If you searched for Belly loyalty program recently, you probably noticed something odd: the product that once put an iPad on coffee shop counters has quietly transformed into Rewards Network, a dining-focused financing and marketing service. That shift matters a lot if you run a salon, barbershop, gym, or independent restaurant and just want a straightforward way to reward repeat customers.
This comparison cuts through the history and the marketing copy to answer one question: which platform actually fits a local brick-and-mortar in 2025?
What Belly was, and what it became
Belly launched around 2011 as a tablet-based loyalty platform for small businesses. Customers checked in on an iPad at the counter, earned points, and redeemed rewards. It raised significant venture funding and signed up tens of thousands of merchants before being acquired by Rewards Network in 2019.
Rewards Network is primarily a restaurant financing company. It advances cash to restaurants in exchange for a percentage of future credit card sales, and it bundles dining rewards through partnerships with airline miles programs and hotel loyalty schemes. The loyalty piece is now secondary to the financing product. If you are not a restaurant, or if you are a restaurant that does not need a cash advance, the platform has very little to offer you.
Who each platform is actually built for
This is the most important question to ask before comparing features or pricing.
Rewards Network (formerly Belly) is built for restaurants that want access to capital and are willing to pay for it through a revenue-share arrangement. The loyalty component attracts diners who already collect airline miles or hotel points, which skews the audience toward occasional visitors rather than your regulars. Independent coffee shops, hair salons, nail studios, barbershops, and gyms are largely outside the target customer for this product today.
Loyally is built specifically for local brick-and-mortar businesses across all the categories above. The card types cover the full range of what a local business actually needs: stamp cards, reward cards, membership cards, cashback cards, coupon cards, multipass cards, discount cards, and gift cards. All of them live in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, so customers do not install a separate app.
The audience fit alone should narrow your decision quickly. If you run a restaurant and need working capital, Rewards Network is worth investigating as a financing product. If you want a loyalty program that serves your regulars across any local business type, it is not the right tool.
Features side by side
Here is a direct comparison of the features that matter most to a local business owner.
| Feature | Loyally | Rewards Network (Belly) |
|---|---|---|
| Card types available | Stamp, reward, membership, cashback, coupon, multipass, discount, gift | Points-based dining rewards only |
| Customer app required | No (Apple Wallet / Google Wallet) | Belly app (legacy); now tied to partner dining apps |
| Business types served | Coffee shops, salons, barbershops, restaurants, gyms, retail, spas, and more | Primarily restaurants |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly subscription | Revenue-share / financing arrangement |
| Transparent public pricing | Yes | No (custom quotes tied to financing terms) |
| Push notifications to customers | Yes (via wallet passes) | Limited |
| Setup time | Same day | Varies; onboarding tied to financing approval |
| Contract required | No (month-to-month available) | Yes (financing agreements have terms) |
The wallet-pass approach deserves a closer look. When a customer adds your loyalty card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, you can send them a push notification the next time they are near your shop. That kind of location-aware nudge is something a paper punch card or a third-party app buried on page three of someone's phone cannot do. For a deeper look at how this works in practice, see how Apple Wallet loyalty cards work for local shops.
Pricing and the real cost of each option
Loyally publishes its pricing openly. The Starter plan is $17 per month (or $12 per month billed annually). Growth is $30 per month (or $24 per month billed annually). Premium is $98 per month (or $78 per month billed annually). Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial, and there is no revenue-share or percentage of sales involved.
Rewards Network does not publish pricing in the same way because its model is fundamentally different. You receive a cash advance, and in exchange the company collects a set percentage of your credit card revenue until the advance plus fees are repaid. The loyalty marketing is bundled into that arrangement. This means the effective cost of the loyalty program is embedded in the cost of the financing, which makes direct comparison difficult.
For a business that genuinely needs a cash advance and happens to want some dining reward exposure, that bundling might make sense. For a business that simply wants to run a loyalty program without taking on financing, paying a percentage of sales is a much more expensive way to do it than a flat monthly subscription.
