springbig Alternatives: Best Dispensary Loyalty Software

The short answer

The realistic springbig alternatives for a US dispensary are Alpine IQ, Sprout (owned by Weedmaps), and the loyalty module already built into your point of sale from Dutchie, Blaze, Flowhub, Treez or Sweed. Reported pricing puts springbig from about $600 a month, Alpine IQ at $900 to $1,200 a month for a typical dispensary, and POS-native loyalty at little or no extra line item because it is bundled with the register you already pay for. The reason operators are looking right now is not price. It is that on July 13, 2026, springbig Holdings transferred every share of SpringBig, Inc. to its lender group and stated in its own SEC filing that it no longer owns the business.

That is a change of control, not a shutdown. The platform is still running, still serving roughly 706 retail clients across more than 2,600 locations. But it does change what you are signing, and it changes who you are signing with, which is worth twenty minutes of reading before your renewal date.

What actually happened to springbig

This is worth getting exactly right, because the version circulating in operator groups is usually either "springbig is fine" or "springbig is dead", and neither is accurate.

In its quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2026, springbig Holdings disclosed a working capital deficit of about $15.5 million against $340,000 in cash, down from $1.5 million at the end of 2025. Net revenue for the quarter was $4.429 million, a 24 percent fall from $5.837 million a year earlier. Then, on July 13, 2026, the company "transferred all of its equity interests in SpringBig, Inc. to LS Round II, LLC" and was released from roughly $12.5 million of principal and accrued interest on its notes. In plain terms, the lenders took the operating business in place of foreclosing on it.

Two separate things follow from that, and mixing them up is where the rumours come from. The operating company, the one that runs your loyalty program, is now owned by the lender group and carries the remaining loan obligations. The listed shell that used to publish these numbers says management "is evaluating strategic alternatives, including one or more potential business combinations", and that if it cannot complete one, "the Company will likely liquidate and wind up its affairs." That sentence is about the shell, not about the software.

There is a case that the operating business is better capitalized now than the one you were evaluating a year ago. A company released from $12.5 million of debt has a materially different cost structure. What it does not have any more is an obligation to tell you how it is doing, and that is the practical loss for a customer. We set out the published price points and the overage mechanism, sourced to springbig's own filings rather than to an agency estimate, on our springbig pricing breakdown.

springbig alternatives compared

Every monthly figure above except the generic tier is reported by somebody other than the company charging it, which is the normal condition in cannabis software and the reason to get your own quote in writing. Figures are as reported in September 2026.

How much do springbig alternatives cost?

The band that matters for most single-location and small multi-location shops is $600 to $1,200 a month, and inside that band the headline rate is rarely the number you end up paying. Two things move it.

The first is message volume. springbig's own filings describe earning additional revenue from retail clients "when the quantum of messages sent to consumers exceeds the amounts in the subscription package". That is the mechanism behind almost every complaint you will read about a loyalty bill escalating without a price increase: the subscription did not change, the campaign calendar did. Ask any vendor you are quoting how many messages the package includes and what the per-message rate is above it, and model a busy month, not an average one.

The second is location count. A three-store operator quoted a flat platform rate and a three-store operator quoted per location are having completely different conversations, and the difference compounds at renewal. The Alpine IQ numbers illustrate the spread well: the commonly reported $900 to $1,200 a month is roughly $11,000 to $14,000 a year, while procurement data across real contracts puts the average nearer $70,000 a year and the top of the range past $100,000. Those are not contradictory figures. They are a single-store quote and an enterprise contract described by different sources.

For the wider picture of where loyalty spend sits against directories, SEO and out-of-home, our breakdown of dispensary marketing cost by channel names who published every figure in it.

Is springbig going out of business?

No. The software is operating and serving roughly 706 retail clients across more than 2,600 locations. What ended is springbig Holdings' ownership of it: the equity in SpringBig, Inc. went to the lender group on July 13, 2026, and the listed parent that used to file quarterly reports has said it will pursue a business combination or, failing that, wind up. Your account lives with the operating company, not the shell.

