Are you going to tell me paper is bad?

No. Paper does several things genuinely well and if you only want to thank regulars without measuring anything, it is a reasonable choice. This is about the costs that are invisible on the print quote.

The real cost of paper punch cards

Printing is the smallest cost. The real ones are lost cards ending customer relationships silently, forgery you cannot detect, and having no idea what your outstanding obligation or completion rate is. Whether those matter depends on whether you want to measure anything.

Paper punch cards have run loyalty for decades, and for good reasons. They cost almost nothing to start. There is no setup and no signup. They even work in a power cut.

This is about what the print quote does not include.

Lost cards end relationships silently

A customer four stamps into a card who loses it does not usually start again. They stop. You never find out, because the failure is invisible on your side.

This is the largest cost and the hardest to see.

Forgery you cannot detect

A distinctive stamp helps and does not solve it. Anyone with a similar stamp, or a photocopier and some patience, can manufacture loyalty that you then honour. Because you have no record, you cannot tell how much of this is happening.

An obligation of unknown size

Cards in circulation are a real commitment. You do not know how many exist, how close they are to completion, or what it would cost if they all came back at once. It is a liability you carry without being able to size it.

No instrument panel

You cannot tell how many cards get completed, whether your threshold is right, or whether the programme changed anyone’s behaviour. Every decision about the programme is a guess, and stays a guess.

The honest comparison

A digital card survives a lost wallet, cannot be forged with a photocopier, and tells you your completion rate.

It also costs money, needs setting up, and a small number of customers will decline to hand over an email address. Those are real.

How to decide

The question is not which is better in the abstract. It is whether you have started asking questions your punch cards cannot answer. If you have not, paper is fine. If you have, it will keep not answering them.