The Ultimate Guide to YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards (2025)

The New E-Commerce Battleground: Why Customer Loyalty is Your Greatest Asset

In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, the rules of the game have changed. For years, the primary focus was on customer acquisition—finding new buyers through a relentless barrage of paid ads and marketing campaigns. Today, however, with advertising costs soaring, the most successful online stores are shifting their focus to a more sustainable and profitable strategy: customer retention.1

The data is overwhelmingly clear. It can cost five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, and a mere 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by anywhere from 25% to 95%.3 Loyal, repeat customers are the bedrock of a healthy e-commerce business. They spend 67% more on average than new customers, have a higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), and increase your Average Order Value (AOV) over time.3 In an ever-evolving digital landscape, fostering this loyalty has become the “holy grail” for sustainable growth.5

This is where loyalty programs enter the picture. A well-designed rewards system gives customers a compelling reason to return to your store, transforming one-time buyers into dedicated brand advocates.6 By offering tangible value for their continued business, you can increase engagement, drive repeat sales, and build a powerful emotional connection that allows you to compete on more than just price.3

For businesses powered by WordPress and WooCommerce, one of the most robust and versatile tools for building such a program is the YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards plugin. With a user base of over 30,838 customers and a reputation for its intuitive interface and deep feature set, this plugin provides a comprehensive solution for creating a powerful customer loyalty engine.5 This guide will provide an exhaustive deep-dive into how you can leverage this tool to build a thriving community and drive predictable, long-term revenue.

A Deep Dive into YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards: Features & Functionality

At its core, the YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards plugin is a complete system for creating, managing, and automating a points-based loyalty program. It is designed to be both powerful for seasoned marketers and remarkably user-friendly for beginners.5

Getting Started: Installation and Core Setup

Like most premium WordPress plugins, the installation process is straightforward. After purchasing and downloading the plugin, you simply upload the zip file through your WordPress dashboard (Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin) and activate it.10

Once activated, you’ll find a comprehensive set of options within the YITH plugin settings menu. This control panel is where you’ll configure every aspect of your loyalty program, from how points are earned and redeemed to the design of customer-facing messages.12 The settings are logically organized, making it easy to navigate and implement your strategy without needing to write a single line of code.

The Heart of the System: How Customers Earn Points

The true power of the YITH plugin lies in its incredible flexibility for awarding points. This is the fundamental answer to the question, “How do reward points work?” You can create a system that rewards customers not just for what they buy, but for how they engage with your brand.

Points for Purchases

This is the most traditional component of a loyalty program. The plugin allows you to set a global conversion rate for points earned on purchases. For example, you can set a rule where customers earn 1 point for every $1 they spend.11 This rate can be customized at the category level or even on a per-product basis, giving you granular control to incentivize the purchase of specific items.

Points for Actions (Gamification)

This is where the YITH plugin truly distinguishes itself from simpler alternatives. It includes a vast array of “extra points” options that reward non-transactional behaviors, effectively gamifying the customer experience and encouraging deeper engagement with your store.8 You can award points for a wide range of actions, including:

• Account Registration: Give new users a starting balance of points just for signing up.9
• First Order: Provide a bonus incentive for making that crucial first purchase.13
• Writing a Product Review: Encourage the creation of valuable user-generated content and social proof by rewarding customers for leaving reviews.8
• Daily Logins: Drive repeat traffic and keep your brand top-of-mind by offering a small point reward for daily visits.9
• Customer’s Birthday: Build a stronger emotional connection by automatically sending bonus points on a customer’s birthday.8
• Referral Link Signup & Purchase: The plugin has built-in functionality to power a simple referral program, awarding points to the referrer when a friend signs up or makes a purchase through their link.9
• Reaching Milestones: Automatically award extra points when a customer reaches a specific spending threshold (e.g., “Earn 500 bonus points when your total spending reaches $1,000”) or a certain point total.9

When you examine these features, it becomes clear that the plugin’s design philosophy extends beyond simply rewarding transactions. It provides a comprehensive toolkit engineered to actively shape and incentivize a wide spectrum of desirable customer behaviors. By offering points for actions like reviews or referrals, the plugin transforms from a reactive discount tool into a proactive platform for community building and value generation that goes far beyond the initial sale. This allows store owners to use their loyalty program to solve other business challenges, such as a lack of social proof or low site engagement, by creating targeted point-based campaigns.

