Quick answer. Most loyalty apps fail not because the rewards are bad but because customers never adopt the app. App abandonment is brutal — a large majority of downloaded apps are dropped within weeks — and consumers, already overwhelmed by the apps they have, resist installing yet another one for occasional purchases. So a loyalty program that lives only in an app reaches a small, shrinking slice of the customer base, and the gap between members enrolled and members active stays wide. The reward economics work; the distribution doesn’t.
The numbers tell the story. Around 71% of users abandon an app within 90 days, and many never return after the first session. Meanwhile consumers report feeling overwhelmed by app count and are actively trimming the apps and subscriptions they keep. Against that backdrop, asking a customer to download an app to save a few dollars is a hard sell — especially for businesses they visit occasionally.
To be fair, apps aren’t worthless: a brand’s most engaged fans do use them, and some consumers say an app makes them more loyal. The failure mode is treating the app as the only channel. The fix is to run loyalty where everyone already is — the inbox — and let the app serve the power users who want it.
Key facts
- ~71% of users abandon an app within 90 days of download; ~25% abandon within the first day (app statistics, 2026).
- 22% of users say they feel overwhelmed by how many apps they have; ~40% are actively trying to reduce subscriptions (2025–2026).
- Only about half of loyalty-program memberships are actively used (Gartner; Statista, 2024–2025).