A loyalty program for gyms

What you stamp in a gym: the counter, not the entries

This is the only decision that matters on this page, and it is an easy one to get wrong.

Everyone's first idea is to stamp entries: ten workouts, one free. It sounds logical and it is wrong for two reasons.

First, attendance is already paid for. The member paid for the month and you are rewarding behaviour that was going to happen anyway. Second, the reward on an entry card is almost always free gym time, which is the exact product you live on. You are cutting into the membership to reward somebody who was already paying.

The counter is the opposite. The shake after training, the bar, the coffee: each is a separate decision taken dozens of times a month, and the alternative is not skipping it, it is bringing it from home or buying it at the shop round the corner. That is where a card actually moves behaviour.

The rhythm suits stamps, too. Someone who trains three times a week and takes a shake afterwards fills a five-stamp card in two weeks. Almost no other business has a frequency that good.

Big Fitness Cluj-Napoca: three offers on one card

Big Fitness is a gym in Cluj-Napoca, in the WINMARKT complex on Bucegi street. Their Stampino setup looks exactly like this, straight out of the panel:

• Protein bar: buy 7, get 1 free.
• Shake: buy 5, get 1 free.
• Coffee: buy 5, get 1 free.

All three sit on a single card and the member switches between them using the tabs at the top, as in the image next to the title. It is not three cards to keep track of, it is one with three rows of stamps that advance independently.

Nothing anywhere stamps entry to the gym. The membership stays a membership, and the loyalty program lives entirely at the counter.

Their plan allows four offers and they use three, so there is room for one more if they want to add a product without touching anything that already works.

Why different thresholds for different products

Look at their numbers again: 7 on bars, 5 on shakes, 5 on coffee. That is not an inconsistency, it is the whole idea.

The right threshold is not chosen by product, it is chosen by what the reward costs you and how often the thing is bought. The bar is the cheapest of the three and gets bought most often, so it carries a higher threshold without the member feeling they will never reach the end. The shake is the priciest of the three, so its reward has to arrive after fewer.

The practical rule: pick the threshold so the reward lands about once a month for a member who comes regularly. Someone taking a shake after every session, two or three times a week, reaches 5 in two or three weeks. Someone buying bars more often reaches 7 in roughly the same time.

That way all three offers finish at about the same rate even though the numbers differ, and no single one feels stuck.

Loyalty card for a gym: how you start

At reception, which everybody walks past anyway.

The first time: the member scans the magic QR code on the counter or at the entrance and the card lands straight on their phone, from a single scan. No account, no email, no password. The card can also live in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

After that, on every purchase: they open the card, pick the offer from the tabs, and you scan the code on their screen with the phone or tablet at reception. No separate reader.

A gym has an advantage few businesses have: the same people, several times a week, for months. You do not have to convince anyone to sign up on day one, you get dozens of chances.

The reports show how many members signed up, how many stamps you gave on each offer and how many rewards were redeemed, so you can see in black and white which product works and which does not.

What it costs and what covers the plan

A plan with a listing in the Stampino app starts at 36.50 EUR a month, plus VAT where applicable.

A protein bar retails at roughly 2 to 3.50 EUR, and a gym counter sells it for more. The margin on a bar or a made-up shake is about a euro apiece.

At a conservative margin of around 1.20 EUR an item, the plan pays for itself with roughly 30 extra items a month. In a gym with a few hundred members, that is one shake or one bar a day.

Not new members. Just products that the members who already come buy from you instead of bringing from home.

As with any calculation of this kind, what is left is margin over the cost of the product: rent, wages and utilities come out of it afterwards.

The birthday reward

🎂

Stampinonow

Happy birthday!

There is a shake on the house for you today. Come by the counter after training.

In a gym it makes more sense than it first appears.

The reward appears on the card by itself on the day and is redeemed in the window you set. You keep no dates in a calendar and send nothing by hand.

In a gym a birthday is one of the few occasions where you speak to a member about something other than paying the membership. A shake on the house costs you a euro or so and gets remembered.

Push notifications to members

1

Stampinonow

New shake at the counter

We added a peanut butter shake. Your first stamp counts on it too.

A gym has predictable dead spells: January is packed, July is empty, and in between are the weeks when people drift off.

A notification reaches the phones of the members who hold the card, without depending on who happens to see your post. It is useful for a new product at the counter, a promotion running a few days, or an opening-hours announcement.

The number of members is unlimited on every plan, so signing up the whole gym costs you nothing extra.

You can also set an expiry period

You can leave the offer with no deadline, or set one in days, weeks or months. The deadline shows on the member's card, and when it passes the card resets.

In a gym, watch out for the summer. A member who comes regularly from September to June might miss four weeks in August, and a short deadline wipes their card in exactly the period you are already down.

If you set one, make it at least three months. The member is warned automatically seven days before and one day before. Expiry comes with the Standard plan and up.