Cashing In: The Point Redemption Process

Earning points is only half of the equation; redeeming them needs to be simple, transparent, and satisfying. This is how you answer the questions, “How do you redeem your reward points?” and “What happens when you redeem them?”

With the YITH plugin, the administrator first sets the redemption value. For instance, you could configure the system so that 100 points are equivalent to a $1 discount on a future purchase.11

During checkout, customers are presented with a clear message showing their available points balance and the potential discount. The plugin offers a highly flexible redemption experience, allowing users to apply all of their points or just a portion of them to their cart. They can use a slider or input field to see in real-time how many points they want to use and what the corresponding discount will be, giving them full control over their rewards.9

Furthermore, store owners can implement specific restrictions to protect their margins. This includes setting a maximum discount that can be applied from points on a single order, or excluding certain product categories from being eligible for point-based discounts.13 You can also configure whether points are applied before or after tax calculations.11

The Admin Experience: Managing Your Loyalty Program

The YITH plugin provides robust tools for administrators to manage the program efficiently.

From the backend, you can view a complete list of all users and their current point balances. A crucial feature for customer service is the ability to manually add or remove points from any user’s account.13 This is particularly useful for rewarding loyal customers who were active before the plugin was installed. While the system cannot automatically assign points for past orders made

before installation, you can easily go into an existing customer’s profile and manually grant them a starting balance as a thank-you for their past loyalty, a process confirmed by users as a handy workaround.14

The plugin also includes a dashboard widget that provides at-a-glance insights, such as a list of users who have collected the most points.13 This, combined with comprehensive reporting on point accumulation and redemption trends, gives you the data needed to understand what’s working and refine your strategy over time.5

Premium Power-Ups: Gamification and Advanced Features

The premium version of YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards unlocks a suite of advanced gamification features designed to maximize customer engagement and create a truly compelling loyalty experience.

• Levels & Badges: This is one of the plugin’s most powerful features. You can create a multi-tiered loyalty program with different levels (e.g., Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum) that customers achieve by collecting points. Each level can be assigned a unique name and a custom badge, fostering a sense of progression and achievement. You can even create different point-earning and redemption rules for higher tiers, making your VIP customers feel truly special.9
• Custom Banners & Messaging: To ensure your loyalty program is always visible, the plugin allows you to create and display custom banners across your site. You can design “Target” banners that show a customer’s progress towards a goal (e.g., “You’re only 200 points away from the Gold level!”) or “Get Points” banners that promote specific actions (e.g., “Leave a review and earn 50 points!”).8
• Customer Rankings: Tapping into our natural competitive instincts, you can enable a public leaderboard that ranks customers based on the points they’ve collected. You can even set up a rule to automatically award bonus points to the #1 ranked customer each week or month, creating an ongoing competition that drives engagement.9
• Point Expiration and Email Notifications: To create a sense of urgency and encourage redemption, you can set an expiration date for points.13 The plugin also includes a comprehensive email notification system that automatically informs customers when their point balance is updated or when their points are about to expire, helping to keep the program top-of-mind.9

The Strategic Landscape: YITH vs. The Competition

Choosing the right loyalty plugin is a critical decision for your WooCommerce store. The ideal choice depends on your specific goals, budget, and technical comfort level. The primary factors to consider are the depth of functionality, ease of customization, and compatibility with your existing theme and plugins.15

YITH stands out in a crowded market, but it’s important to understand how it compares to other popular alternatives. The following table provides a head-to-head comparison to help you make an informed decision.

Table 1: Points & Rewards Plugin Head-to-Head

Understanding Your Reward Currency: Points vs. Cashback vs. Gift Cards

A common question for store owners is why they should implement a points system instead of a more straightforward reward like cashback or issuing gift cards. Each approach has distinct psychological impacts and strategic advantages.

