United States Loyalty Market Size & Forecast by Spend Value Across 100+ KPIs by Program Type, Channel Mix, Sector, Embedded Loyalty Penetration, and Platform Spend Segmentation - Databook Q2 2026 Update

The loyalty market in United States is expected to grow by 17.3% annually, reaching US$34.06 billion by 2026.

The loyalty market in the country has experienced robust growth during 2021-2025, achieving a CAGR of 18.7%. This upward trajectory is expected to continue, with the market forecast to grow at a CAGR of 15.7% from 2026 to 2030. By the end of 2030, the loyalty market is projected to expand from its 2025 value of US$29.04 billion to approximately US$61.04 billion.

Key Trends and Drivers

Retailers are turning loyalty into paid membership ecosystems, not just points programs

• In the United States, large retailers are increasingly positioning loyalty as an operating platform that combines free rewards, paid delivery benefits, co-branded cards, marketplace access, retail media, and personalized offers. Target’s 2025 Annual Report describes Target Circle as a multi-layered loyalty program covering free membership, Target Circle Card benefits, and paid Target Circle 360 membership with same-day delivery, shipping, extended returns, and exclusive deals. Walmart’s latest quarterly filing also shows the same direction, with Walmart+ membership fee income growing at a double-digit rate, making paid membership a more visible part of retail loyalty economics.
• The main driver is the need to protect trip frequency and basket size as U.S. consumers remain selective on discretionary purchases. Retailers are using paid loyalty to make delivery, pickup, exclusive offers, card-linked discounts, and personalized discovery part of a single retention model. Target’s management specifically links loyalty to more trips, larger baskets, personalization, marketplace expansion, and retail media, while Walmart’s filing points to membership fee growth as part of U.S. segment performance.
• This trend is likely to intensify, but with clearer separation between free loyalty and paid membership. Free programs will remain important for reach and personalization, while paid tiers will be used to deepen engagement among higher-frequency households. The market impact will be a shift from “earn-and-burn” rewards to loyalty programs that influence delivery choice, payment choice, marketplace usage, and retail media monetization.

Restaurant and coffee loyalty is being rebuilt around frequency recovery and tiered personalization

• Quick-service restaurants and coffee chains in the United States are refreshing loyalty programs to rebuild visit frequency rather than only reward accumulated spend. Starbucks announced in January 2026 that Starbucks Rewards would move to Green, Gold, and Reserve levels, with status based on 2025 membership activity and added member perks. McDonald’s also reported that loyalty remains a core digital growth lever, with systemwide sales to loyalty members increasing in 2025 and 90-day active loyalty users rising across its loyalty markets.
• The driver is softer traffic in parts of the U.S. foodservice and the need to make app-based engagement more valuable. Starbucks’ U.S. rewards members drove nearly 60% of U.S. company-operated revenue in fiscal 2025, making the program central to transaction recovery and personalized engagement. McDonald’s has also highlighted that U.S. customers joining MyMcDonald’s Rewards more than double their visits in the first year, showing why loyalty is being treated as a frequency engine rather than a passive points account.
• The trend is likely to intensify as restaurants use loyalty apps to combine offers, ordering, payments, personalization, and limited-time engagement. The most important change will be greater segmentation: brands will offer different benefits to light, frequent, and high-value members rather than using one uniform points structure. Programs that fail to improve perceived value may see slower engagement, especially if consumers become more selective with foodservice spending.

Travel loyalty is becoming more card-linked and revenue-led, while low-fare rewards are being tightened

• U.S. airline loyalty programs are moving further toward co-branded card economics and spend-based customer value. United’s 2026 MileagePlus changes give stronger earning advantages to co-branded cardholders while reducing mileage earning for some non-cardholders and basic economy travelers. Delta’s 2025 Form 10-K shows the financial importance of this model, reporting American Express remuneration related to SkyMiles of $8.2 billion in 2025, up approximately 11% from 2024.
• The driver is that airline loyalty has become a financial and customer segmentation tool, not only a reward for flying. Co-branded cards allow airlines to monetize everyday spending, while airlines use fare class, card ownership, and elite status to prioritize the most profitable customers. At the same time, U.S. travel demand has normalized after the post-pandemic rebound, making loyalty economics more important for margin stability and repeat purchase behavior.
• This trend is likely to intensify, but with greater scrutiny from customers and regulators if perceived devaluation continues. Airlines will keep using loyalty to support card acquisition, premium travel, and ancillary revenue, while low-fare travelers may receive fewer benefits unless they hold co-branded products. The risk is that loyalty programs become more profitable but less broadly attractive, especially for occasional travelers.

