Square Loyalty FAQs
Find answers to commonly asked questions about Square Loyalty.
Loyalty Overview
If you’re using Square Point of Sale or Square Online and are designated as a business, you can subscribe to Square Loyalty and create a digital rewards program to recognize repeat customers.
Start your free 30-day trial to see if Square Loyalty features are suitable for your business.
To create your Loyalty Program:
- Go to Loyalty from your online Square Dashboard and select Get Started. If you’re on the Square Point of Sale app, tap More > Add-ons > Loyalty.
- Click your program terminology and program type.
3.Select your reward type from the dropdown. - Choose the reward value and enter the discount that will be applied for the reward.
- Select Finish once you’ve completed setup. If needed, you can update the parameters of your Square Loyalty program at a later date.
You can create up to 15 unique reward types for your Loyalty program, each with different values, types, or parameters. Each reward name can be up to 100 characters, but we recommend keeping reward names around 50 characters for better display options across different platforms and devices for you and your customers.
What does each setting mean?
Customize the terminology of your loyalty program to fit your brand (Examples: Star/Stars, Point/Points, Punch/Punches).
Choose how customers earn a point. You can set a purchase minimum to define how customers can earn a reward by:
- 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.
- Any Item or Category: Reward points based on purchasing a specific item or category. For example, a drip coffee earns 1 point, a latte earns 2 points and a sandwich earns 3 points.
Select how you’d like to reward your customers:
- 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.
- Redeem a Free Item: Select a specific free item. For example, a free latte.
If you’ve set up multiple locations, select which locations this loyalty program is applicable to.
How much does it cost to use Square Loyalty?
Square’s Loyalty programme subscription cost is based on your customer’s participation with your programme.
Note: If you signed up through the Add-on Library in your Square Point of Sale app, you’re given a 30-day free trial for your Square Loyalty Programme. You’ll need to add a subscription payment method for your Square Loyalty Programme within the 30-day period from the Pricing and subscriptions section of your online Square Dashboard. If a payment method isn’t added, your Square Loyalty subscription will expire and both new and existing customers will be prevented from participating in your programme.
Enrol Customers
You are able to enrol your customers during a purchase, or directly from your online Square Dashboard.
To enrol your customers during a purchase:
- Process a sale the same way you normally would.
- After the sale has been completed and your customer has passed the receipt screen, they’ll reach the Loyalty Screen.
- Your customer enters their 10-digit mobile phone number to opt-in to your loyalty program.
- They’ll receive an SMS indicating they’ve been enrolled and, if applicable, earned their first point.
To enrol your customers from your Customer Directory:
- Go to Customers from your online Square Dashboard or Square POS app.
- Create or select an existing customer profile.
- Under the Loyalty section, select Create Account.
- Enter the customer’s mobile phone number > select Save.
You can also automatically prompt customers to sign in to or sign up for your Loyalty program during checkout by following the steps below.
On Square Terminal and Square Point of Sale for iOS and Android:
- Tap More > Settings.
- Select Loyalty and toggle on Customer check in on customer display.
If using Square Register:
- Tap More > Settings.
- Select Loyalty.
- Toggle on Show check-in screen at start of transaction. Ensure that the Enable Loyalty on this device option is toggled on in order to update the settings on your device.
Yes. When a buyer is completing a payment for a Square invoice, they will be prompted to provide their phone number in order to check in to or enrol in your Square Loyalty program. Once they complete the invoice payment, your Loyalty Activity Report and the Loyalty status page will update with any available points they can redeem for future transactions. The buyer’s customer profile will also update with total points accrued through Square Invoices.
This enrollment or check-in option can be enabled for buyers within the Loyalty > Settings section of your online Square Dashboard. Your Loyalty Activity reports will also include points accrued from invoice transactions.
If your customers weren’t able to claim a point at checkout, they will receive an invitation to enrol in your Loyalty program and claim their point after each eligible purchase. To ensure your customers receive their invitations:
- Go to Customers > Loyalty section of your online Square Dashboard.
- Click Settings.
- Toggle on the Enable Claimable Points setting.
Earning and Redeeming Points
The amount used to assess whether a customer earns a point is based on the total purchase amount before tax and tip.
Item-based rewards that have a reward applied will not earn points. Additionally, if you have a spend-based Loyalty program, you can exclude certain items or categories from accruing points.
To do so from your online Square Dashboard:
- Go to Loyalty > Settings.
- Click 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.
If your customer purchases items that are exempt from earning points within your program, let them know during the checkout process.
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.
Yes! If your customer has joined your Square Loyalty program, they’ll receive the corresponding Loyalty points for their entire Square Online transaction. Loyalty rewards, gift cards and vouchers can all be used in conjunction with Afterpay, so long as the remaining cart balance is still within the eligible purchase range.
To redeem a reward from the Square app:
- From the Checkout screen, tap Library > Rewards. You can also add the customer to the cart and any available awards will appear during checkout.
- Select the customer or enter your customer’s mobile phone number to search for available rewards.
- Select rewards to apply them to the customer’s cart.
- Your customer’s reward will be applied to the current sale, and you can finish the transaction as you normally would.
If the customer is completing their transaction with the payment card that is linked to their Loyalty profile, they will automatically be shown any available rewards during checkout. Once any rewards are selected and redeemed, you can proceed to checkout as normal. This is currently available for payments processed on Square Register, Square Terminal, and the Square Point of Sale app for iOS and Android devices.
