How to Run a Loyalty Programme on WhatsApp

To run a loyalty programme on WhatsApp, keep each customer’s stamps or tier in your own records, let them check their balance in a chat, and send updates and rewards through approved templates. Start with something simple, such as “buy 10, get 1 free”, or two or three tiers. You don’t need an app or a plastic card.

WhatsApp has no loyalty feature, and Automate AI has no points system, so nothing adds up stamps from a sale by itself. Someone, or your own software, has to record each purchase. This guide shows a scheme a small business can actually run, the messages to send, how the template rules apply, and what you can set up with contact fields, groups and a keyword reply.

What a WhatsApp loyalty programme can and can’t do

WhatsApp is a good place for the messages around a loyalty scheme: the balance, the reminder and the reward. It isn’t where the scheme’s data lives. The chat doesn’t know what someone bought in your shop, so a record of purchases has to come from somewhere else.

If you already use loyalty software or a shop system with points, keep it as the source of truth and use WhatsApp only for messages. If you have nothing yet, the spreadsheet scheme below is enough to start.

Choose a simple scheme

Pick the simplest one your team will keep up to date. An out-of-date balance is worse than no scheme, because it starts arguments at the counter.

A worked example with made-up numbers: a café gives one stamp per visit and a free coffee at 10. Staff update the sheet at closing time, and it’s imported once a week. The balance can be up to a week old, which is fine as long as you say so.

Write the rules on one short page: what earns a stamp, what the reward is, how long it lasts, and whether it can be swapped for cash. Local consumer and tax rules can apply to rewards with money value, and this isn’t legal advice.

Getting customers to join

Joining a loyalty scheme is a good moment to ask for WhatsApp opt-in, because the customer can see what they get. WhatsApp’s policy says you need their number and their permission, and Meta says the opt-in has to name your business and make clear what they’re agreeing to.

• At the counter: a QR code that opens a chat with “JOIN” already typed. See how to make a WhatsApp link and QR code.
• On a receipt or in a parcel: the same QR code, with one line on what they get.
• On your website: a form with an unticked box naming your business.
• In a chat: ask anyone already talking to you, and record the answer.

Keep proof of consent, and treat loyalty updates and offers as separate choices if you can. WhatsApp’s best practice is separate opt-ins by message type. More in WhatsApp opt-in.

Sample loyalty messages

These use demo data, so change them to fit your scheme. Templates need Meta’s approval before you send them, and the marketing ones end with an opt-out line.

Stamp update

Reward ready

New tier

A customer who has gone quiet

Don’t send a stamp update after every visit if nobody asked for it. Each template is a paid message. A balance people can ask for costs less and annoys no one.

Utility or marketing? How Meta’s rules apply

Meta’s categorisation page doesn’t mention loyalty points directly, so go by its general rules. A utility template must have no promotional or persuasive intent, and has to be specific to the user or requested by them, or essential to them. Meta’s own utility examples include a plain account balance update. A thank-you discount on a next order is one of its marketing examples, and content that mixes the two counts as marketing.

Meta has the final say, and can change a template’s category later. Submit honestly, because a recategorised template is charged as marketing. See WhatsApp template messages.

On cost, Meta charges for each delivered template, including utility ones inside an open window. Non-template replies are service messages, and each number gets 1,000 free a month. So a customer asking “my stamps” and getting an answer usually costs very little. Rates by country are on our WhatsApp API pricing page.

Set it up in Automate AI

Automate AI has no points or rewards feature for your customers. Here’s how to run a stamp card with what it does have. Contacts, custom fields and campaigns are on every plan. The balance reply and the yearly message need Series 2, 3 or 4 (the chatbot builder and automations). On Series 1, your team answers by hand.

1. Add a field. In Settings › Contact Fields, add an Input field called Stamps. Its key is stamps. If you use tiers, add Tier too.
2. Keep your sheet. One row per customer: phone number, name, stamps.
3. Import updates. In Contacts › Import, map the Stamps column and choose Update existing only. Contacts are matched on phone number. That option skips numbers not yet in your contacts, so use Create new and update existing when the file has new members. For a single change, edit the contact directly.
4. Build the balance reply. At Automation › Flows, start a flow on the keyword stamps. A keyword matches that word anywhere in a message, so “why are my stamps wrong?” gets this reply too; pick a more unusual word if that would annoy people. Add a text step: “Hi {first_name}, you have {stamps} of 10 stamps.” Type {stamps} by hand, as the variable menu lists only built-in fields. Publish the flow.
5. Make tier groups. Keep a contact group per tier, such as “Gold members”. A group_name column can set them, but each row’s groups replace the contact’s current groups, so list every group they should stay in. To keep existing groups, tick contacts and use Assign Group › Add to groups.
6. Send campaigns. Pick the group or a tag as your audience. In the campaign, a template variable can use a custom field, so {{2}} in the stamp update can show each customer’s own stamps.
7. Add a yearly message. At Campaigns › Drip Campaigns, a Scheduled Automation can send a template on a contact’s birthday or anniversary, such as a membership date.

Basic Replies at Automation › Basic Replies can’t read custom fields, so use a flow for the balance. Update Contact doesn’t suit stamps either: it saves the customer’s next typed reply, so customers could write their own balance. Keep the numbers in staff hands.

If your own till or software can make API calls, a developer can update contacts through the REST API, included from Series 2, instead of the import. That removes the delay.

Keep the data and the customers happy

• Update on a fixed day, and say so: “Balances update every Monday.”
• Offer a person. WhatsApp’s policy requires a clear way to reach help when a bot handles chats, and balance disputes need a human.
• Never ask for card or ID numbers to join or redeem. The policy bars asking for them in chat. A phone number is enough.
• Don’t share other customers’ details, such as a leaderboard of what members spent.
• Honour opt-outs. A typed STOP opts a contact out automatically in Automate AI. A button tap doesn’t, so use the STOP footer on marketing templates. Someone who opts out of messages can stay in your scheme at the counter.
• Set an end date for rewards, and remind people once, not every week.

To see if it’s working, compare visits or orders from members with your other customers, using your own sales data. Automate AI’s campaign reports show delivered and read counts, which tell you about the message, not about loyalty. For a scheme people pass on to friends, see how to run a referral programme on WhatsApp.