A points-based system, like the one offered by YITH, is fundamentally about gamification. It introduces an element of achievement and “trophy value” that a simple dollar discount lacks.23 Points create a form of branded currency that de-couples the reward from a direct cash value, which can increase its perceived worth in the customer’s mind.24 This system is uniquely suited to encouraging a wide range of behaviors beyond just purchasing.

Cashback, in contrast, is purely transactional. While simple and easy for customers to understand, it offers less emotional connection and does little to build a brand community.25 Gift cards are excellent for re-engagement and ensuring that reward money is spent back in your store, but they are often seen as a tool for acquisition or short-term promotions rather than a mechanism for building long-term, continuous loyalty.27 The table below breaks down these strategic differences.

Table 2: Choosing Your Reward Type

Building a Connected WooCommerce Ecosystem

The most powerful e-commerce stores are not built on a random assortment of plugins. They are built on a curated, integrated stack where each component works in harmony with the others. This is the strategic answer to the many disparate questions about wishlists, referrals, gift cards, and more. A loyalty program becomes exponentially more powerful when it can influence and reward actions across your entire e-commerce ecosystem.

YITH has built its entire business around this philosophy. Their plugins are developed on a shared framework, which ensures 100% compatibility and unlocks advanced features when multiple YITH plugins are used together. This creates a cohesive system where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.36

Connecting the Dots: How Points & Rewards Powers Other Functions

Instead of viewing features like wishlists or referrals in isolation, consider how your points program can supercharge them.

• Wishlists: A wishlist is a powerful indicator of purchase intent. By using the YITH WooCommerce Wishlist plugin—one of the most popular on the market with over 900,000 installations 37—in conjunction with Points and Rewards, you can incentivize this crucial pre-purchase action. Award customers a small number of points for creating a wishlist or for adding their first item. This simple reward encourages users to engage more deeply with your product catalog and provides you with valuable data on what products are in demand, which you can then use for targeted double-points promotions.36
• Referrals: It’s important to understand the difference between a loyalty program (focused on retention) and a referral program (focused on acquisition).29 The YITH Points and Rewards plugin includes excellent built-in referral functionality, allowing you to award significant bonus points to customers whose friends make a purchase via their unique referral link.9 This turns your loyal customers into a low-cost acquisition channel. For stores that require even more advanced referral tracking and management, this system can be complemented by a dedicated solution like ReferralCandy.22
• Gift Cards: Points and gift cards can work together in a powerful symbiotic relationship. You can configure your store to allow customers to redeem their loyalty points to purchase a YITH WooCommerce Gift Card at a discount. Alternatively, you can offer an exclusive, high-value gift card as a top-tier reward for your most loyal customers who reach the highest level in your program.31 This adds another layer of flexibility and desirability to your rewards portfolio.
• Upsells: Loyalty points are a natural and effective tool for upselling. By displaying messages like, “You’re only $15 away from earning 100 bonus points!” or “Add one more item to reach the Silver Tier and get free shipping!”, you can motivate customers to increase their AOV. This strategy works seamlessly with WooCommerce’s native upsell features or can be enhanced with dedicated funnel-building plugins.40
• Donations: While YITH does not offer its own donations plugin, you can easily integrate a third-party solution like Donation for WooCommerce 20 or

  Advanced Donation for WooCommerce.42 You can then use the manual point adjustment feature in YITH Points and Rewards to reward customers who contribute to a cause, aligning your brand with social good and rewarding customers for their generosity.

• Dropshipping: For dropshipping businesses, where product margins can often be thin, a points-based loyalty program is a particularly sustainable strategy.43 Because the perceived value of points can be psychologically higher than their actual cost to the business, you can create a compelling incentive program without having to offer steep cash discounts that erode your profitability.24

Table 3: The YITH Integrated Ecosystem

The following table illustrates how combining various YITH plugins creates a synergistic effect, with the Points and Rewards plugin acting as the central engine for driving customer behavior across the entire platform.

