, ideally a table tent, a window sticker and a card in every takeout bag. Programs die at the counter, not in the software.
- A person
- Somebody has to design the reward, train the staff, send a campaign each month and read the numbers. This is the part most programs skip, and it is the part that decides whether the program works.
Common questions
Do customers need to download an app to use a wallet loyalty card?
No. Apple Wallet and Google Wallet are pre-installed on every modern smartphone. The customer scans a QR code, taps “Add”, and the card is in their wallet. There is no app store page, no account to create and no password. This is the main practical difference between a wallet pass and a branded loyalty app, and it is why wallet passes see far higher enrolment at the counter.
What does a digital loyalty program cost a small business in Canada?
It varies by whether you build it yourself or have it run for you. Self-serve wallet platforms generally run between about $25 and $80 CAD a month for a single location, and you do all the design, setup and campaign work. Done-for-you agencies, including Keporia, charge a one-time setup fee plus a monthly management fee — Keporia’s is $99 CAD once and $149 CAD a month for one location, with $49 CAD a month for each additional location. POS-bundled loyalty from Square or Toast is often included in a plan you already pay for, but it comes with no design or campaign service.
How is a wallet pass different from a loyalty app?
A loyalty app has to be found, downloaded, installed and signed into — four steps at which most customers quit, usually while standing at a counter. A wallet pass is added in one scan and lives beside the customer’s payment cards. Apps can do more, but almost no independent business has the volume to justify one, and a card nobody installs is worth nothing.
Can a wallet loyalty card send notifications?
Yes, natively, without SMS fees or an email list. Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes can display a message on the lock screen when the pass is updated, on a schedule, or when the phone enters a defined geographic area around the business. Apple limits a pass to ten locations. The location trigger is dependable on iPhone; on Android, Google controls when a pass surfaces, so it should not be relied on. These are wallet notifications, not push notifications from an app, and the customer can switch them off per pass.
Does a wallet loyalty program need special hardware?
No. Staff scan the customer’s phone using a web page on the phone or tablet already behind the counter — nothing to install. No terminal, no dock and no proprietary reader is required.
Does CASL apply to loyalty messages?
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation governs commercial electronic messages. Wallet pass notifications sit in a different technical category from email and SMS, but the safe operating assumption for any Canadian business is that the consent, identification and unsubscribe principles apply to anything commercial you send. In practice that means capturing express consent at enrolment, identifying the business clearly, and giving the customer a way out — removing the pass from the wallet. Get advice specific to your program; this is a summary, not legal advice.
Who owns the customer data in a loyalty program?
That is set by your contract with whoever runs the program, and you should read it before you sign. Under PIPEDA the business collecting the personal information is accountable for it, including when a service provider processes it. Keporia’s agreement states the customer list belongs to the merchant and is exported on request within ten business days.
How long does it take to launch a wallet loyalty program?
For a done-for-you setup, seven to ten days is realistic once the merchant has supplied a logo, brand colours, addresses and product photographs. The merchant’s own time commitment is about an hour: one call to agree the reward structure, and one short staff training session.
What reward structure works best?
For high-frequency, low-ticket businesses such as cafés, a visit-based stamp card — typically ten stamps for a free item — works better than points per dollar, because frequency is what you are trying to buy. For restaurants, where a $19 lunch and a $95 dinner are not the same event, points per dollar with a fixed-dollar reward at a spend threshold is fairer and cheaper. For salons and studios, where visits are six weeks apart, a five-visit reward is reachable and a ten-visit one is not.
Is a wallet loyalty program worth it for a small café?
It depends on a number you can calculate before you start. At a $149 monthly fee, a $4.75 average ticket and roughly 23% contribution after product costs, the program needs about $650 a month in additional sales to break even — roughly one extra visit a day across the whole customer base. If your business cannot plausibly produce that, the honest answer is that it is not worth it.
Written by
Keporia builds and runs wallet loyalty programs for independent businesses across Canada, from St. John’s, Newfoundland. We wrote this page because we kept answering the same questions on the phone, and because most of the alternatives are either vendor copy or American.
If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it: abid@keporia.ca.
- Published
- 31 August 2026
- Scope
- Canada
- Currency
- Canadian dollars
- Author
- Md Abid Hasan, Keporia
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