The loyalty software costs that never reach the pricing page

The subscription is the smallest line on the invoice

The monthly subscription is usually the cheapest part of running a loyalty program. The money leaves through six other lines: message bundles, per-pass fees, setup and design work, annual prepay, staff seats, and the reward itself. None of the six sits on a pricing page.

That is not dishonesty. Pricing pages compete on one number, so the extras move into the quote, the onboarding call, or an appendix you skim after deciding. Below is each line and how to price it before you sign. Competitor figures here are what those vendors publish as of 18 August 2026, so verify them yourself.

Message bundles: the line that grows when the program works

Most loyalty tools charge for outbound messages, and most of them mean SMS. SMS in Saudi Arabia is bought per message from a gateway, so a vendor reselling it has to meter you. Your bill then rises exactly when the program starts working, because a bigger list means more sends.

Price the bundle against your own list first. Take 400 enrolled customers and two messages each a month: that is 800 sends. At 0.10 SAR a message you have added 80 SAR to a 150 SAR subscription, and it doubles again at 800 customers. Then ask the question that decides the real number: when I pass the bundle, do sends stop or does billing continue?

Waya sends no SMS. Updates go to the wallet pass itself and appear on the lock screen, the way an airline boarding pass changes gate without texting you. The metered number here is wallet messages: 100 a month on Free, 5,000 on Growth, unlimited on Premium. No customer phone number reaches a messaging vendor, because there is no messaging vendor.

Per-pass, per-card, and per-scan fees

The next thing to hunt for is anything billed per unit of success. That means per pass issued, per card active each month, per scan, per redemption, or a cut of the reward's face value. One riyal per pass reads as nothing next to a 150 SAR subscription, but enroll 600 people in a quarter and it is 600 SAR.

Ask about re-issues specifically. A customer who changes phone, deletes the pass, or signs up twice can end up with a second pass. If the vendor bills per pass created rather than per unique customer, you have a leak you cannot see from your dashboard.

Waya has no per-pass fee, no per-card fee, and no commission on sales. The Free plan stops at 100 customers, and Growth at 85 SAR a month is unlimited customers. On paid plans the metered number is messages, not people.

Setup, onboarding, and design charges

One-time fees live in the first row of a quote: setup, activation, account configuration, staff training, sometimes card artwork. A 500 SAR setup fee on top of 150 SAR a month makes year one 2,300 SAR, not 1,800 SAR. It is also the line most often waived when a buyer pushes back, so push back.

Card design is the quiet one, because some vendors include one design and bill for every change after that. This matters if you want a Ramadan card during the fasting month and a different one for Founding Day, the Saudi national holiday on 22 February. Ask how many design changes a year are included, and what the third one costs.

Waya charges no setup fee, and the card designer is on every plan including Free: colors, logo, stamp count, reward wording, Arabic or English. On Growth and Premium the Waya team works on the design with you as part of the plan. Change the card whenever you like, and the pass already in a customer's wallet updates itself.

Annual prepay, contract length, and staff seats

An annual discount is real money and a real lock-in at once. Twelve months paid up front buys software your cashiers have not used on a busy evening yet. Run one or two months monthly, read your own enrollment and redemption numbers, then move to annual if the tool earned it.

Read the exit terms in the same sitting: notice period, refunds on unused months, and how auto-renewal is triggered. Then ask the question owners forget. Can I export my customer list and their balances myself, as a CSV, at no charge? If not, leaving costs you the list, and that is the most expensive hidden fee on this page.

Staff seats are the last recurring surprise, since per-user pricing is awkward in a shop with shifts. Three cashiers across two branches is easily five logins. Waya includes 5 staff accounts on Growth and unlimited staff on Premium. Ask any vendor whether a cashier who only scans cards counts as a billed seat.

The largest line item is the one no vendor invoices: the reward

The free coffee is your cost, not the vendor's. Past a few hundred enrolled customers it is usually the biggest number in the program. No pricing page can show it, because only you know your cost of goods.

Work it out with the assumptions written down. Take a cafe serving 300 customers a month, 40 of them enrolled in month one, on a buy-8-get-1 card. The free latte sells for 18 SAR and costs about 5 SAR in beans, milk, and cup. If 12 of those 40 finish a card that month, rewards cost 60 SAR against 85 SAR of software. At 400 enrolled customers and 90 redemptions a month, rewards cost roughly 450 SAR while the software is still 85 SAR.

That crossover is the real budgeting exercise, and it is why the reward threshold matters more than the vendor. Not every card gets finished, so plan on the completion rate you observe after two months rather than on sign-ups. Set the threshold so the visit that earns the reward is still a visit you wanted.

Waya's own lines, including the unflattering ones

Here is the whole Waya bill. Free is 0 SAR forever for up to 100 customers and 100 wallet messages a month, with no credit card. Growth is 85 SAR a month or 867 SAR a year, and Premium is 149 SAR a month or 1,520 SAR a year. Annual is 15% off, and there is no setup fee, no per-card fee, and no commission on sales.

Now the parts that are not on our pricing page either, because they are limits rather than charges. There is no POS or till integration: staff add stamps by scanning the customer's card on an ordinary phone, beside whatever terminal you own. There is no SMS and no hardware. The Free plan is a hard stop, so customer 101 cannot enroll until you upgrade, though everyone already enrolled keeps collecting.

For context, here is vendor-published pricing as of 18 August 2026. Btaqa lists 108, 250, and 380 SAR a month. OneCup is around 150 SAR a month, and Watily is 149 SAR a month with loyalty bundled into a wider plan. Niqati, the best-known loyalty name in the Saudi market, quotes on request.

Each of those does something well. Niqati's local sales and support depth is hard to match, and Btaqa publishes its tiers openly, which many vendors do not. The structural difference is where the first invoice sits: all of them start with a paid subscription, and Waya starts at 0 SAR.

The 10-question quote checklist

Send these ten in one email and ask for the answers in one reply. Money first. 1) What is my total first-year cost, including every one-time fee? 2) Is there a setup, activation, or training charge? 3) How many messages are included, of what type, and what does the first message over the limit cost? 4) Is there any fee per pass, per card, per scan, or per redemption?

Then scope, because most surprise invoices are limits you crossed. 5) How many staff logins are included, and does a scan-only cashier consume one? 6) How many branches, and can they share a single card? 7) How many card designs are included, and what does a seasonal redesign cost? 8) When I hit a plan limit, does the feature stop or does the bill grow automatically?

Then the exit, which nobody asks about while signing. 9) What is the contract length and the notice period, and are unused prepaid months refundable? 10) Can I export every customer, phone number, and balance as a CSV myself, at no charge?

A vendor who answers all ten in one reply is a vendor whose invoice you can predict. Run the same ten past Waya, then start on the Free plan and watch your own counter for a month before you pay anybody, us included.