Customers can redeem or earn rewards for transactions completed through your Square Online website. When completing a transaction on your business’ website, the customer will need to enter in their mobile phone number to apply any accrued rewards to their transaction.
When customers redeem their loyalty points, they will always use the points that will expire the soonest.
As long as your customer has the points to meet the reward requirements, they can redeem multiple rewards.
To edit a customer’s point count, locate their customer profile from your Customer Directory on your online Square Dashboard or under Customers via the Square Point of Sale app and assign the correct number of points.
From the Square app:
- Tap ≡ More > Customers > Search for your customer by name or phone number.
- Tap ”•••” next to their Loyalty Summary > Adjust Status and adjust points using the Add Points and Remove Points buttons.
- Tap Save.
From your online Square Dashboard:
- Go to Customers from your online Square Dashboard > click Directory.
- Search for your customer by name or phone number.
- Under Loyalty Summary, click ••• to open the menu.
- Click Adjust Points and adjust points using the Add Points or Remove Points buttons, enter the number of points, select a reason for the adjustment.
- Click Save.
If a customer didn’t receive their points or didn’t enter their mobile phone number after a previous purchase, you can adjust their point status. To do so, locate their customer profile and assign them the correct number of points. To get started:
- Tap ≡ More > Customers and search for your customer by name or mobile phone number.
- Tap ”•••” next to their Loyalty Summary > Adjust Status.
- Adjust points using the Add Points or Remove Points button > select a reason for the adjustment and tap Save.
This can also be done from their Customer Directory profile in your online Square Dashboard.
Square Loyalty integrates with the Square Point of Sale app and your Customer Directory to keep track of your customers’ loyalty status, including their loyalty points, rewards earned, redemptions, and more.
Loyalty automatically accrues loyalty points for your customer if they pay by card. Your customer’s loyalty mobile phone number is linked with their payment card automatically. When a customer comes back and uses the same payment card to pay for the transaction, Loyalty automatically accrues points based on the linked loyalty mobile phone number.
Learn how to manage linked cards.
Customers and Refunds
You can update or correct a customer’s Loyalty mobile phone number from their Customer Directory profile. To do so:
- Go to Customers from your online Square Dashboard > click Directory.
- Search and select the customer in question.
- Next to Loyalty Summary click ••• > Update Phone Number.
- Click Save.
Yes, you can. You will receive SMS text message notifications according to the Australian regulations.
You can merge multiple Loyalty customers.
- Go to Customers from your online Square Dashboard.
- Select the customer profiles you wish to merge.
- Click Merge.
Note: Merging customers will erase the points associated with each customer profile. You’ll need to manually adjust your customer’s Loyalty status from your Point of Sale app or online Square Dashboard. Learn how to manually adjust your customer’s Loyalty status.
If a customer accidentally links their mobile phone number to the wrong payment card, or vice versa, you can always unlink the two.
To unlink a customer’s payment card:
- Go to Customers on your online Square Dashboard > click Directory.
- Search for your customer by name or mobile phone number.
- Next to Loyalty Summary click ••• > Manage Cards > Check the box for each card you’d like to unlink.
- Click Unlink.
Do refunds adjust a customer’s Loyalty balance?
Yes. See when Loyalty points will be removed automatically based on the Loyalty Programme type and the refund type below:
| Loyalty Programme Type | Full Refund | Partial Item Refund | Custom Refund Amount |
| Amount spent programme | All points will be removed. | Points will be removed proportional to the amount refunded. | Points will be removed proportional to the amount refunded. |
| Per Visit | All points will be removed. | Points will be removed if the amount refunded is below the spending threshold to earn points. | Points will be removed if the amount refunded is below the spending threshold to earn points. |
| Per Item or Category | All points will be removed. | If an item that earned points is refunded, the points earned for that item will be removed. Otherwise, points will not be removed. | Points will not be removed. |
For exchanges via Square for Retail Plus, points will be adjusted based on the items being exchanged. The adjustment is based on the Loyalty Programme settings at the time of the transaction. If no points were earned in the original transaction because no Loyalty customer was associated with the transaction, then there will be no adjustments to a Loyalty balance.
Reporting and Team Access
With Square Loyalty, you’re able to track the progress of your programme right from your online Square Dashboard and from the Square app for iOS devices. You can also see every Loyalty visit and transaction associated with your rewards and a comparison of average visits and spending of loyalty and non-loyalty customers.
With Square, you’re able to assign your team members specific permissions to take certain actions on your Loyalty account. Permission sets include granting team members access to view Loyalty reporting, managing customer data, and configuring your Loyalty programme settings.
Team members can take action through the online Square Dashboard, a shared point of sale and your point of sale app. Loyalty permissions are broken down into the following categories and actions:
- Reporting: Viewing Loyalty reports, programme performance and customer engagement metrics.
- Programme Management: Viewing and editing Loyalty programme settings and setting up Loyalty promotions.
- Customer Management: Viewing and editing Loyalty customers’ account information. Note: This permission requires the ‘View, edit, create and delete customer directory data’ permission from the Customers permission group to be enabled.
Learn how to view your Square Loyalty metrics.
To enable Loyalty permissions for your team members:
- Go to Team > Team Members from your online Square Dashboard.
- Click Permissions > Create permission set.
- Choose a permission set name and click Loyalty from the list. Select the permissions you ’d like to assign to the permission set.
- Click Continue > choose the device access points.
- Click Save.
Learn more about Team Management.