The short version: the loyalty was never separate from the till
Square Loyalty runs in eight countries: Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US. Saudi Arabia isn't one of them, according to Square's own documentation as of 18 August 2026. Toast covers the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and Australia. Neither company processes Saudi payments, so neither one sells you the loyalty half here.
You can still install the Square POS app in Riyadh. It just won't process cards. Outside its supported countries it records cash and external payments only. Square Loyalty stamps fire from purchases processed through Square, with no manual stamp button, so no processing means no stamps.
Loyverse is the real exception. It's software-only, free at the base tier, works anywhere, and has a points program built in. But its loyalty lives inside the register: the cashier finds the customer by typing a phone number or scanning a barcode card you printed yourself. There's no card sitting in the customer's phone.
Four things that break when you import a foreign stack
Start with payments. mada is the national card scheme run by the Saudi Central Bank, nearly every debit card in the Kingdom is a mada card, and bank terminals route through the mada switch. Any loyalty product that recognizes a customer by their card, or accrues points off a processed transaction, needs its vendor to be on that switch. Square and Toast aren't.
Your till also has a tax job here. ZATCA's Phase 2 e-invoicing rollout reached businesses with 375,000 SAR of annual taxable revenue in Wave 24, with an integration deadline of 30 June 2026, which in practice covers almost every VAT-registered shop. Invoices need a cryptographic stamp, a QR code, and reporting to the Fatoora platform. Ask any POS vendor to show you its Fatoora integration in writing, and confirm the detail with your accountant.
Then language. Square's point of sale ships in English, Spanish, French, and Japanese. Loyverse's published interface language list doesn't include Arabic as of August 2026. That's survivable in your own back office and painful the moment a customer name, a receipt, or a kitchen ticket has to render right to left.
Support hours are the quiet one. Riyadh is UTC+3, so a Boston vendor's 9:00 AM is your 4:00 PM. Your whole morning, the 8:00 to 11:00 AM stretch when a broken register actually hurts, has nobody awake on the other end. Sunday is a normal working day in Saudi Arabia and a closed weekend for them.
What shops in Riyadh and Jeddah actually run
The tills that survive in this market are built for it or carefully localized for it. Foodics, a Riyadh company, is the common answer for restaurants and cafes. Marn and Rewaa show up in retail. Loyverse shows up with owners who want a free register and will handle compliance separately. The Saudi-built ones treat mada and ZATCA reporting as product features rather than special requests, though you should confirm the current spec with each vendor directly.
Their loyalty modules exist. The catch is the one you just escaped: loyalty comes bundled with the POS, priced inside the POS plan, and usually parked on a higher tier. Change tills in two years and your customer list, your stamp balances, and your card design leave with the old vendor.
Saudi loyalty-only tools are the other half of the market. As of August 2026, Btaqa publishes tiers at 108, 250, and 380 SAR a month. OneCup is around 150 SAR a month. Watily is 149 SAR a month with loyalty inside a wider plan. Niqati is the best-known name in the Kingdom and the leader by search share, with quote-based pricing. Vendor pricing moves, so open each page yourself before deciding.
How to add loyalty without touching the till
A loyalty program needs three things: a way to recognize a returning customer, a counter, and a way to reach that customer later. None of the three touches the payment rail. Once you separate them, your POS decision and your loyalty decision stop being the same decision.
That's how Waya works, and the honest version matters more than the pitch. There's no POS integration and no hardware. Your cashier scans the customer's card on an ordinary phone, using the web dashboard or the Waya iOS app, after ringing up the sale on whatever till you already own. The customer scans your QR code, types a first name and a mobile number, and taps once to add the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Any other device gets a web card, and nothing is installed on the customer's phone.
The cost of not integrating is one extra action at the counter, about ten seconds. A stamp card also counts visits, not receipt totals, so if you want reward value tied to spend you use a points or balance card and have staff enter the amount. There's no SMS anywhere in this. Notifications arrive as wallet updates on the lock screen, including passive reminders when a customer is near a branch you set up on the Branches screen.
One more limit worth knowing before you plan staffing: the Android merchant app is in closed testing, so on Android your team uses the web dashboard in a browser instead. The free tier is free the boring way. 0 SAR forever, up to 100 customers, 100 wallet messages a month, one stamp card, one branch, custom card design, no credit card.
A worked example, with the assumptions written down
Say you run a cafe in Jeddah serving roughly 600 customers a month and you put a QR table tent at the register. If 15% of them enroll, that's 90 cards in the first month, and you cross the 100-customer free limit somewhere in week 5. Growth is 85 SAR a month, or 867 SAR a year paid annually, for unlimited customers and 5,000 messages a month.
Now the return side, which is arithmetic and not a promise. If 30 of those 90 enrolled customers come back one extra time in a month at an average ticket of 22 SAR, that's 660 SAR of additional sales against 85 SAR of subscription. Halve every assumption and it still clears. Run it again with your own average ticket and your own enrollment rate before you believe it.
The structural difference against everything above, Saudi or foreign, bundled or standalone, is where the meter starts. All of them begin with a paid subscription. Waya begins at 0 SAR and stays there up to 100 customers. Most of them ship wallet passes now, so don't choose on that alone. Choose on what your till already is, what your staff will genuinely do at the counter, and who answers the phone at 9:00 AM Riyadh time.
Frequently asked questions
Does Square work in Saudi Arabia?
Square doesn't process card payments in Saudi Arabia. As of August 2026 its supported list is Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US. You can install the Square POS app anywhere, but outside those countries it only records cash and external payments, and Square Loyalty stamps fire from processed transactions with no manual stamp option. Check Square's own country list before you plan around it.
Can I keep my current POS and add a loyalty program separately?
Yes, and for most Saudi shops that's the cheaper path. Loyalty only needs a way to identify a returning customer, a counter, and a message channel, none of which touch your payment terminal. Waya runs beside any till: staff scan the customer's wallet card on a phone after the sale is rung up. There's no integration to build and no hardware to buy.
Do my customers need to download an app?
No. They scan your QR code, enter a first name and a mobile number, and tap once to add the card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. On any other device they get a web card link instead. No account, no password, no app store visit.
Is Loyverse loyalty good enough on its own?
Loyverse gives you a free register with a built-in points program, which is a real answer when the budget is zero. The tradeoffs: the cashier identifies customers by typing a phone number or scanning a barcode card you print yourself, Arabic isn't on its published interface language list as of August 2026, and there's no pass that updates itself in the customer's wallet. Confirm its ZATCA Phase 2 position with the vendor and your accountant before you commit.
What happens after 100 customers on the Waya free plan?
The free plan stops enrolling new customers at 100 and stops sending at 100 wallet messages a month. It doesn't bill you, and everyone already enrolled keeps their card and keeps collecting stamps. To keep growing, Growth is 85 SAR a month (867 SAR a year) for unlimited customers, up to 10 cards, 3 branches, 5 staff accounts, and 5,000 messages a month.