Frequently asked questions

GOTYOU is a free membership digital rewards app that lets you connect with local businesses that will pay you for providing feedback, completing surveys, or making referrals. These businesses also provide exclusive perks to GOTYOU members.

Companies shift a portion of their marketing funds, usually spent on platforms such as Google or Meta, to instead directly compensate you for providing feedback and spreading the word about their business.

We partnered with top restaurants, retail shops, and other services in your community. Open the GOTYOU app, check in, and start earning today.

It is the only social media app where you can earn status, perks, and points that have real cash value. Earn anywhere and spend anywhere. It is also the only social membership app where you own and control your own data.

GOTYOU is growing city by city with local merchants. See where GOTYOU works. If you’d like to see GOTYOU in your community, email us at hello@gotyou.co.

Yes — you can use the brand’s loyalty app and also use GOTYOU. This allows you to double dip on your favorite local hot spots.

Visit any retail shop or restaurant partnered with GOTYOU and you will receive tokens every time you interact with them through the app — check-ins, feedback, or referrals. You can get paid up to 10 tokens for any single action. There is never a cost to use GOTYOU.

Tokens are different than loyalty points: each one has a cash value and they never expire. You can redeem them at any time for a gift card, Visa, or Venmo.

There is never a cap on how much you can earn. The more you participate and promote local businesses in your community, the more you can earn. You can also earn by referring other users and merchants to the platform.

Yes. Each reward earned has a cash value and will not expire. Most reward points are only good at a single merchant, you do not own them, and they normally do not have any cash value.

In the app, go to your Wallet and select the Redeem button. Currently, Venmo is the main option for redeeming your tokens. We will soon be adding the ability to redeem them for spendable vouchers at local merchants.

There is an in-app digital wallet that holds the tokens you have earned. The wallet also stores all of the businesses you are connected to.

Absolutely! If you bring a merchant onboard with GOTYOU and they sign up for our platform, you’ll receive a healthy commission on every new account. Suggest a business at hello@gotyou.co.

More earning methods, perks, and status upgrades are coming every few weeks. Surveys, offers, and social posts are next on our plate.

Our mobile app prioritizes data security by employing advanced encryption protocols to safeguard all user information. We continuously monitor and update our security measures to protect against unauthorized access and ensure that user data remains confidential and secure.

Your data isn’t shared with anyone. Merchants see only your username — your email and phone number remain private. Survey information you choose to share becomes merchant-owned first-party data.

We will give 10% of our revenue to local charities in the communities where we operate each year. Users will also be able to give their tokens to those same charities.

Merchant Member is $24.95 a month: your merchant profile, verified check-ins with GOTYOU Tap at your counter, customer insights and promo tools, with pay-as-you-go usage. GOTYOU 50 ($175 a month) and GOTYOU 100 ($300 a month) add 50 or 100 guaranteed first-time customers every month. Compare plans.

No. Every plan is month-to-month with no setup fee. Upgrade, downgrade or cancel anytime from your merchant dashboard.

Paid plans guarantee a specific number of first-time visitors each billing cycle. If we fall short, we keep running your campaign until we deliver, or refund the undelivered portion.

Standard plans are built for everyday, high-frequency businesses with an average ticket under $25 — coffee shops, bakeries, quick-service restaurants and casual retail. For spas, salons, fine dining, medical and other higher-ticket businesses, we build a custom Demand Plan. Ask about a custom plan.

Check-ins use the GOTYOU Counter Tap NFC pad at your counter. GOTYOU Tap is part of every plan. The full In-Store Kit (pad, table tents and window stickers) is included free with GOTYOU 50 and 100, or $50 on its own.

Setup takes minutes — your first 11:23 Daily Drop can run tomorrow. Create your merchant account, or see how it works for merchants.

A loyalty program rewards customers for coming back — points, punch cards, perks, member pricing or cash back. The goal isn’t the reward itself; it’s turning a one-time visit into a habit, because a returning customer costs far less to bring in than a brand-new one.

They work when the reward is easy to understand, easy to earn, and worth something the customer cares about. They fail when customers have to download a separate app for every shop, carry a card, or wait months to earn anything. Most small-business programs stall at sign-up: people join once and never come back to redeem. Read more in What’s wrong with traditional loyalty programs.

Punch cards get lost, can’t tell you who your customers are, and reward people who would have come back anyway. Single-store points apps add friction — customers won’t install an app for every café they visit — and the points usually have no value anywhere else. Neither one shows you which marketing brought someone in the first time.

Reward the behavior you want — a return visit, a review, a referral, a visit during a slow hour — instead of discounting every purchase. Small, frequent rewards and status perks often beat big percentage-off coupons, which train people to wait for the next deal. See how local businesses can thrive without discounts and turning walk-ins into loyal promoters without sacrificing profits.

