Loonine vs SumUp Loyalty

The short version

SumUp Loyalty is the strongest option if you already take payments with SumUp and your customers pay by card. Once a customer has linked a card in the SumUp Local app, rewards accrue with no scanning and no steps at the till, which is less friction than any wallet-card platform can offer at the moment of purchase. The trade is that the friction moves to the beginning: the customer must download an app and link a card before any of it works. Loonine has no customer app at all, works with whatever payment setup you already have, and covers 35 countries including the Gulf.

What is the real difference between SumUp Loyalty and Loonine?

The two products move the friction to opposite ends of the relationship. SumUp Loyalty is card-linked: once a customer has installed the SumUp Local app and linked a payment card, every purchase earns automatically with nothing to scan or present. Loonine puts the card in the wallet already on the phone, so there is no app to install, but a staff member records the visit.

Neither is universally better and the choice follows from which end of the funnel is your problem. If getting customers to sign up is the bottleneck, an app install in front of a queue is the harder ask. If your staff will not reliably record visits, automatic accrual is worth more than a frictionless sign-up.

Does SumUp Loyalty need the customer to download an app?

Yes. SumUp's scheme works through the free SumUp Local app, in which the customer links a payment card once; from then on purchases at participating merchants earn automatically. That install is a one-time cost, and it is a real one: reported figures for standalone loyalty app retention are poor, and an install requested at a counter converts far worse than a link sent by text.

It is worth being precise about what the app is for, though. SumUp Local is a consumer app spanning many merchants rather than one business's own app, so a customer who installs it once carries it into every participating shop. That network effect is something a single-business wallet card cannot offer.

What happens to cash customers?

A card-linked scheme cannot see them. If a customer pays cash, there is no card to match the transaction against, so the visit does not earn. That matters in markets and trades where cash is still a meaningful share of takings.

A phone-number programme is indifferent to how the customer pays, because the identifier is the number rather than the payment instrument. In a business with mixed payment habits that difference decides what share of your customers the programme can reach at all.

What does SumUp Loyalty do better?

Two things, clearly. Once a customer is set up, earning is completely automatic: no scanning, no app to open, nothing for staff to remember. That is less friction at the moment of purchase than any wallet-card platform including Loonine can offer. Staff forgetting to record a visit is a real failure mode that a card-linked scheme simply does not have.

The second is Autopilot, which identifies lapsed customers and sends win-back offers automatically. Loonine gives you the customer filters to build that list and leaves the sending to you. Doing it automatically is more useful for an owner with no time, and it is the single feature most worth wanting from this comparison.

SumUp Loyalty is also available in the United Kingdom and Loonine is not. If you trade in the UK, that ends the comparison.

Is it a problem that loyalty is tied to the payment provider?

It is a consideration rather than a flaw, and it depends entirely on how settled you are. Loyalty bundled into payments is convenient while you stay, and it becomes a switching cost the day you consider changing terminals, because the customer records and the accrued balances live inside the payments product.

The question worth asking before committing either way is what happens to the customer list if you leave. Ask both vendors whether the record includes balances as well as contacts, and get the answer before you have three hundred customers rather than after.

Which should I choose?

Choose SumUp Loyalty if you already run SumUp, your customers pay by card, and you are in one of its six markets. The automatic accrual and the Autopilot win-backs are real advantages and there is little reason to add a second product. Choose Loonine if you do not use SumUp, a meaningful share of your trade is cash, you would rather not ask for an app install, or you operate outside those markets.

If you are undecided, the cheapest test is to send yourself a card from this page and time the whole flow, then install SumUp Local and time that. The two numbers answer the question better than this page can.