For cafes
A coffee card that survives the Saturday rush
The coffee card is the original loyalty card, and the one most often lost, forgotten or stamped twice by a flustered barista. Counter Club keeps the same deal and moves it to the customer's mobile number, so the card is never left at home and the stamp takes one press.
Fennel Lane Espresso
One stamp per coffee. Nine stamps earn a free one.
6 of 9 Three to go.
What gets in the way for cafes
The card is in the other jacket
Half the regulars who would be on stamp eight have a card somewhere else. The deal stops working the day the card is forgotten, and a second card starts from zero.
Stamping slows the queue
Finding the stamp, finding the card, lining it up. At 8:15 on a weekday every second at the till is a second someone behind is waiting. One press on a row is faster than ink.
You never know who your regulars are
Paper tells you nothing. A members list tells you who joined this week, who is close to a reward, and who stopped wanting messages.
Quiet afternoons
A cafe that is flat out until eleven can be empty at three. A text to the club about an afternoon deal, on Local Favourite, is the cheapest way to say so.
A worked example
Cafe work, with Counter Club
Take a fictional cafe, Fennel Lane Espresso, with two baristas and a morning queue. The owner sets the card at 9 stamps for a free coffee and prints the QR on an A6 card next to the EFTPOS terminal. The rule on the counter sign reads: "One stamp per coffee, show your mobile." In the first week, staff ask every regular whose order they already know to scan while the milk is steaming. Thirty join. On a Tuesday afternoon in the second month, now on Local Favourite with 220 members, the owner texts: "Slow afternoon, any coffee and a slice for $9 till 4." It lands with "Fennel Lane Espresso:" in front. Eleven members come in, and three of them fill their card and leave with the free coffee in hand. The cafe's listing on Not a Chain is unchanged by any of this; it never was part of it.
Not a Chain
Cafes on Not a Chain
Not a Chain ranks cafes by their Google rating, adjusted for how many reviews stand behind it, with chains left out. Figures as of October 2026.
See the cafes on Not a Chain. Being listed there has nothing to do with using Counter Club: no listing is sold and no rank changes.
Questions from cafes
How many stamps for a coffee card?
Eight to ten suits a coffee card. Nine means a regular who comes every weekday fills a card in under two weeks, which keeps the deal feeling real.
Can staff stamp from their own phones?
Yes, anyone signed in to the shop's account can open Members and press Stamp. Keep one login per shop and sign out on a phone that leaves.
Can the card cover coffee and food?
It is one card with one rule, and the rule is yours. Stamping per visit rather than per coffee means a sandwich counts too.
Also for
Other shops and services
Bakeries
Bakery regulars come weekly, often on the same day, for the same loaf.
Counter Club for bakeriesButchers
A butcher's regular might spend fifty dollars a visit and come twice a month.
Counter Club for butchersFlorists
Florists have two kinds of customer: the once-a-year occasion buyer and the regular who takes a bunch home every other Friday.
Counter Club for floristsPut the QR by the till this week
Setting the card takes two minutes. The first fifty members are free, paid for by a marketing consent instead of a card, and the card runs in full from day one.