PassKit and Fideliya look similar on a feature list. Both put loyalty passes into Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. Both support points, memberships, and gift cards. Both handle push notifications. But sitting down to actually launch a program on each one is a completely different experience — and that's the real comparison.
PassKit is infrastructure. It's a developer platform built for technical teams that need to issue millions of passes across multiple use cases: loyalty, tickets, coupons, boarding passes, memberships. Fideliya is a turnkey product. It's a finished loyalty platform for business owners who don't have a developer on payroll.
What PassKit does well
At the enterprise tier, PassKit is genuinely impressive. The API surface area is deep — they support custom integrations through Zapier, Make, webhooks, and direct API calls. They're SOC 2 Type II certified, which matters for retail chains, airlines, fitness franchises, and any business with serious compliance requirements. They handle multiple pass types from a single platform: loyalty cards, memberships, coupons, event tickets, boarding passes.
Their PassReader scanning app works on iOS and Android, and their pass templates support sophisticated design customization once you know the platform. Tiered volume pricing means the per-pass cost drops as you scale, which is the right model for businesses issuing hundreds of thousands of passes per month.
For a company with an engineering team building a custom loyalty product into their own app, PassKit is the right call. The infrastructure is solid, the documentation is thorough, and the platform won't be the bottleneck.
The "no-code builder" claim only holds up if you already understand Apple certificates, API keys, and webhook configuration.
The SMB reality check
For a single-owner business — a cafe, a salon, a small gym, a barber shop — PassKit is a different story. The platform requires an Apple Developer Account (additional $99/year, set up separately). The "no-code" pass builder still asks the user to understand certificate management, API authentication, and integration configuration. There's no turnkey dashboard designed for someone whose primary job is running the business, not managing wallet pass infrastructure.
The pricing is also opaque. The starting fee is $39.50/mo, but that's a platform fee — actual cost depends on how many passes you issue and what type. Multi-use passes (loyalty, membership, gift) carry a higher per-pass rate than single-use passes (coupons, tickets). To know what you'll actually pay, you need to model your expected volume and run the calculator. For a small business making a decision in an afternoon, that's friction.
Fideliya is the inverse. Sign up, design the pass through a visual editor, share the QR code, customers enroll. There's no Apple Developer account, no API keys, no certificate management. The pricing is flat: €0 free, €29.99/mo Starter, €49.99/mo Pro, €99.99/mo Enterprise. You know what you'll pay before you sign up.
Pricing and feature comparison
PassKit's usage-based model is the right choice for high-volume issuers — at scale, paying per-pass is cheaper than flat tiers. It's also the wrong choice for a business that wants budget predictability. A cafe issuing 500 passes a month doesn't want to think about per-pass economics; they want a monthly bill that doesn't change unless they upgrade.
On features, PassKit has the deeper API and the certifications. Fideliya has the built-in referral system, the multi-language support (PassKit's dashboard is English-only), the free tier, and the no-developer-required setup. For an SMB owner, those are the features that actually determine whether the platform gets used.
Who should choose which
Pick PassKit if you're an enterprise team with developers, if you need SOC 2 Type II for compliance, if you're issuing multiple pass types beyond loyalty (tickets, boarding passes, coupons at scale), or if your volume justifies usage-based pricing.
Pick Fideliya if you're a business owner who wants a loyalty program working by end of day, if you don't have an engineering team, if you need multilingual support, or if you want predictable flat pricing. PassKit is the right tool for building loyalty into a custom product. Fideliya is the right tool for running a loyalty program for an existing business.