Comparison

Regulr vs FiveStars

An honest, side-by-side comparison. Where FiveStars wins, where it falls short, and which tool is right for your business.

6 min read

5

Regulr only

5

Both have

0

FiveStars only

Overview

FiveStars (now part of SumUp) is a digital loyalty platform for local businesses with decent reward programs and basic marketing automation. The catch: it needs a tablet at your counter and relies on customers checking in manually. There's no churn prediction, just rule-based automation. And with the SumUp acquisition, the product's future direction is unclear.

Digital loyalty and marketing platform

Feature-by-feature comparison

Green checkmarks mean the feature is included. Dashes mean it's not available or requires a workaround.

FeatureRegulrFiveStars
Customer insights drawn from purchase history✓—
Automated win-back campaigns✓✓
Churn prediction✓—
Digital loyalty program✓✓
POS integration✓✓
SMS & email campaigns✓✓
Customer segmentation✓✓
Apple/Google Wallet pass✓—
No hardware required✓—
Recovery message when a regular's visits stop✓—

Pricing

Regulr

$99/mo

Per location. All features included.

FiveStars

FiveStars pricing starts around $299/mo. Regulr is $249/mo for a single coffee shop and from $400/mo for other verticals, and includes the retention layer: drifting-regular detection and wallet passes.

Where FiveStars works well

FiveStars is best for businesses that want a traditional points-and-rewards program with marketing automation and don't need visit-pattern retention on top.

Where FiveStars falls short

No churn prediction from visit behavior
Requires proprietary hardware (tablet) at the counter
Higher price point for comparable features
Marketing automation is rule-based, not triggered by customer behavior
Now part of SumUp: product direction uncertain

Where Regulr does better

Catches a regular who has started skipping visits, before they are gone for good
No hardware required: reads the transaction stream from your Square POS
Apple & Google Wallet passes for seamless loyalty
Lower price, with retention mechanics a points program doesn't have
Layers onto the Square account you already run, no system switch

The bottom line

FiveStars is a solid choice if you need fivestars is best for businesses that want a traditional points-and-rewards program with marketing a. But if your main goal is reducing customer churn with campaigns triggered by each customer's actual visit pattern, Regulr is built specifically for that.

Regulr wins on 5 features that FiveStars doesn't offer, while FiveStars has 0 features Regulr doesn't. They share 5 features in common.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How is Regulr different from FiveStars?
FiveStars is a traditional loyalty platform. Regulr is a retention layer: it watches how often each customer actually comes in, notices when a regular starts drifting, and reaches out before they stop coming back.
Does Regulr require hardware like FiveStars?
No. FiveStars requires a tablet at your counter. Regulr reads your Square transaction stream in the background. No extra hardware needed.
Is Regulr cheaper than FiveStars?
For a coffee shop, yes: $249/mo against FiveStars at ~$299/mo, with wallet passes and behavior-triggered win-backs on top of the points program. Other verticals start at $400/mo, so the comparison depends on your business.

Related reading

Ready to see who's drifting and win them back? Start your free Regulr trial and connect your POS in about 5 minutes.

Founder of Regulr & City Curated

Regulr is the customer retention layer for local businesses. It plugs into your POS, learns every customer's behavior, and runs personalized retention campaigns automatically — SMS, email, wallet pass updates, and RCS sentiment routing. Built for restaurants, coffee shops, salons, med spas, fitness studios, and other independent local businesses where every customer is a name and every visit matters.