Alternatives
Every loyalty wallet is free.
The question is what it is
free for.
Storing a barcode is not hard, so no wallet wins on that. What separates them is the arrangement underneath: who needs an account, what the app knows about your shopping, and what happens to your cards when the company changes its mind.
| Account needed | Works with no signal | Watch app | Offers or ads | How it earns | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CardJar | No | Yes, entirely | Wear OS, with a tile | None | It does not, yet. Nothing about you is for sale |
| Klarna (where Stocard went) | Yes | Signed-in app | No | Yes | Payments and retailer partnerships |
| Apple Wallet | Apple ID | Yes | Apple Watch | No | Part of the platform |
| Google Wallet | Google account | Yes | Wear OS | No, but it is Google | Part of the platform |
| FidMe | Yes | Signed-in app | No | Yes, prominently | Cashback, offers, receipts |
| Key Ring | Yes | Signed-in app | No | Yes, prominently | Advertising and retailer offers |
| mobile-pocket | Optional | Yes | No | Yes | Retailer offers |
Compiled from each product's own store listing and published description. Apps change; if something here is out of date, please say so and it is corrected on this page.
The three questions the table is really asking
Does it need an account?
An account is how a wallet becomes a profile. Once your cards are attached to an identity, the list of shops you use becomes a thing that exists somewhere and can be joined to other things.
CardJar has no sign-up screen at all, so there is no profile to join anything to.
Does it work when the network does not?
The refrigerated aisle of a large supermarket is one of the worst places for mobile signal you will stand in all week, and it is exactly where you need the card.
CardJar keeps the cards, the barcode drawing and the whole retailer list on the device, so aeroplane mode changes nothing.
Who is the app actually for?
A wallet inside a payments app is a way to open the payments app. A wallet with offers in it is a way to sell offers. Both are legitimate; neither is built around you getting to the barcode faster.
CardJar does one thing, and there is nothing else it is trying to get you to do.
App by app
Klarna, where Stocard's users were sent
Klarna acquired Stocard in 2021 and folded the wallet into its own app; the standalone Stocard app has been retired. It works, and it is free, and it is a buy-now-pay-later product with a card wallet inside it. If what you wanted was a loyalty wallet rather than a payments app, that is a fair reason to look elsewhere.
The full Stocard comparison, and how to bring your screenshots across.
Apple Wallet
Excellent for what it holds, and what it holds is decided by the retailer rather than by you: a card gets in when the shop issues a pass in Apple's format. Plenty of loyalty schemes never have. For the rest, you end up with a second app anyway.
CardJar has no iPhone build yet, so today Apple Wallet plus something else is the honest answer on iOS. The iPhone and Apple Watch apps are planned, and the shared code has been written for them since the first commit.
Google Wallet
The closest mainstream comparison on Android: it will take a loyalty barcode, it works offline once a card is in, and it reaches Wear OS. It is also tied to a Google account and syncs your cards to Google, which for some people is precisely the thing they are trying to avoid, and for others is a perfectly good reason to use it.
If you are content for Google to hold the list, Google Wallet is a reasonable choice and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. CardJar exists for the people who are not.
FidMe, Key Ring and mobile-pocket
Long-running, capable apps with big retailer databases, and all three lean on offers, cashback or advertising. That is the business, and it is why they can afford to keep large catalogues current in a way a one-person app cannot always match.
The trade is the usual one: a wallet that earns from what you buy has to know what you buy. If that trade suits you, they are good apps. If it does not, that is the gap CardJar is in.
The plastic ones on your keyring
Genuinely private, entirely offline, never updated without your consent, and completely useless on the day you leave them at home. Which is, in the end, the whole reason any of these apps exist.
Where CardJar is honestly worse
A comparison page that only flatters the app it is on is not worth reading.
No iPhone version yet. Android and Wear OS today. If you are on iOS, this is not your app this month.
No offers, cashback or points tracking. Not a roadmap item. CardJar shows the barcode and gets out of the way.
275 schemes, not tens of thousands. Five countries, curated by hand, with each colour taken from the retailer's own brand guidance. Anything not on the list still works. You just name it yourself.
English only, for now. Including for the 48 Ukrainian schemes in the catalogue, which is a gap rather than a decision.
PDF417 is scanned but not drawn in this version, and the app tells you so when you add such a card rather than at a till.
Common questions
What is the best loyalty card app with no account?
We would say CardJar, and we are obviously not impartial. The checkable part is the claim underneath it: with backup left off, which is the default, the app makes no network requests at all, and there is no sign-up screen anywhere in it. The privacy page lists every request it can make so the claim can be tested rather than believed.
Can I use more than one wallet at once?
Yes, and a lot of people should. Put the cards a retailer issues as a proper pass into Apple or Google Wallet, and everything else into CardJar. Nothing here demands exclusivity.
Which of these works on a watch?
Apple Wallet on Apple Watch, Google Wallet on Wear OS, and CardJar on Wear OS with its own tile. How CardJar does it.
Can I get my cards out again?
From CardJar, yes: an encrypted export to one file you keep, and individual cards as a link or a file at any time. The lesson of the last few years is to check that before you need it, in whichever app you choose.
If the arrangement matters to you, this is the one without one.
Not on Google Play yet
CardJar is built and tested and is going through the last checks before the Play listing opens: Android and Wear OS first, iPhone and Apple Watch after. One message, when there is something to install, and nothing else ever.