Deal sites can deliver a burst of traffic, but the customer often belongs to the platform, not to you, and many never return at full price. If you use offers, make them targeted (new customers, slow hours, lapsed regulars) and make sure you can see who redeemed them. More in the real future of local commerce, beyond coupons and discounts.

Customers use one free app across every participating business, so there’s nothing new to install for your shop. Their rewards have real cash value instead of store-only points. And every visit is verified with a tap on the GOTYOU Counter Tap pad at your counter, so you know exactly who came in, how often, and what brought them — a customer list you own, not one rented from a platform.

Yes. GOTYOU works alongside the loyalty program you already run — customers can use both. Many businesses use GOTYOU to bring in new customers and verify visits, and keep their existing program for regulars.

Start with the basics: make sure your hours, phone, address and photos are accurate everywhere people search, because a wrong listing loses customers you already earned. Then give people a specific reason to come in this week, show up when they’re deciding where to go (late morning for lunch, evenings for dinner), and give first-time visitors a reason to return. Finally, measure which channel actually puts people in the door, and spend more there. Your next customer is scrolling covers the discovery side.

Make trying you low-risk and well-timed: a strong first-visit offer, delivered to people nearby when they’re deciding where to eat or shop. GOTYOU’s 11:23 Daily Drop does exactly that — every day at 11:23 AM, your offer goes out to opted-in locals nearby, and paid plans guarantee a set number of first-time visitors each month (we never count the same person twice). See plans.

You need to know who they are first — which anonymous foot traffic and cash sales never tell you. With verified check-ins, every visitor becomes a named customer in your GOTYOU dashboard, so you can reach lapsed customers again with an offer worth coming back for. Bringing past customers back typically costs a fraction of finding new ones; on GOTYOU it runs through a Demand Budget you control.

Offer something that only applies during the slow window (a 2–5 PM drink, a weekday lunch special) and get it in front of nearby people right before that window. On GOTYOU, Power Hour lets you push an offer when you need traffic, and the dashboard shows whether it actually filled the room.

It can be, but you pay for clicks and impressions, not visits — and ad costs keep rising while a click rarely turns into a measurable walk-in. Before spending more, make sure you can connect ad spend to people actually standing in your store. Why local advertising is broken and the real cost of advertising go deeper.

Tie every offer to a redemption you can see. On GOTYOU, a customer claims an offer wherever they found it — a flyer, Instagram, an event, the Daily Drop — then taps to redeem in-store, and the visit is attributed to that source. You pay for real visits, not impressions, and you can compare channels side by side. Try the ROI calculator to estimate your return.

A common rule of thumb is a single-digit percentage of revenue — roughly 4–6% for restaurants, 7–9% for retail, 3–8% for services — though new or growing businesses often spend more. What matters more than the number is spending it where you can measure real customers. Our ROI calculator uses those ranges to suggest a starting budget.

Check your hours, phone, address and website on every directory you appear on, and update them whenever something changes — especially holiday hours. If your business is listed in the GOTYOU directory, you can claim it for free to keep your details accurate and see who’s checking in.

Marketing that grows through the people around your business — regulars, neighbors, other local shops, campus groups — instead of through ad platforms. Customers recommend you, post about you and bring friends because they’re rewarded for it and feel part of something local. How GOTYOU builds a better community explains our approach.

Make sharing easy and worth it: reward a referral when the friend actually visits, ask every customer for honest feedback, and give regulars status they can see. One caution: Google and Yelp don’t allow incentives for reviews posted on their sites, so keep rewards for feedback inside your own channels. On GOTYOU, customers earn for checking in, sharing and rating in the app, and referral rewards turn happy customers into ambassadors.

Yes — photos, posts and reviews from real customers are more trusted than ads and keep your business visible on the platforms people actually browse. Encourage it by making it easy (good lighting, a photo-worthy item, a reason to post); if you reward posts, ask customers to disclose it. More in the power of user-generated content for small businesses and Social is the new Google.

Cross-promote with complementary neighbors (a coffee shop and a bookstore, a gym and a smoothie bar), run joint events, and share audiences instead of competing for the same ad slots. A shared rewards network means a customer earning at one local spot is nudged toward the next. See the value of partnerships within the community.

Students respond to timely, social, low-cost reasons to go somewhere with friends — and they move in groups. Be present near campus, time offers around class schedules and evenings, and lean on peer referrals and campus ambassadors. GOTYOU runs zones near major universities and a college ambassador program.

It’s the category GOTYOU is building: e-commerce-style intelligence for in-person businesses. A merchant runs an offer, a real person shows up to redeem it, and a tap confirms the visit — so the customer becomes named, real and yours to bring back, and every visit builds a record of who comes in and what moves them. Read more about our mission.