You can get a rough sense of the revenue impact a loyalty program can have on your own numbers using the loyalty calculator before committing to any platform.
Retention economics: why the platform choice matters
The business case for loyalty programs is well established. According to Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing one, and increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95% (Bain & Company, via the same source). Research from Accenture found that members of loyalty programs generate 12 to 18% more incremental revenue growth per year than non-members.
Those numbers only materialize if customers actually use the program. A loyalty card that lives in a dedicated app competes for attention with every other app on a customer's phone. A card that lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet sits next to their payment cards and boarding passes, which means it gets seen every time they open their wallet.
The friction of downloading a separate app also reduces enrollment. Every extra step between "I'd like to join your loyalty program" and "I'm enrolled" costs you sign-ups. Wallet-based cards remove that barrier entirely.
Where Rewards Network still makes sense
It would be unfair to dismiss Rewards Network entirely for the wrong use case. If you own a restaurant and are in a cash-flow crunch, their advance product can be a faster path to capital than a traditional bank loan. The dining rewards exposure through airline and hotel partners can also bring in new customers who are specifically looking for places to earn miles.
The honest framing is this: Rewards Network is a financial product with a loyalty component attached. Loyally is a loyalty product, full stop. Those are different tools for different problems.
If your primary goal is rewarding your existing regulars and building the kind of retention that compounds over time, a dedicated loyalty platform is the better fit. If you need working capital and the loyalty exposure is a bonus, Rewards Network is worth a conversation.
For a broader look at how to think about standalone loyalty tools versus features bundled into other products, the post on standalone loyalty app vs POS add-on covers that trade-off in more detail.
Making the switch or starting fresh
If you used Belly years ago and are now looking at your options again, the landscape has changed. The tablet-at-the-counter model has largely given way to wallet-based and QR-code-based systems that do not require dedicated hardware. Your customers are already comfortable adding cards to their phone wallets, and they do not want to download another app.
Setting up a loyalty program on Loyally takes a few hours at most. You pick your card type, configure your reward rules, add your branding, and share the enrollment link or QR code. Customers scan it, add the card to their wallet, and they are in. There is no hardware to buy, no iPad to maintain, and no app for customers to update.
The 14-day free trial means you can test it with real customers before paying anything. That is a meaningful difference from a financing arrangement that locks you into terms before you know whether the loyalty component will work for your business.
Frequently asked questions
Is Belly still available as a standalone loyalty platform?
Belly as an independent product no longer operates in the way it did before the Rewards Network acquisition. The current Rewards Network product is primarily a restaurant financing and dining rewards service. If you are looking for a standalone loyalty platform for a local business, you will need to look at alternatives like Loyally.
Does Rewards Network work for businesses that are not restaurants?
Rewards Network focuses almost entirely on the restaurant industry. Its financing product is tied to restaurant credit card sales, and its dining rewards partnerships are built around restaurant spending. Coffee shops, salons, barbershops, gyms, and retail stores are generally outside the scope of what the platform serves.
Do my customers need to download an app to use Loyally cards?
No. Loyally cards live in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet. Customers add the card by scanning a QR code or tapping a link, and the card appears in their existing wallet app. There is nothing new to download or create an account for.
How does Loyally pricing compare to a revenue-share model?
Loyally charges a flat monthly fee: $17/mo on Starter, $30/mo on Growth, or $98/mo on Premium (lower with annual billing). A revenue-share model takes a percentage of your sales, which means the more successful your business is, the more you pay. For most local businesses running a loyalty program, a flat subscription is significantly cheaper over time.
What card types can I run on Loyally?
Loyally supports stamp cards, reward cards, membership cards, cashback cards, coupon cards, multipass cards, discount cards, and gift cards. All card types live in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, and you can run more than one type depending on your plan.
