The delivery app rents you demand and keeps the customer
A cloud kitchen has no counter, no window, and no table tent. The only physical thing you control is the bag, so that's where your loyalty program starts: a QR card the customer scans while the food is still hot. Every other move in this playbook depends on that one insert actually being in the order.
Aggregators hand you volume and keep the identity that comes with it. You get a ticket, a dropped pin, and usually a masked phone number that routes through the driver's app. When the in-app promotion ends, the orders leave with it, because nothing you own carries that customer into next month.
Be clear about the limits before you plan anything. Waya has no aggregator integration and no POS integration, and it does not send SMS, so it cannot see your HungerStation or Jahez orders. What it does is hold a wallet card for the customers who scan your QR, and stamp that card on the orders you handle yourself.
The bag insert is your entire acquisition channel
Print the QR from your dashboard on a card the size of a business card, or as a sticker for the lid. Scanning it opens one screen: first name and mobile number, then one tap to add the pass to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Any other device gets a web version of the same card. Nothing is downloaded and no password is created.
Placement decides your enrollment rate more than design does. Tape the card to the top of the container, or slip it under the bag seal so it's the first thing the customer sees. A card at the bottom of the bag under a sauce cup goes in the trash with the bag.
Write a reason on it, not a request. "Your 6th order is free, scan to start counting" beats "follow us on Instagram" because it states the reward and the effort in one line. Print it in Arabic and English if your area is mixed, since the card itself supports both.
You already know your order count, so this channel is measurable from week one. Insert 1,000 cards, read the enrollment count in the dashboard, and you have a conversion rate. If it lands at 3%, change the placement and the wording before you blame the card or the platform.
The arithmetic of moving 10% of orders direct
Here is the model with every assumption written out, so you can swap your own numbers in. Say you run 1,200 delivery orders a month at a 55 SAR average ticket, and you chase 10% of them, or 120 orders, onto a channel you own. I won't quote you a commission rate: pull last month's aggregator statement, divide total commission by gross order value, and use that. The 22% below is a placeholder.
Start with the 55 SAR the customer pays. Through the aggregator, a 22% commission takes 12.10 SAR and you keep 42.90 SAR before food cost. On your own link, a 2% card fee takes 1.10 SAR and the reward costs 1.50 SAR per order, because a free item with 9 SAR of food in it, earned every 6 orders, works out to 1.50 SAR each time. That leaves 52.40 SAR. Delivery is a wash if you charge the customer the courier fee at cost, the way the apps already do.
The gap is 9.50 SAR per order, after the reward, which is the honest number. Direct orders are not free money. At 120 orders a month that's 1,140 SAR a month, or 13,680 SAR a year, and it grows with the share you shift rather than with your total volume.
Set that against the software cost. Waya's Growth plan is 85 SAR a month, or 867 SAR a year with the 15% annual discount, so at 9.50 SAR retained per order the plan is paid for by the 9th direct order of the month. The Free plan is 0 SAR up to 100 customers with no credit card, which is enough to test the insert card for real. Two lines deserve suspicion: if you absorb the courier fee instead of passing it through, the direct order can end up worse than the aggregator order, and if your reward is a 25 SAR item rather than a 9 SAR one, redo the subtraction before you print 500 cards.
Where the stamps actually come from
This is the part that decides whether the program lives, and most loyalty advice skips it. On an aggregator order you generally cannot stamp anything, because the customer's number is masked and there is no integration between Waya and the delivery platform. So treat the bag insert as enrollment only. The stamp comes later, on an order you take yourself.
On a direct order you own the phone number, and that is the whole mechanism. Your packer opens the Scan screen on any phone or laptop and either scans the customer's pass or types their mobile number, 05 plus 8 digits, to pull up the card and add the stamp. It takes a few seconds and it fits inside the step where the bag gets sealed.
If you run a pickup hatch, scan the pass on the customer's phone at handoff instead. That's the fastest version of the same action. Either way it is manual, so it belongs on the packing checklist next to "seal the bag" rather than in somebody's memory. A skipped stamp is the most common way a cloud kitchen program quietly dies, and the customer notices before you do.
Give the customer a reason to leave the app
Ordering direct costs the customer something real. They have to save your number or link, pay a different way, and trust your delivery to show up. Pay them for that. The cleanest rule is that stamps only count on direct orders, printed on the card in one plain sentence so nobody feels tricked.
Read your aggregator agreement before you design the offer. Some restrict what you can put in the bag, and some require price parity with your in-app menu. Competing on the reward instead of the menu price keeps you clear of that argument, and it's the better offer anyway: a free 6th order is worth more to a regular than 3 SAR off today.
Once customers hold a pass, the card updates itself and messages land on their lock screen with no SMS involved. Budget those sends: the Free plan allows 100 wallet messages a month, which a single blast to 100 customers uses up entirely, while Growth allows 5,000. Skip the geofenced branch reminders here, since they exist for shops people walk past and nobody walks past a kitchen in an industrial unit.
The report worth opening every week is the one showing which regulars have gone quiet. A message on Thursday evening, ahead of the Saudi weekend, to the 40 customers who ordered twice and then stopped will do more than a discount pushed at everyone. Win-back messaging runs from that same screen.
A 30-day rollout that fits around service
Week 1: build one stamp card in your own colors, set the reward at 6 stamps, and print 500 QR inserts. Add "insert the card" to the packing checklist and tell the closing shift to count leftovers, so you know how many actually went out.
Week 2: publish a direct route worth ordering from. A WhatsApp number that a human answers within a few minutes is enough to start, and a one-page ordering link is better. Put that route on the back of the same insert, next to the sentence about stamps counting on direct orders only.
Week 3: stamp every direct order, using the phone lookup for delivery and a scan at the hatch for pickup. Compare stamps added against direct orders taken at the end of each day. If the two numbers drift apart, the checklist step is being skipped and no amount of card design will fix that.
Week 4: read three numbers and act on one. Enrollments per 100 inserts tells you if the card works, direct orders as a share of total tells you if the incentive works, and the count of customers with two or more direct orders tells you if the reward threshold is reachable. Then send one message to the quiet list and leave everything else alone for another month.
Frequently asked questions
Can Waya track my HungerStation or Jahez orders?
No. Waya has no integration with delivery aggregators and no POS integration, so it cannot see orders placed inside a delivery app. The bag insert enrolls those customers into your card, and the stamps get added on the orders you take directly, where you have the customer's mobile number.
How does a delivery customer get a stamp if nobody scans anything?
Your staff add it from the Scan screen by typing the customer's mobile number, 05 plus 8 digits, instead of scanning the pass. It pulls up their card in a couple of seconds and works on any phone or a laptop in the kitchen. It is a manual step, so keep it on the packing checklist.
Do my customers need to download an app?
No. They scan your QR code, type a first name and mobile number, and tap once to add the pass to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Devices that support neither get a web card at the same link. There is no account and no password.
How many direct orders do I need before a loyalty program pays for itself?
In the worked example above, 9 direct orders a month cover the 85 SAR Growth plan, based on 9.50 SAR retained per order after the card fee and reward cost. Run the same subtraction with your own commission rate and average ticket before committing. The Free plan is 0 SAR up to 100 customers, so you can test the insert card first without paying anything.
What happens when I pass 100 customers on the free plan?
Enrollment stops at 100 customers and 100 wallet messages a month, and it is a hard stop rather than an overage charge. Everyone already enrolled keeps their card and keeps collecting stamps. Growth is 85 SAR a month, or 867 SAR a year, for unlimited customers and 5,000 messages a month.