Canada 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 Canada is expected to grow by 12.8% annually, reaching US$2.57 billion by 2026.

The loyalty market in the country has experienced robust growth during 2021-2025, achieving a CAGR of 14.4%. This upward trajectory is expected to continue, with the market forecast to grow at a CAGR of 10.9% from 2026 to 2030. By the end of 2030, the loyalty market is projected to expand from its 2025 value of US$2.28 billion to approximately US$3.88 billion.

Key Trends and Drivers

Coalition loyalty is being rebuilt around simpler everyday-value ecosystems

• Canada’s coalition loyalty market is entering a reset phase as BMO transitions AIR MILES into Blue Rewards in 2026. This is not simply a rebrand; the program is being simplified from Cash Miles and Dream Miles into one points currency, while retaining member balances and cards. The new model is positioned around everyday categories such as groceries, gas, dining, travel, and retail partners, with BMO also adding new partners including Instacart, Thai Express, Jugo Juice, Mucho Burrito, Manchu Wok, Mr. Sub, and Pizza Delight.
• The driver is the need to restore relevance in a market where shoppers expect rewards to be easier to understand and usable against daily spending rather than only aspirational redemptions. BMO’s emphasis on automatic conversion, no loss of value, one-point currency, and more than 400 partner brands indicates that program operators are trying to reduce friction and improve trust after years in which Canadian consumers became more selective about where loyalty points create real household value.
• This trend is likely to intensify as coalition programs compete less on the number of partners alone and more on ease of redemption, category relevance, and bank-linked earn acceleration. Blue Rewards will put pressure on Scene+, PC Optimum, Avion Rewards, and card-linked programs to make points easier to use across everyday and travel categories. The main risk is that consumers will compare redemption value more actively, so programs with unclear point economics may face higher engagement churn.

Grocery loyalty is shifting from broad rewards to personalized value defense

• In Canadian grocery and pharmacy retail, loyalty is becoming a core value-defense tool rather than a simple points program. Loblaw’s 2025 annual report states that PC Optimum continues to evolve through more meaningful personalized offers and more effective promotions, while its businesses are underpinned by PC Optimum across network-wide purchases. Empire’s latest filings also confirm that Scene+ is used by Sobeys across applicable banners in all geographic regions, reinforcing that grocery loyalty is now embedded in national supermarket competition.
• The immediate driver is Canadian household value-seeking. Recent retail food analysis for Canada notes that discounts and loyalty programs remain major factors in grocery purchase decisions, with shoppers prioritizing savings and essential goods even after grocery inflation moderated from earlier peaks. Loblaw also linked 2025 performance to consumers remaining focused on value, supported by hard discount banners, private label products, and personalized PC Optimum promotions.
• This trend should intensify, but with a sharper focus on personalization quality and margin control. Grocery retailers will use loyalty programs to steer basket composition, promote private labels, defend share against discount formats, and support retail media monetization. However, loyalty-funded discounts will need to be more targeted because broad points promotions can become expensive when shoppers are already promotion-sensitive.

Financial-services rewards are moving deeper into retail and travel ecosystems

• Canadian loyalty competition is becoming more bank-led and platform-led. RBC announced a long-term collaboration with Hopper Technology Solutions in March 2026 to enhance Avion Rewards Travel, with a new booking portal planned for 2026. Separately, Loblaw’s sale of PC Financial to EQB includes a commercial agreement under which EQB becomes the exclusive financial partner of PC Optimum. This points to a more integrated model where banking products, travel booking, retail rewards, and loyalty data are connected more tightly.
• Banks and card issuers are using rewards to protect card spend, deepen customer relationships, and create differentiated value beyond interest rates and fees. FCAC’s updated guidance on choosing credit cards highlights that consumers are encouraged to compare reward value against fees, interest, restrictions, and actual usage. This makes reward usability and transparency more important for Canadian issuers, especially as consumers reassess whether premium cards and travel rewards justify their costs.
• The bank-led loyalty layer is likely to intensify, with stronger partnerships between banks, travel platforms, retailers, and payment products. Programs will increasingly compete on booking tools, redemption flexibility, grocery and fuel earn rates, and cardholder-only benefits. At the same time, issuers will rationalize rewards economics by steering value toward customers who consolidate spend, hold premium cards, or use partner ecosystems more frequently.

