APPLE WALLET
An Apple Wallet loyalty card is a pass the customer adds to Apple Wallet and shows at the counter. A loyalty or prepaid card that sits in Apple Wallet, next to the boarding passes. Here is what that actually requires, what it costs, and what happens for the customers who are not on an iPhone.
An Apple Wallet pass is a small signed file. It carries your business name, your colour and logo, a barcode, and fields you define — for a loyalty card, the visits remaining or the stamps collected. Because it is signed, Apple can push an update to it: when you record a visit, the number on the customer’s phone changes without them doing anything.
That last property is what makes it different from a photo of a punch card. The card is authoritative, and the count is not a matter of anyone’s memory.
Apple requires a Pass Type ID certificate, which needs a paid Apple Developer account, and every pass must be signed with it. That is the barrier for most small businesses — not the cost so much as maintaining a certificate that expires. Using a service means the certificate is someone else’s problem.
Worth being plain about, because it is the first thing anyone sensible asks. Apple Wallet is iPhone only, and Android has Google Wallet — a different format, its own certificate, its own approval process. Returnpass holds both, so one link serves either phone: an iPhone is offered Apple Wallet, an Android is offered Google Wallet, and the balance updates itself on both.
You do not have to choose, and you do not have to ask a customer what phone they have. The Google Wallet side is covered here.
Yes, but not directly. Apple requires a Pass Type ID certificate from a paid Apple Developer account, and every pass has to be cryptographically signed with it. Most small businesses use a service that already holds a certificate rather than maintaining one; Returnpass signs each pass with its own.
No. They open a link and tap once. The card is added to Apple Wallet alongside their boarding passes and payment cards. There is no account to create and nothing to install.
Android has Google Wallet, which uses a different format. Returnpass supports both: the same link offers Apple Wallet on an iPhone and Google Wallet on Android, and the pass updates itself either way. Anyone who would rather not use a wallet at all can keep the link, which works the same.
Yes. When you record a visit, Apple pushes the change to the card on the customer’s phone. They do not need to reopen the link, and the number on their lock screen is the same one on your dashboard.
Apple charges nothing for passes themselves; the developer account behind the certificate is the cost, and a service absorbs that. Returnpass is free for five active passes and then priced by how many customers currently hold one.
It is harder to lose, and it is visible to you as well as to the customer — you can see who is one visit from a reward, which paper cannot tell you. A car-wash field experiment found completion rose from 19% to 34% when progress was made visible for the same number of purchases.
Five active passes free, no card required. The fastest way to see what a customer sees.