What Waya and Btaqa actually cost over twelve months

The two price lists, side by side

Btaqa publishes three monthly tiers: 108, 250, and 380 SAR, as of 18 August 2026. Waya publishes three as well: 0, 85, and 149 SAR a month. Two of Waya's three tiers sit below Btaqa's cheapest published price. One does not, and that exception is the most useful part of this article.

Here is what Waya's numbers buy. Free is 0 SAR forever: up to 100 customers, 100 wallet messages a month, 1 stamp card, 1 branch, custom card design, and the full dashboard, with no credit card. Growth is 85 SAR a month: unlimited customers, up to 10 cards, 3 branches, 5 staff accounts, 5,000 messages a month, all card types, Excel import, and advanced analytics. Premium is 149 SAR a month: unlimited cards, branches, staff, and messages, plus priority support.

For Btaqa I have the three prices and nothing more. I am not going to guess what sits inside each of their tiers, so treat everything below as a price comparison, not a feature comparison. Vendor pricing moves. Open their site and confirm the three numbers yourself before you decide anything.

The same numbers over twelve months

Monthly prices hide the size of the gap. Over twelve months at the published monthly rates, Btaqa's tiers come to 1,296 SAR, 3,000 SAR, and 4,560 SAR. Waya's come to 0 SAR, 1,020 SAR, and 1,788 SAR.

Waya's annual billing takes 15% off, so Growth prepaid is 867 SAR a year and Premium prepaid is 1,520 SAR a year. Against Btaqa's 1,296 SAR entry tier, Waya Growth prepaid saves 429 SAR over the year. Against their 250 SAR tier, Waya Premium prepaid saves 1,480 SAR. Against their 380 SAR tier, it saves 3,040 SAR.

One more number belongs in the annual column: setup. Waya charges no setup fee, no per-card fee, and no commission on what you sell. I do not know whether Btaqa charges any of those, which is exactly the kind of thing worth asking in writing before you sign.

The one cell where Btaqa's published price wins

Btaqa's entry tier is 108 SAR a month. Waya Premium is 149 SAR a month. That is 41 SAR a month in Btaqa's favor, or 492 SAR over twelve months of monthly billing.

Whether that gap is real depends entirely on what their 108 SAR tier includes, and I am not the right person to tell you. If their entry tier covers your branch count, your staff logins, and your monthly message volume, then it is cheaper than Waya's top tier. Say that out loud when you compare the two.

The comparison most shops actually face is a different one. If you do not need unlimited messages, Waya Growth at 85 SAR is 23 SAR a month under Btaqa's entry price, and 5,000 messages a month is a lot of messages for one shop. Credit where it is due, though: Btaqa publishes three prices in public. Niqati, the best-known name in this market, is quote-based, so you cannot build a table like this one for them at all.

Break-even is a message count, not a customer count

On Waya's paid tiers the metered resource is wallet messages, not customers. Growth and Premium both include unlimited customers. So once you are paying, the number that picks your tier is how many notifications you send, not how many people carry your card.

Growth's 5,000 messages a month can be spent in different shapes. It is 5,000 customers messaged once a month, 2,500 messaged twice, or 1,250 messaged four times. At the ceiling, 85 SAR buys a message for 0.017 SAR.

The free tier is the stricter one, because it caps both sides: 100 customers and 100 messages a month. A list of 100 people messaged once a month lands exactly on the line. Two sends a month to those same 100 people is 200 messages, and that is the month you move to Growth.

In practice, message volume is a discipline problem more than a pricing problem. A 300-person list does not want 6,000 messages a month, and the shops that send the most are rarely the shops that get the most back. Model the sends you will actually make, not the ceiling you might one day reach.

A worked year: the shop that crosses 100 customers in month four

Assume a coffee shop in Riyadh enrolls 30 new customers a month and sends one wallet message a month to its list. Months 1 through 3 sit inside the free tier: 30, then 60, then 90 customers, and 30, 60, and 90 messages. That part of the year costs 0 SAR.

Month 4 is when 30 more enrollments push the list past 100 and the free tier stops. Moving to Growth for the remaining nine months costs 9 x 85 = 765 SAR. The same shop on Btaqa's 108 SAR entry tier would have paid 12 x 108 = 1,296 SAR. Difference for year one: 531 SAR.

Slow the enrollment rate to 15 a month and the picture changes again. You cross 100 customers in month 7, pay for six months of Growth at 510 SAR, and finish the year 786 SAR below Btaqa's entry tier. That gap is not a discount. It is the months you never paid for while the program was still small.

These are worked examples with the assumptions written out, not projections. Change the enrollment rate or the send frequency and both totals move, which is the point of doing the arithmetic on your own shop instead of mine.

What Waya does not do

Waya has no POS or till integration. Nothing connects to your payment terminal and nothing reads your receipts. Staff add stamps, points, or redemptions by scanning the customer's card on an ordinary phone, either in the web dashboard or in the Waya merchant iOS app. If you want loyalty tied automatically to transaction value, Waya is not that product.

Waya does not send SMS. Messages arrive as Apple Wallet and Google Wallet notifications on the lock screen, and there is a web card fallback for other devices. Customers install nothing: they scan your QR code, type a first name and a mobile number, and tap once to add the pass. The merchant app is iOS today, and the Android build is still in closed testing.

The free tier really does stop. At 100 customers or 100 messages in a calendar month it will not go further, although everyone already enrolled keeps their card and keeps collecting. For scale: 100+ shops across Saudi Arabia run on Waya, with 5,000+ cards living in customer wallets and a 4.9/5 average rated by 90 merchants.

How to check all of this before you pay anyone

First, open Btaqa's pricing page today and write down the three numbers next to what each tier limits: customers, branches, staff logins, and message volume. Every price in this article is dated 18 August 2026, mine included, and any of them can move. Ask about setup fees and contract length in writing.

Second, count two things about your own shop. How many regulars would you realistically enroll in three months, and how many messages a month would you actually send? Those two numbers pick your tier on either platform. Most single-location shops find the second number is one or two sends a month, not ten.

Third, run the cheaper experiment first. Waya's free tier costs 0 SAR, needs no credit card, and gives you 100 real customers plus a month of dashboard data to argue with. If it works you will know what you are buying before you spend 85 SAR, and if it does not, you have spent nothing.