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Loyalty program statistics 2026, with sources

Twelve loyalty program statistics published in 2026, each linked to the organisation that ran the research rather than to a roundup of it. Fideliya adds one section of its own production data, dated and with its sample size stated.

Twelve loyalty statistics from three named 2026 reports, each with its figure, method and source, plus what Fideliya sees in its own production data.

By Zakaria Fahim · September 4, 2026 · 8 min read

Most loyalty statistics circulate without a source. A figure appears in a roundup, the roundup is cited by the next roundup, and four links later nobody can say who measured what, when, or on how many people. This page carries twelve figures published in 2026, each attributed to the organisation that ran the research, with the method and the sample size next to the number.

Where a figure could not be traced to a primary source and fetched, it is not here. That is why the list is twelve rather than fifty.

What program owners report

The first four figures come from Antavo's Global Customer Loyalty Report 2026, published on 3 February 2026. Antavo states its method as 3,000 survey responses from CMOs, marketing, IT and loyalty experts, a consumer panel filled out by 10,000 loyalty program members globally, and 500 million member actions tracked on its own platform.

FigureWhat it measuresSource
83.0%Program owners satisfied with their program's performanceAntavo 2026
92.7% / 5.3xOwners reporting a positive return, and the average ROIAntavo 2026
89.4%Brands saying the program delivers value they would not otherwise captureAntavo 2026
51.5%Share of total marketing budget allocated to loyalty and CRMAntavo 2026

The ROI figure is the one most often quoted without its qualifier, so the qualifier is worth keeping: it is the average among owners who measure performance, reported by those owners, in a survey run by a loyalty platform vendor. That is not a reason to discard it. It is a reason to cite it as what it is.

What customers report

The next four come from the consumer half of the same Antavo report, the panel of 10,000 loyalty program members.

  1. 65.9 percent of consumers surveyed said loyalty programs are now part of their everyday lives.
  2. 43.2 percent say they are more likely to join a program now than before.
  3. 31.3 percent say they are more likely to keep doing business with a brand that offers a good loyalty program.
  4. 82.6 percent of marketers believe loyalty programs make customers feel valued, against 56.2 percent of customers who agree. The gap is 26 points.

That last pair is the most useful number on this page for a small business, because it is the only one that measures a disagreement rather than an opinion. Whatever a program owner believes the card is doing for the relationship, roughly half of customers do not report feeling it.

Points, mechanics and apps

Four more figures, from Antavo, from Open Loyalty's Loyalty Program Trends page updated on 24 April 2026 and built on 170 or more loyalty professionals, and from AppsFlyer's 2025 App Uninstall Report.

FigureWhat it measuresSource
27%Share of points earned in 2025 that were left unspentAntavo 2026
12%Share of points earned that expire, in programs that use expiryAntavo 2026
81%Consumers interested in seeing progress shown visuallyOpen Loyalty 2026
46.1%App installs uninstalled within 30 days in 2024, AndroidAppsFlyer 2025

Read together, those four describe the same failure from two directions. Points that are never spent and points that expire are value the customer earned and did not receive. An app that is uninstalled inside a month is a program the customer joined and then lost the door to. The Open Loyalty figure is the counterweight: shown progress is what people say they want, and progress that lives behind an install is progress most people stop seeing.

What we see in Fideliya's data

These are production aggregates measured on 4 September 2026 across external accounts only. They are a small sample and they are stated as one: 255 enrolled cards, of which a single restaurant accounts for 213, or 84 percent. Read them as one business's shape with a few others alongside it, not as an industry benchmark.

In Fideliya's data on 4 September 2026, of the 186 cards that have ever been scanned, 165 were scanned within an hour of the customer adding the card, which is 89 percent, and the same sample is 84 percent one restaurant. Enrolment is happening at the counter, not at home later. Across those 255 cards the wallet split is close to even, 131 Apple against 124 Google, which is the argument for issuing both rather than choosing. And among the 15 live stamp cards, the most common goal is 10 stamps, chosen by 8 of the 15, with the rest spread across 5, 6, 7, 12 and 15.

What is not measured, and so is not claimed: visits to a first reward, referral conversions, and anything about redemption behaviour at scale. Those need a different query and a larger sample, and they will carry their own date when they exist.

