Cost per message
Email tools charge by list size, roughly £15 to £50 a month for a few hundred contacts. SMS costs a few pence per message, so a weekly text to 500 regulars is £20 to £30 a week. A Wallet push costs nothing per send; it is part of the plan.
Where it lands
Email from a shop lands in Promotions on Gmail and in the bin elsewhere. SMS lands between delivery alerts and verification codes. A Wallet push lands on the lock screen, next to the card the customer chose to keep. None of these guarantees a read, but only one is next to something they already value.
What you need from the customer
Email needs an address and an inbox habit. SMS needs a mobile number, which customers increasingly refuse to give. A Wallet push needs nothing beyond the card they already saved and one tick for messages.
The thing only the Wallet can do
Neither email nor SMS knows the customer is outside your door. A Wallet card with a location on it appears on the lock screen when the phone decides the customer is nearby, with no message sent at all. That is the Nearby feature, and it is why we treat the push and the nearby line as two different tools.
Consent in each channel
All three are marketing and need opt-in. Email and SMS tools leave the consent record to you. A Wallet push is gated by the tick the member gave when joining, removable from the back of the card, and the system refuses to send to anyone without it.
Reach them on the lock screen
Pushes are on every plan; Nearby is on Loyalty + Nearby.