The SMB Owner’s Playbook: Launching a Successful Loyalty Program

Launching a loyalty program can feel daunting, but with a clear plan, it can be one of the highest-return investments you make in your business. Here is a simple, four-step playbook to get you started.

Step 1: Defining Your Point Value

The most critical first step is to ensure your program is sustainable and profitable. You need to calculate your Cost-Per-Point (CPP) to understand the real cost of the rewards you’re giving away. The formula is simple 45:

Cost Per Point=Points RequiredReward Value ($)​

For example, if you decide that a $10 discount reward will cost 1,000 points, then your CPP is $10 / 1,000 = $0.01. Each point costs you one cent.

As a best practice, it’s recommended to aim for a “cashback” rate of between 1% and 5%.46 To calculate your cashback rate, consider your earning rule. If a customer earns 1 point for every $1 spent, and 100 points can be redeemed for a $1 discount, they have to spend $100 to get $1 back. This is a sustainable 1% cashback rate.

Step 2: Structuring Your Earning Rules

With the YITH plugin, the options for earning points are vast. For a new program, it’s best to start with a simple, balanced structure that rewards the most valuable customer actions. This prevents overwhelming your customers and allows you to test what resonates before adding more complexity. The following table provides a solid starting point.

Table 4: Sample Points Earning Structure for a New Store

Step 3: Avoiding the Pitfalls (Why Most Loyalty Programs Fail)

Many loyalty programs fail to deliver results. By understanding the common mistakes, you can design a program that succeeds where others falter.

• Problem 1: It’s Too Complicated. If your rules are confusing, the earning structure is illogical, or the redemption process is difficult, customers will disengage. A loyalty program should feel effortless and rewarding, not like work. Keep the core loop simple and make sure the value proposition is crystal clear.34
• Problem 2: The Rewards Aren’t Valuable. A program fails if the rewards are irrelevant or perceived as low-value. A customer who spends hundreds of dollars only to find they can redeem their points for a keychain will feel cheated. You must find the right balance between offering rewards that are genuinely motivating to your customers and protecting your profit margins.32
• Problem 3: Poor Promotion & Visibility. You can build the best loyalty program in the world, but it’s useless if your customers don’t know it exists or forget they’re enrolled. The program must be actively promoted, and customers need to be able to easily see their point balance and understand how to use their rewards. A lack of visibility is a primary reason for abandonment.34

Step 4: Promoting Your New Program

Once your program is configured, you need to shout it from the rooftops. Use a multi-channel approach to ensure maximum awareness and enrollment.

• Use the YITH banner feature to create prominent on-site announcements.
• Build a dedicated landing or explainer page that clearly outlines the benefits and rules of the program.
• Send a targeted email marketing campaign to your existing customer list, perhaps offering them a starting bonus of points for their past loyalty.
• Announce the launch on all your social media channels.
• Incorporate information about the loyalty program into post-purchase popups and order confirmation emails.

Conclusion: Your Next Step Towards a More Loyal Customer Base

In today’s competitive e-commerce environment, shifting focus from costly acquisition to strategic retention is no longer optional—it’s essential for long-term success. A well-executed loyalty program is one of the most effective tools for achieving this, and YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards stands out as a premier solution for any serious WooCommerce store owner.

It is far more than a simple discount plugin; it is a comprehensive customer engagement and retention engine. Its key strengths lie in its deep gamification features—like levels, badges, and rankings—and its seamless integration into the broader YITH ecosystem. This allows you to build a cohesive, powerful system that rewards customers across their entire journey, from adding an item to a wishlist to referring a friend.

For those ready to take the next step, the path forward is clear. Begin by defining a simple, sustainable reward structure, using the playbook outlined above as your guide. Launch your program with a clear promotional strategy. As you gather data and gain a deeper understanding of your customers’ behavior, you can begin to layer in the more advanced gamification features to further enhance engagement. By investing in a tool like YITH Points and Rewards, you are not just buying a plugin; you are investing in the long-term, predictable value of a more loyal and profitable customer base.