Bank, card, and wallet-linked rewards are becoming merchant acquisition channels

• In the United States, loyalty is increasingly moving into bank apps, card-linked offers, and digital wallets. The CFPB’s 2025 Consumer Credit Card Market report notes that rewards cards accounted for 92% of general-purpose card spending in 2023 and 2024, and that major issuers are expanding card-linked offers where merchant rewards are delivered as personalized digital offers, often as statement credits. Chase Media Solutions reports that Chase Offers drove $11.2 billion in spend to participating merchants in 2025, showing how card-linked rewards are becoming a merchant marketing channel.
• The driver is the convergence of payments, first-party transaction data, and merchant retention economics. As retailers face higher customer acquisition costs and weaker third-party targeting signals, banks and wallets can offer merchants access to verified spend behavior and closed-loop attribution. PayPal’s U.S. rewards experience also illustrates this shift: customers can find offers, track PayPal Rewards points in the app, and redeem rewards at checkout or into a PayPal balance.
• This trend is likely to intensify as loyalty budgets shift from standalone rewards platforms toward payment-linked ecosystems. Banks, card issuers, wallets, and merchant networks will compete for loyalty relevance by offering personalized offers at the moment of payment or pre-purchase discovery. The market impact will be a stronger overlap between loyalty, retail media, and financial services rewards, but also higher expectations around transparency, offer targeting, and consumer control over reward terms.

Competitive Landscape

Competition is expected to intensify over the next 2-4 years as loyalty becomes more closely tied to first-party customer relationships, retail media monetization, app usage, and payment-linked rewards. Retailers will continue using loyalty to defend repeat shopping and delivery economics, while airlines and banks will compete through co-branded rewards and everyday-spend capture. The landscape is likely to consolidate around scaled ecosystems with strong data, payment reach, and partner networks, while smaller programs will need sharper value propositions or platform partnerships to remain relevant.

Current State of the Market

• The U.S. loyalty program market is highly competitive and increasingly shaped by large ecosystems rather than standalone rewards schemes. Competition is led by retailers, airlines, hotels, banks, card issuers, digital wallets, and app-based foodservice brands. Retailers such as Walmart and Target are using loyalty to connect membership, delivery, retail media, payment products, and personalized offers, while banks and card issuers are turning rewards into merchant-funded offer platforms. Airline and hotel loyalty remain important, but competitive advantage is shifting toward programs that can influence everyday spending, app engagement, and payment behavior beyond the core purchase occasion.

Key Players and New Entrants

• Key players include Walmart+, Target Circle, Amazon Prime, Kroger loyalty programs, Starbucks Rewards, McDonald’s Rewards, Delta SkyMiles, United MileagePlus, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, PayPal Rewards, Apple Wallet-linked offers, and merchant-funded card-linked platforms. The market is also shaped by loyalty technology and engagement platforms such as Salesforce, Oracle, and Mastercard-linked rewards infrastructure. Rather than new standalone entrants, recent competition is coming from adjacent players expanding loyalty roles, especially payment networks, wallets, retail media platforms, and banks using transaction-level targeting.

Recent Launches, Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• Recent developments show competition moving toward tiering, card linkage, and paid membership. Starbucks launched a reimagined U.S. Starbucks Rewards structure in March 2026 with Green, Gold, and Reserve levels. United updated MileagePlus in 2026 to increase benefits for co-branded cardholders while reducing mileage earning for some non-cardholders and basic-economy travelers. In financial services, the CFPB’s 2025 credit card report highlights the growing use of card-linked offers, where issuers and merchants deliver personalized rewards and statement-credit offers through card platforms.

This report provides a detailed data-centric analysis of the loyalty industry in United States, offering comprehensive coverage of loyalty schemes, loyalty platforms, program structures, and market dynamics. It covers more than 100 KPIs, including loyalty spend value, breakage rate, penetration rate, program segmentation, and channel-level adoption.

The report provides in-depth segmentation across the loyalty ecosystem, capturing loyalty spend value and breaking it down by core market dimensions. It classifies loyalty activity by program models (such as points, cashback, tiered, subscription, coalition, and gamified formats), membership structures, and execution channels (in-store, online, and mobile app), alongside embedded loyalty use cases integrated into payments, commerce, and platform ecosystems. The analysis further segments the market by industry verticals and assesses technology enablement, including AI-driven personalisation and emerging blockchain-led program mechanics. In addition, the dataset captures consumer demographics, enrolment pathways, and key program economics such as value accumulation, redemption, and breakage. Collectively, these datasets provide a comprehensive and quantifiable view of market size, structure, engagement behaviour, and value realisation dynamics within the loyalty market.

The research methodology is based on industry best practices. Its unbiased analysis leverages a proprietary analytics platform to offer a detailed view of emerging business and investment market opportunities.