Loyalty data governance is becoming a board-level operating issue

• The privacy risk around loyalty programs has become more visible in Canada after the Privacy Commissioner of Canada concluded a 2026 investigation into Loblaw’s PC Optimum program. The investigation focused on account deletion requests and retention of purchase histories of former members, and the Commissioner emphasized that anonymized data must not be capable of being relinked to individuals. This makes loyalty data retention, deletion, anonymization, and customer response processes more commercially important than before.
• Canadian loyalty programs depend heavily on transaction histories, app engagement, personalized offers, and cross-banner customer profiles. As retailers and banks increase personalization, the amount of personal and behavioral information collected through loyalty programs becomes more sensitive. The Competition Bureau has previously warned that consumers provide personal information in exchange for “free” rewards and perks, while the OPC’s 2026 finding shows that operational follow-through on deletion and retention can become a regulatory issue.
• This trend will intensify as loyalty operators invest in privacy-by-design, clearer account closure processes, tighter retention rules, and stronger controls over how purchase histories are anonymized or reused. The impact will not be limited to compliance; it will influence program design, personalization strategy, partner data-sharing, and consumer trust. Programs that rely on deeper personalization but cannot clearly explain or manage customer data rights may face higher regulatory and reputational risk.

Competitive Landscape

Competition is expected to intensify over the next 2-4 years, but with more emphasis on usability, privacy governance, and partner economics than on point accumulation alone. Retailers will use loyalty to defend grocery and pharmacy share, banks will link rewards more closely to cards and travel portals, and coalition programs will compete on everyday redemption relevance. The Privacy Commissioner’s 2026 PC Optimum finding also raises the compliance bar for loyalty operators using transaction histories and personalized offers.

Current State of the Market

• Canada’s loyalty program market is highly competitive and increasingly shaped by three overlapping groups: grocery-led retail ecosystems, bank-led rewards platforms, and travel-linked programs. The most visible recent change is the rebuilding of coalition loyalty, with BMO transitioning AIR MILES into Blue Rewards in 2026 and positioning it around a simpler points currency, everyday categories, and expanded partners. At the same time, PC Optimum and Scene+ remain central to supermarket competition, while Avion Rewards and Aeroplan continue to anchor bank and travel loyalty.

Key Players and New Entrants

• Key players include Loblaw’s PC Optimum, Empire/Sobeys’ Scene+, BMO’s Blue Rewards, RBC’s Avion Rewards, Air Canada’s Aeroplan, Scotiabank and Cineplex through Scene+, and EQB as the incoming exclusive financial partner of PC Optimum following its agreement to acquire PC Financial. The competitive field is therefore not led by one sector alone; it is being shaped by retailers, banks, airlines, travel technology partners, and coalition platforms that are competing for higher customer engagement and spend consolidation.

Recent Launches, Partnerships, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• Recent activity shows platform renewal rather than simple program expansion. BMO’s Blue Rewards transition is the clearest coalition-loyalty reset. RBC also announced a long-term collaboration with Hopper Technology Solutions to enhance Avion Rewards Travel, with a new travel booking portal planned for 2026. In grocery-linked financial rewards, Loblaw’s sale of PC Financial to EQB adds a new banking partner to the PC Optimum ecosystem. Air Canada is also changing how members earn Aeroplan points and qualify for Elite Status from January 2026, reinforcing the shift toward spend-linked loyalty economics.

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

Canada Retail Sector Market Context

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

Canada Loyalty Spend Market Size and Growth Dynamics

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

Canada 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

Canada Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Channel

• In-Store
• Online
• Mobile

Canada Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Business Model

• Seller Driven
• Payment Instrument Driven
• Other Segment

Canada 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

Canada Retail Sector Deep-Dive: Loyalty Schemes Spend by Retail Segment

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

Canada Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Accessibility

• Card Based Access
• Digital Access

Canada Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Consumer Type

• B2B Consumers
• B2C Consumers

Canada Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Membership Type

• Free
• Free + Premium
• Premium

Canada Loyalty Spend Split by Embedded vs. Non-Embedded Loyalty

• Embedded Loyalty Programs
• Non-Embedded Loyalty Programs

Canada Loyalty Spend Split by Use of AI / Blockchain

• AI Driven Loyalty Program
• Blockchain Driven Loyalty Program

Canada Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Software Use Case

• Analytics and AI Driven
• Management Platform

Canada Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Vendor / Solution Partner

• In-house
• Third-Party Vendor

Canada Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Deployment

• Cloud
• On-Premise

Canada Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Offering

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

Canada Consumer Demographics & Behaviour (Loyalty Spend Share), 2025

• Age Group
• Income Level
• Gender

Canada 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.