Same file, two names. From here on, we'll mostly say "card" — but if you came here searching "google wallet pass," you're in the right place. This page is about the Android side of the story. Apple Wallet works differently in a few ways that matter, and that's a separate page.
What follows is what a Google Wallet card does on a customer's phone, what it costs you to set one up, and where the limits are.
What a Google Wallet card looks like on an Android phone.
A customer steps off a bus near your shop, phone in their pocket. Their phone vibrates. On the lock screen: your shop's name, your logo, and a small push — "Your Coffee Card is nearby."
They tap. The card opens. Eight stamps out of ten. They walk the two minutes to your door.
That's the Android experience in one paragraph. The card got there because they scanned a QR code at your counter weeks ago, tapped Add to Google Wallet, and forgot about it. No app download, no account creation, no friction. The card sat in their Wallet quietly until the moment they were near your shop again.
The four things Google Wallet does that a paper card can't.
It pushes to the lock screen — for real.
Google Wallet's "Nearby Passes" feature surfaces your card on the lock screen when a customer is within roughly 150 metres of your shop. It's an actual push notification — sound, vibration, the works. Not a quiet suggestion like Apple does. The customer doesn't have to look at their phone first.
For new cards added after mid-2025, this is on by default. The customer can turn it off per card, but most don't bother. It's already opt-in by virtue of being there.
This is, in our opinion, the single biggest argument for Google Wallet over a paper card. Paper sits in a drawer at home when the customer walks past your shop. The Android pass yells gently.
It updates itself.
Customer gets a stamp. The card updates. The number on their phone changes — not the next time they open it, automatically, in the background.
If you want, you can also push a message tied to that update. "Two more stamps for a free coffee." It arrives on the lock screen with a sound. The customer didn't install an app. They just have a card. You can still reach them.
There's a catch in the next section.
You get 3 pushes per card per 24 hours. That's it.
Google caps push notifications at 3 per pass per day. Try to send a fourth and the message still updates on the back of the card, but the push doesn't fire. Customer never knows there was a fourth message.
This is per pass, not per shop. If you have 500 customers, each of them can receive up to 3 pushes from you per day. The cap protects them from being hammered, not you from sending volume.
For a local shop, 3 is plenty. You'll rarely have a reason to ping a customer more than once a day, let alone three times. The cap matters mostly because it tells you what Google thinks pass notifications are for: real updates, not broadcast marketing. Use it like that and you'll be fine.
If you exceed the cap repeatedly across your customer base, Google can throttle your delivery quota across the board. Same principle as Apple's policy, just with a numeric line drawn in the sand.
It never gets lost.
A paper card can be washed, forgotten in a coat pocket, fall behind a sofa, or become illegible at stamp four. A card in Google Wallet is on a device the customer never leaves the house without.
If they change phones, the card moves with them through their Google account. If they lose their phone, the card comes back when they sign in on a new one. We don't have to do anything for that to work — Google handles it.
What it looks like for the shop owner.
A customer adds your card. From your dashboard, you see they exist. Not their name, not their email — just a number going up. (Privacy bit below; it matters in the EU.)
When they come in next, you scan their card with the phone you already own. One tap, one stamp. The card on their phone updates before they leave the counter.
That's the daily workflow. The setup workflow — designing the card, picking the type, writing the messages — takes about five minutes the first time and zero from then on.
There's no terminal to buy. No POS integration to wait for. No staff training that takes more than a sentence. The phone in your apron pocket is the tool.
Card types that work in Google Wallet.
Three formats. They look almost identical in the Wallet app, but they do different things.
Stamp cards
The classic. Buy nine coffees, get the tenth free. Google Wallet renders the stamps visually, updates the counter in real time, and pushes to the lock screen when the customer is near your shop.
Best for: cafés, bakeries, fast food, barbershops — anywhere selling something a customer buys repeatedly. If the median customer comes back within three weeks, a stamp card will probably print money.
Coupon cards
A one-shot offer that lives in the Wallet until it's redeemed or expires. 20% off your next visit. Valid until 31 March.
The location push makes coupons unusually effective on Android. A customer walks past your shop, the coupon surfaces with sound, they remember it exists. Email coupons get deleted unread. A Wallet coupon waits and then taps the customer on the shoulder at the right moment.
Best for: salons running a slow-month promotion, new shops trying to pull in first-time customers, anyone with a seasonal push.
Gift cards
Pre-loaded balance, redeemable in your shop. Customer A buys it for €30, sends the link to Customer B via WhatsApp, Customer B adds it to their Google Wallet, walks in, hands you the phone, you scan, balance decreases.
The Android-specific detail: most gift cards get sent over WhatsApp, and a Google Wallet card opens straight from a WhatsApp message with one tap. Customer B doesn't need to remember the balance — they open the card, the number is current.
Best for: salons, massage studios, restaurants, anyone whose customers buy as gifts. December is the obvious moment. The less obvious one is birthdays — a Wallet gift card sent at 9am beats a card in the post by a week.
Limits.
- Android only. Roughly half your customers will be on iPhone. They'll need an Apple Wallet card instead — same idea, slightly different mechanics. We do both. If you set up only Google Wallet, you'll be missing the other half of the market.
- You can't customize the lock screen message for "nearby" pushes. Google chooses what it says. You can't write your own text like Apple lets you. It's a Google limitation, not ours.
- 3 push notifications per card per day. Cap is real. Use them on actual updates, not broadcast offers.
- Requires a Google account. Customers without a Google account on their Android device can't save the card. Almost every Android user has one — but it's worth knowing.
- No NFC tap-to-pay magic. Customers don't pay with the card. They show it. You scan it. The card is a loyalty card, not a payment card.
Privacy and GDPR (built in from Berlin).
A customer adds your card. We do not collect their name, their email, their phone number, or their face. We don't know who they are. You don't know who they are.
What you get is a number that goes up each time someone uses the card. You can see how many customers have a card, how many stamps were collected this week, and how many rewards were redeemed. You don't see who.
This is a deliberate design choice. It means you don't have a GDPR liability for a customer list you didn't need in the first place. If you want to ask customers for their email when they redeem a reward, you can — but that's a separate choice you make, with a separate consent box. We don't do it by default.
EU hosting. Real human support. We're based in Berlin, so GDPR isn't a checkbox we ticked — it's the default we built around. The boring stuff is in order.
How much it costs.
Free trial: two months on us. Use code START2 at signup.
After that: paid plans starting at a price that's less than what a café spends on coffee beans in a day. Pricing is on our pricing page — we don't hide it.
You can cancel any time. We don't ship a tablet to your shop, so there's nothing for you to send back.
Set it up.
Try the demo — adds a sample card to your own Google Wallet in ten seconds, so you can see what your customers would see.
Or start your free trial and have a real card live in about five minutes.
If you'd rather watch someone else do it first, the demo above shows you the customer side. If you'd rather just ask a question, the team is on email and replies the same day.
Questions people ask.
Straight answers, no marketing fluff.
Try a live card on your own phone: lovelylocal.place/demo. Two months free with code START2.