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Design Examples
Loyalty Program Design: Real Examples That Work
See how Slopes, Peerlist, Octopus Energy and Zizzi build loyalty, with examples covering streak wildcards, unlockable merch, spin-the-wheel gifts and more.
Real world examples:
Updated: 26/08/2026, view all 1,450 examples
Examples on Built for Mars include
Slopes unlocks merch for tracking 2 seasons
Peerlist streaks unlock power features
Sweepy sells skipping a day as a reward
To encourage people to track ski activity in the app, across both multiple days and multiple trips (boosting retention), you'll unlock merch for doing so.
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This is brilliant, because a free hoody for simply tracking your activity feels like a valuable gift. But you need to track multiple seasons.
i.e., they're encouraging retention with branded merch.
This also gets them through their trial period, so may have an upsell benefit too.
Peerlist encourage streaks by rewarding the user with power features after they've hit milestones.
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What I like about this, is that that the rewards are mostly tied to power users.
e.g., unlocking "more influence" or "better profiles".
It leverages the Endowment Effect, as people they value their profile more.
To help make maintaining a habit more comfortable, Sweepy lets you earn a free pass every X days, like a loyalty scheme.
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Plus, they allow you to customise how many streak days you need to do, to unlock an additional wildcard.
This gives the user control, without a 'free pass' feeling like a failure.
Octopus Energy will let you earn Octopoints for completing habit-forming actions (like submitting meter readings), which you can then redeem for credit.
If you open the Gails app without WiFi, they'll show your loyalty ID so you can at least collect your stamps.
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FAQs
What makes a reward feel worth working for?
Rewards that improve the product itself beat generic credit. Peerlist ties its 7, 14, 21 and 30-day streak milestones to power features like more influence and better profiles, which leans on the Endowment Effect: the more you unlock, the more you value the account you've built.
How do you design loyalty for long-term retention, not a quick burst?
Stretch the milestones across the behaviour you actually want repeated. Slopes locks hoodies, pins and patches behind recording a first day, a third day and a second season, so the hoodie only arrives if you come back across trips and years — which also carries people through the trial.
Should a streak ever allow a day off?
A missed day is the moment most habits die, so Sweepy hands out earned "wildcards" that let you skip a day without breaking the streak. Users can also set how many days it takes to earn another one, so the break feels like progress rather than failure.
Which actions are worth attaching points to?
Pick the admin you need people to repeat. Octopus Energy gives Octopoints for habit-forming tasks like submitting meter readings, redeemable for account credit, so the scheme does operational work instead of just marketing.
What breaks a loyalty habit at the till?
Needing a connection to show a QR code. Gail's app displays your loyalty ID even when the connection drops, so nobody has to leave the queue hunting for signal — and the purchase still happens.
Do variable rewards work in retail and dining?
They're rare there, which is part of why they land. Zizzi has new members club sign-ups spin a wheel for a free gift, e.g., garlic bread with an expiry date, pairing chance with a deadline to get people booking a table.
How do lapsed-user emails fit into a loyalty programme?
They work best when they quantify what's been lost. Duolingo's reminder states how many days it's been and how many lessons the average learner completed in that time, stacking opportunity cost, loss aversion and social proof.