Report Scope

This report provides a detailed data-centric analysis of the loyalty market in United States, with comprehensive coverage across retail-sector context, loyalty spend dynamics, and loyalty platform economics. Below is a summary of key market segments:

United States Retail Sector Market Context

• United States Retail Industry Market Size, 2021-2030
• United States Ecommerce Market Size, 2021-2030
• United States POS Market Size Trend Analysis, 2021-2030

United States Loyalty Spend Market Size and Growth Dynamics

• United States Loyalty Spend Market Size and Future Growth Dynamics, 2021-2030
• United States Loyalty Spend on Schemes by Value Accumulated and Value Redemption Rate, 2025
• United States Loyalty Spend Share by Functional Domains, 2021-2030
• United States Loyalty Spend by Loyalty Schemes, 2021-2030
• United States Loyalty Spend by Loyalty Platforms, 2021-2030

United States Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Loyalty Program Type

• Point-based Loyalty Program
• Tiered Loyalty Program
• Mission-driven Loyalty Program
• Spend-based Loyalty Program
• Gaming Loyalty Program
• Free Perks Loyalty Program
• Subscription Loyalty Program
• Community Loyalty Program
• Refer a Friend Loyalty Program
• Paid Loyalty Program
• Cashback Loyalty Program

United States Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Channel

• In-Store
• Online
• Mobile

United States Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Business Model

• Seller Driven
• Payment Instrument Driven
• Other Segment

United States Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Key Sectors

• Retail
• Financial Services
• Healthcare & Wellness
• Restaurants & Food Delivery
• Travel & Hospitality (Cabs, Hotels, Airlines)
• Telecoms
• Media & Entertainment
• Other

Sector × Channel Views: Loyalty Schemes Spend by Key Sectors and Channels

• Online Loyalty Spend by Sector, 2021-2030
• In-store Loyalty Spend by Sector, 2021-2030
• Mobile App Loyalty Spend by Sector, 2021-2030

United States Retail Sector Deep-Dive: Loyalty Schemes Spend by Retail Segment

• Diversified Retailers
• Department Stores
• Specialty Stores
• Supermarket and Convenience Store
• Other

United States Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Accessibility

• Card Based Access
• Digital Access

United States Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Consumer Type

• B2B Consumers
• B2C Consumers

United States Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Membership Type

• Free
• Free + Premium
• Premium

United States Loyalty Spend Split by Embedded vs. Non-Embedded Loyalty

• Embedded Loyalty Programs
• Non-Embedded Loyalty Programs

United States Loyalty Spend Split by Use of AI / Blockchain

• AI Driven Loyalty Program
• Blockchain Driven Loyalty Program

United States Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Software Use Case

• Analytics and AI Driven
• Management Platform

United States Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Vendor / Solution Partner

• In-house
• Third-Party Vendor

United States Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Deployment

• Cloud
• On-Premise

United States Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Offering

• Software
• Services
• Custom Built Platform vs. Off the Shelf Platform

United States Consumer Demographics & Behaviour (Loyalty Spend Share), 2025

• Age Group
• Income Level
• Gender

United States Loyalty Program KPIs, Behavioral Metrics & Embedded, 2025

• Loyalty Program Penetration (% of Retail Sales under Loyalty)
• Primary Loyalty Motivation Split Analysis
• Loyalty Program Breakage Rate Analysis
• Loyalty Program Enrollment Channel Mix Analysis
• Embedded Loyalty Penetration by Channel

Reasons to Buy

• Comprehensive Loyalty Market Intelligence: Gain a complete view of the loyalty market by quantifying total loyalty spend value and its composition across loyalty schemes and loyalty platforms. The databook also includes retail context indicators to help benchmark market scale, structure, maturity, and growth dynamics. This enables users to understand not only the size of the opportunity, but also how loyalty value is distributed across the broader ecosystem.
• Granular Loyalty Spend and Program Type Coverage: Analyze loyalty spend across a wide range of loyalty schemes and platform-led models, supported by structured segmentation across key program types. Coverage includes point-based, tiered, cashback, subscription, community, gaming, mission-driven, paid, and referral-led formats. This helps identify which loyalty models are gaining traction and how program structures are evolving across markets.
• Channel, Sector, and Execution-Level Insights: Evaluate how loyalty spend is distributed across in-store, online, and mobile channels, with further visibility across major sectors such as Retail, Financial Services, Healthcare & Wellness, Restaurants & Food Delivery, Travel & Hospitality, Telecoms, and Media & Entertainment. Dedicated sector × channel views help users compare execution models and assess where loyalty engagement is strongest across physical, digital, and mobile environments.
• Program Structure, Participation, and Embedded Loyalty Analysis: Understand how loyalty schemes differ by business model, accessibility, consumer type, and membership format. The dataset covers seller-driven vs. payment-instrument-driven models, card-based vs. digital programs, B2B vs. B2C participation, and free, premium, and free+premium membership types. It also tracks embedded vs. non-embedded loyalty and emerging mechanisms, including AI-driven and blockchain-driven loyalty spend where captured.
• Loyalty Platform Spend and Vendor Benchmarking: Benchmark loyalty platform economics across software use cases, partner models, deployment choices, and offering mix. Coverage includes analytics/AI-driven platforms, loyalty management platforms, in-house vs. third-party solutions, cloud vs. on-premise deployment, and software vs. services models. The dataset also supports comparison of custom-built and off-the-shelf loyalty platform approaches.
• Consumer, KPI, and Decision-Ready Databook Lens: Access loyalty spend share by age, income, and gender, alongside decision-critical program KPIs such as loyalty penetration, primary motivation split, breakage rate, enrollment channel mix, and embedded loyalty penetration by channel. With historical and forecast coverage through 2030 and 100+ KPIs, the databook is designed for direct use in market models, strategic planning, competitive benchmarking, and executive presentations.