These are South Africa’s top loyalty programmes in 2025

Clicks Clubcard is the most loved loyalty programme in South Africa for economically active and mass-market South Africans, taking its title back from Checkers Xtra Savings.

This was the finding in Truth Loyalty and BrandMapps’ ninth South African Loyalty Landscape for the 2024/25 Whitepaper, in which 35,000 people were surveyed.

The study showed that 82% of South Africans use loyalty programmes, which is significantly more than in 2023, which stated that 76% of South Africans use loyalty programmes.

Loyalty programmes have seen strong growth over the last decade. Ten years ago, only 67% of South Africans used loyalty programmes, compared to the current 82%.

Male and female consumers use loyalty programmes equally, but younger consumers (under 25) use them less, at 66%, and mass market consumers even less so, at 63%.

35% of consumers state that they are using loyalty programmes more than last year, a notable increase from the 30% increase seen in 2023.

“Increased usage could be correlated to consumers’ real struggle with the rise in the cost of living, and loyalty programmes are stated as the third most likely initiative to assist in combating this.”

South Africans are actively using 10.3 programs on average. Female consumers use 11.1 programmes, whereas males use 9.6 programmes. Mass market consumers will often use 8.3 on average.

The main reason South Africans don’t use loyalty programmes remains incredibly similar to previous years.

The main reasons consumers don’t use loyalty programmes remain the same: ‘I don’t spend enough to earn decent rewards’ or ‘it takes too long to earn rewards’.

However, 77% of consumers stated that loyalty programmes do shift where they buy groceries, 51% where they buy fuel, 32% for clothes, 30% for health and 26% for restaurants/coffee shops.

The results

For the fifth time, clicks ClubCard regained its poll position as the most used loyalty programme in South Africa. This is the same for economically active and mass-market consumers.

In the 2023/24 whitepaper, Checkers Xtra Savings took its place for the first time as the most used programme, 0.4%pts ahead of Clicks ClubCard. Both programmes were used by 78% of consumers in 2023.

In 2024/25, Clicks ClubCard was used by 80% of the economically active participants, more than Checkers Xtra Savings’ 76%.

“Cashback is a real currency which our customers patiently wait for,” said Clicks Group Chief Marketing Officer Melanie van Rooy.

“We see it in the data that customers often delay purchases until cashback lands… We have definitely seen a shift in cashback redemption moving away from just luxuries to everyday basics.”

Pick n Pay Smarket Shopper (68%), Dis-Chem Benefit (63%) and Woolworths WRewards (50%) completed the top five.

Notably, Discovery Vitality remains South Africa’s number one choice for which loyalty programme consumers can’t live without, keeping the title for the third year straight.

Since reporting began, 90% of loyalty programmes by economically active consumers were retail brands, with only FNB eBucks breaking into the top 10 outside of retail.

For the first time, FNB eBucks has fallen out of the top ten, and Spur Family Card Lines up at number nine.

Looking at the mass market consumers, Clicks ClubCard remains the most used at 73%, followed by Xtra Savings at 66% and Pick n Pay Smart Shopper at 61%.

The top eight mass-market loyalty programmes are retail brands. Capitec Live Better (9) and Spur Family Card (10) are used by 28% and 25% of mass-market consumers, respectively.

For mass market consumers, Capitec Live Better remains the loyalty programme that consumers can’t live without.