Como Alternative: The Best Como Alternatives for Restaurant Loyalty
What is Como?
Como is a loyalty and customer engagement platform used by restaurants, cafés and other hospitality businesses. It handles CRM, loyalty programmes, automated marketing campaigns and customer analytics. To get purchase data, it plugs into whatever third-party POS the restaurant already uses.
If you're looking at alternatives, the reason is usually one of a few things: the integration is a pain, the bill keeps climbing, or you'd rather not run five separate tools. This guide covers the main options in the UK and Ireland.
Why restaurants look for a Como alternative
The biggest complaint is the integration. Como needs a working connection to your POS. When that connection drops or only passes through part of the data, your loyalty records are wrong and your campaigns go out based on half the picture. Every extra system between the till and the customer record is one more thing that can break, and when it does you're chasing two vendors who each say the problem is on the other side.
That leads to the second issue, which is plain admin. A separate loyalty vendor means a separate contract, a separate setup project, a separate support line and a separate invoice. None of it is hard on its own. It adds up.
Scope matters too. Como does loyalty and CRM. It doesn't do POS, online ordering, kiosks or payments, so a restaurant still has to buy and manage all of those somewhere else.
Then there's pricing. Como charges based on engaged customers, so the bill grows as your customer base grows. That's fine if the programme is earning its keep and annoying if it isn't.
And plenty of operators just want fewer tools. Running loyalty, CRM, ordering and POS from one platform means one login, one support team and no integration to keep alive.
Best Como alternatives for restaurants
1. Flipdish - best for integrated loyalty and restaurant management
Flipdish builds loyalty and customer engagement into the same platform that runs your POS, online ordering, kiosks and mobile app. There's no integration to set up because there's nothing to connect. Loyalty is part of the ordering system.
What you get:
- Points-based and stamp card loyalty, redeemable in store, online and at the kiosk
- A customer CRM showing each customer's order history, spend and activity across every channel
- Automated campaigns triggered by behaviour: win-backs for lapsed customers, birthday offers, reorder nudges
- SMS campaigns sent to your customer database from inside the platform
- Vouchers, percentage discounts and minimum spend offers
- AI Marketing, which picks the customer, the offer and the timing for you
The practical effect is that one customer is one record. Someone who orders on the website on Monday, uses the app on Wednesday and walks up to the kiosk on Saturday earns points in the same account each time, and gets the same targeted campaigns. Nobody has to merge lists or reconcile exports.
That's the main difference from Como. Flipdish doesn't need a POS integration to work, because the loyalty data and the ordering data are the same data.
It suits restaurants, takeaways, QSRs and multi-location groups that want loyalty inside their restaurant platform instead of bolted onto the side.
2. Eagle Eye
Eagle Eye is a digital marketing and loyalty platform used by large hospitality and retail operators. It's built for enterprise, with strong promotional mechanics and multi-channel campaign tools. It connects to third-party POS systems and tends to be run by bigger chains and groups that have a dedicated marketing team.
Next to Flipdish, it's a marketing layer that still needs a POS and an ordering platform underneath it. Flipdish gives you loyalty, marketing, POS and ordering together, which is easier to run and cheaper for most restaurant operators.
3. Yoyo
Yoyo combines payment processing with loyalty, and it's mostly found in workplaces, campuses and some hospitality settings. Its home ground is workplace and campus catering. Flipdish is built for restaurant operations, from a single site up to large chains.
4. Stamp Me
Stamp Me is a digital stamp card app for small businesses. It's simple, cheap and doesn't need a POS integration. The trade-off is that it's one loyalty mechanic with no link to ordering or CRM data, so you can't see what a customer actually buys or send them anything based on it. Flipdish connects loyalty to every ordering channel and adds automated campaigns and customer analytics.
5. Loyalzoo
Loyalzoo is aimed at small independent hospitality businesses. It works with some POS systems and offers basic points and stamp card programmes. That's enough if all you want is a simple scheme. Flipdish treats loyalty as one part of a wider platform that also covers POS, online ordering, kiosks and AI marketing.
Loyalty feature comparison
| Feature | Flipdish | Como | Eagle Eye | Stamp Me | Loyalzoo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loyalty connected to POS | Native | Via integration | Via integration | Via integration | Via integration |
| Loyalty connected to online ordering | Native | Via integration | Via integration | ✗ | Via integration |
| Loyalty on kiosks | ✓ | Via integration | Via integration | ✗ | ✗ |
| Customer CRM | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Limited | Limited |
| Automated marketing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | Limited |
| SMS marketing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| AI-driven campaigns | ✓ | Limited | Limited | ✗ | ✗ |
| Built-in ordering platform | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Multi-location support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Limited | Limited |
What makes restaurant loyalty work
Most loyalty programmes fail for boring reasons.
The first is friction. Customers won't download a separate app, create a separate account or carry a separate card if it takes any effort. When loyalty sits inside the app they already use to order, there's nothing extra to do.
The second is missing data. If your loyalty platform only sees online orders, it knows nothing about the regular who comes in every Friday and pays at the counter. If it misses phone orders, it misses those customers too. You can't build a useful picture of a customer from one channel when they use three.
The third is lazy marketing. The same email to everyone, regardless of what they've ordered, gets ignored. A message that says "You haven't ordered in 21 days, here's 10% off" goes to the right person at the right time. A batch email goes out whenever somebody gets round to sending it.
Flipdish handles all three. Loyalty lives in the app customers already have. Orders from the shop floor, the website, the kiosk and the phone all feed one loyalty account. And the AI marketing tools set campaign timing and targeting from real order behaviour, so nobody has to build segments by hand every week.
Questions to ask before you switch
Whichever platform you're considering, get straight answers to these before you sign anything.
Where does the order data come from? If the answer involves a POS integration, ask what happens when it fails, who fixes it and how long customers go unrecorded in the meantime.
Which channels earn and redeem points? A scheme that works online but not at the counter, or the other way round, will confuse customers fast. Ask specifically about kiosks and phone orders.
How is it priced when you grow? Per-customer pricing looks small at 2,000 customers and different at 20,000. Ask for the number at your target size, not today's.
Who builds the campaigns? Some platforms give you the tools and expect a marketer to use them. If you don't have a marketer, you need automation that runs without one.
What happens to your existing customers? Check how balances, stamps and customer records move across, and whether anyone helps with it.
How to migrate from Como to Flipdish
- Export your Como customer list, loyalty balances and campaign history before you deactivate anything.
- Import the data into Flipdish CRM. Flipdish's onboarding team can help with the customer data migration so nobody loses their history.
- Rebuild the programme. Set your points structure, reward thresholds and campaign triggers in Flipdish. This is a good moment to drop any rules that never worked.
- Tell your customers. Send an email or SMS explaining the new programme and what happens to existing balances or stamps.
- Launch with a double-points promotion. It gives people a reason to try the new scheme straight away, and it builds the habit among customers you already have.
Why Flipdish is the best Como alternative
Como is a capable loyalty and CRM platform. The problem is structural: it needs an integration to work, and integrations cost money, take time to set up and break at inconvenient moments.
Flipdish puts loyalty inside the restaurant platform. A customer orders online and their balance updates. They walk up to the kiosk, check in and earn points without a member of staff doing anything. They haven't ordered in three weeks, so an automated campaign goes out, and no marketing manager had to build a segment to make that happen.
If you want loyalty that runs without constant upkeep, Flipdish is the more practical choice, and it's the more complete one too, since ordering, POS and payments come with it.
For more restaurant technology comparisons, visit restauranttech.co.uk.
The best Como alternative for UK and Irish restaurant operators is Flipdish.