How to use a statistic without becoming a roundup

One more caution about this genre. Loyalty statistics are overwhelmingly published by loyalty vendors, including two of the three sources on this page and including Fideliya's own section below. That does not make the figures wrong, and it does not make them neutral either. A survey of program owners run by a platform that sells to program owners has a shape, and the honest response is to name the publisher every time the figure is repeated rather than to launder it through a roundup that does not.

The figures most worth trusting in any such report are the ones that are unflattering to the publisher. Antavo reporting that 27 percent of earned points go unspent, and that customers agree far less than marketers do about feeling valued, are both findings that make the category look worse, which is a reasonable signal that the survey was not written backwards from its conclusion.

Three rules make the difference between a page that gets cited and a page that recycles. Cite the organisation that ran the research, not the article that quoted it. Keep the sample size and the date attached to the figure, because a 2019 number in a 2026 list is a claim about today that nobody made. And leave the gaps visible: this page has no sourced figure about stamp cards specifically, and saying so is more useful than filling the space.

The practical companions to this page are what loyalty software costs in 2026 for the price side, how many stamps a loyalty card should have for the design decision the goal distribution above informs, and loyalty app or wallet pass, which is where the uninstall figure does its real work. If the program is not running yet, the launch checklist is the first thirty days.

Sources

Antavo, Global Customer Loyalty Report 2026, published 3 February 2026, based on 3,000 industry survey responses and a 10,000-member consumer panel. Open Loyalty, Loyalty Program Trends, page updated 24 April 2026, based on 170 or more loyalty professionals. AppsFlyer, App Uninstall Report, 2025 edition, covering 2.2 thousand apps and 1.3 billion installs across the top 40 markets, Android only. All three were retrieved on 4 September 2026. Fideliya's own figures are production aggregates measured the same day.

Fideliya is wallet-native loyalty program software for small businesses. Customers add a stamp or points card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet in one tap, with no app to download and no account to create. Fideliya runs stamps, points, gift cards and referrals on one platform in English, French, Spanish and Arabic with full right-to-left support, and the free plan issues a real wallet pass for up to 20 customers. The metrics Fideliya reports back to a business are listed on what a loyalty dashboard should report, and the plans are on the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average ROI of a loyalty program?

Antavo’s Global Customer Loyalty Report 2026 reports an average ROI of 5.3x among program owners who measure it, with 92.7 percent reporting a positive return. Fideliya links that figure to the report rather than to a roundup, because the number belongs to the organisation that ran the survey.

How many people use the loyalty programs they join?

Antavo’s 2026 report found that 65.9 percent of the consumers it surveyed say loyalty programs are now part of their everyday lives. In Fideliya’s own data, 73 percent of enrolled cards have been scanned at least once, from 255 cards where one restaurant is 84 percent of the sample.

Are loyalty points going unused?

Antavo reports that 27 percent of the points customers earned in 2025 were left unspent, and that 12 percent of points earned expire in programs that use expiry. Fideliya runs stamps and points without point expiry, so a balance a customer earned stays on the card.

Do businesses and customers agree about loyalty programs?

Not closely. Antavo’s 2026 report puts 82.6 percent of marketers believing loyalty programs make customers feel valued against 56.2 percent of customers who agree. Fideliya treats that gap as the argument for showing a balance on the card rather than inside an app.

How often are mobile apps uninstalled?

AppsFlyer’s 2025 App Uninstall Report puts 46.1 percent of installs uninstalled within 30 days in 2024, measured on Android because iOS uninstall tracking is limited after iOS 15. Fideliya issues a wallet pass instead of an app, so there is no install to lose.

Where do these statistics come from?

Three named 2026 sources: Antavo’s Global Customer Loyalty Report 2026, Open Loyalty’s Loyalty Program Trends, and AppsFlyer’s App Uninstall Report. Fideliya links each figure to the organisation that published the research, and states the sample size next to it.

Does Fideliya publish its own numbers?

Yes, with limits stated. Fideliya publishes production aggregates from 4 September 2026 with the sample size on every figure and a note that one restaurant accounts for 84 percent of the cards, because a small sample described as small is still usable and a small sample described as large is not.

Why are there no statistics here about stamp cards specifically?

Because Fideliya could not find a primary source for one that it could fetch and date. A page of sourced statistics that adds an unsourced figure to fill a gap is no longer a page of sourced statistics, so the gap stays visible.

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Loyalty program statistics 2026, with sources — Fideliya Blog