Uruguay's Loyalics Spins Off a Wallet-Based Loyalty Platform, Bringing Big-Retailer Tactics to SMEs

From Restaurant Orders to Street-Corner Loyalty: Loyalics Launches as a Standalone Brand

Agustín Sartorio, a former Uber and Rappi executive, is taking the loyalty engine he built for his restaurant-ordering platform Reorder and spinning it into a standalone product. Named Loyalics, the new brand leaves behind the food-only image and aims squarely at any small business that lives on repeat customers — from corner cafes and bakeries to barbershops, pharmacies, vet clinics and gyms.

The core idea is simple: a digital loyalty card that lives in the phone’s wallet, requiring no app download. Every time a customer taps to identify themselves at the cash register, the system records the transaction. Over time, Loyalics builds a database each merchant owns entirely. When a regular deviates from their purchase pattern, the platform automatically fires a push notification with a tailored incentive to bring them back.

Sartorio, who saw firsthand how little data most small shopkeepers have, calls the problem 'the anonymity of the cash register.' 'They don't know when customers come, when they first came, when they stopped coming, or why,' he told Forbes Uruguay. Loyalics is designed to work out of the box for a hairdresser with a single chair just as well as for a seven-location coffee chain. Pricing starts at US$49 a month with no lock-in contracts and no transaction limits, with an advanced tier that adds deeper remarketing and integration into invoicing or point-of-sale software.

The company launches with an initial base of around 20 merchants already using the tool through Reorder and is in active talks with coffee chains and veterinary practices across the region. It currently operates in Uruguay, Argentina, and Colombia; Mexico is next on the map.

Inside the Strategy: Why Cashback, Wallet Integration, and a Separate Brand Give Loyalics an Edge

The Business Case for a Separate Brand

Reorder’s name and functionality were too tightly associated with restaurant delivery. By creating Loyalics, Sartorio can pitch a pharmacy or a minimarket without the baggage of a food-branded app. 'We found it easier to separate an independent brand,' he explained, even though the team, technology and ambition remain the same. The move unlocks a far larger addressable market — essentially any repeat-purchase business with at least monthly visits.

Cashback Over Stamps: Winning the Millennial and Gen Z Shopper

The most popular program the platform runs is a cashback model built on points — roughly 5% of every purchase. Critically, those points can be spent on the very next transaction, with no minimum thresholds. Sartorio contrasts that with the old 'collect ten stamps to get your tenth coffee free' approach. 'Millennials and centennials want to see the value now,' he said. Loyalics also offers stamp-based visit tracking and is developing an experiences module that would swap points for things like a coffee tasting session or early access to a new menu, inspired by a conversation with a Mexican coffee chain prospect.

Data as the Store’s Asset, Not the Platform’s

At the heart of Loyalics' pitch is the conviction that the data belongs to the merchant, not a middleman. Sartorio frames it as the next front after Reorder’s battle against marketplace commissions: 'If that time the enemy was the marketplace’s commission, this time it’s the anonymity of the cash register.' The tool gives a small cafe the same kind of customer intelligence that big retailers have used for decades. For chains that already record purchases with customer IDs, Loyalics can ingest that history and begin remarketing almost from day one.

A Cautious AI Road Map

Sartorio is notably more restrained on artificial intelligence than the typical startup founder. Today, the system detects customer drop-offs using heuristic rules configured by sector. True predictive models that anticipate churn before it happens are on the product road map but not yet built. 'We want to have more data to see what we find. The capacity to discover patterns with AI is much greater, but we are not implementing it yet,' he admitted.

Expansion Without External Funding — for Now

Loyalics and its sibling Reorder have been financed with seed capital from Uruguay’s National Agency for Development (ANDE) and a handful of angel investors. The company has not yet sought institutional venture funding and describes itself as self-sustaining. Sartorio says he’ll let time show what traction Loyalics achieves before deciding whether it will raise its own capital.

What Small Merchants — and Loyalics Itself — Should Watch Next

For small businesses considering a data-driven loyalty tool:

• The wallet-based card removes the friction of app downloads. Sartorio estimates that even a 30%-40% registration rate among in-store customers creates a 'tremendously important asset.' Quick-service retailers with high footfall can expect meaningful databases quickly.
• Cashback at 5% with immediate redemption appeals to younger shoppers. If your business currently runs a stamp-card or points program with delayed gratification, testing this immediate-value model could lift repeat-visit rates.
• If you already capture transactions by customer ID, ask about the advanced integration plan. Connecting your existing history lets the remarketing engine begin working from the first day, rather than waiting to build a pattern from scratch.
• Loyalics’ month-to-month, no-transaction-fatigue pricing from $49 eliminates large upfront risk. Businesses with a physical presence in Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, or soon Mexico can trial the service across multiple locations.
• Given that artificial-intelligence-based churn prediction is on the horizon, ask the company for a timeline and how future AI enhancements will be rolled into your current subscription without disrupting the rule-based automations you’ve already tuned.