The practical consequence is narrower than the headline. You are not facing a platform that disappears next quarter. You are facing a vendor that, for the first time in four years, has no obligation to publish its client count, its revenue or its cash position. Before this, springbig and Leafly were the two cannabis companies whose real customer numbers you could look up. Both have now gone dark inside eighteen months, springbig through this transfer and Leafly through a deliberate deregistration. That is a genuine change in how a dispensary can evaluate a vendor, and it argues for month-to-month terms across the category rather than for panic about one name.

Should you switch to the loyalty module in your POS?

For a single-location shop, more often than the dedicated vendors would like. Points that live on the register ticket are simpler, they cannot fall out of sync with the sale, and they usually cost nothing extra because they are already in the platform fee. If what you want is "spend $100, get $10 back", your POS almost certainly does it and you are paying a second vendor for a feature you own.

The case for a dedicated platform is everything around the points. Segmented campaigns to customers who have not been in for 60 days. Tiers with different earn rates. Automations triggered by purchase behaviour. Compliant SMS at volume, with consent records that survive an audit. That is a marketing department in software, and if nobody at your shop is going to build those campaigns, you are buying capability you will not use. The honest test is whether you have someone whose job includes sending the campaigns, because the platform does not send them for you.

SMS is usually the deciding factor rather than the points, and it deserves its own evaluation. Deliverability, 10DLC registration and what happens to your phone list if you leave are the three questions that separate these products, and we work through all three in our comparison of dispensary SMS software.

What to ask before you sign with any of them

Four questions, in writing, before the demo turns into a contract.

Can I export my customer list, point balances and consent records, and in what format? This is the one that decides whether you are a customer or a hostage. A vendor that will commit in the contract to a full export in a standard format is a vendor you can leave. One that will only "assist with a transition" is not.

What is the renewal rate, not the first-year rate? Cannabis software discounts the first term and makes it back at renewal more reliably than almost any other category. Ask for the renewal number now, while you still have leverage.

What happens to my program if the platform changes hands? Assignment clauses are boilerplate right up until the week they matter, and this year they have mattered twice in this category. Read the one in front of you.

Who is on the other side of this contract, today? After a transfer of ownership the entity name on the agreement may not be the entity you negotiated with. Confirm the legal counterparty in writing before signing anything longer than a month.

What you actually have to move

A loyalty migration is not a software install, it is a data move, and three things have to survive it intact. Point balances, because a customer who loses their accumulated points will tell your budtenders about it for a month. Phone numbers, because that list is the asset you were really paying for. And consent records, the timestamped proof that each of those numbers opted in, which is what stands between you and a messaging complaint you cannot defend.

That last one is where most switches go wrong. Vendors export phone numbers readily and consent metadata reluctantly, and a list without consent records is a list you cannot legally text. Get the export format confirmed before you give notice on the old platform, not after. And since you are about to hand a new vendor your entire customer database, ask how they control access to it: any serious platform can show you how its controls map to a recognized security framework, and one that cannot answer that question about your customers' phone numbers is telling you something.

The sequencing of the switch itself, including how to run both platforms in parallel without double-issuing points, is covered step by step in our guide to switching dispensary loyalty programs. And if you are still deciding between the platforms rather than the mechanics, our full comparison of dispensary loyalty program software puts springbig, Alpine IQ, Sprout and POS-native loyalty side by side on features as well as price.

The part loyalty software cannot do

Every platform on this page works on customers you already have. Points, tiers, win-back texts and birthday offers are retention tools, and retention is the cheapest growth a dispensary has. But none of it reaches the person two miles away who is choosing between three shops they found in a search, has never been to yours, and will pick whichever one has a menu they can read and an address they trust.

That is a different budget line and it is the one we sell. A claimed, license-verified listing on Dispensaries puts your shop, your live menu and your daily deals in front of adults searching your area, at a published $99 a month. If you are weighing a $900 loyalty platform against the channels that bring new people through the door, our page on listing your dispensary sets out exactly what that includes.

Reporting on springbig Holdings in this article is taken from its quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2026 and the related current report. Third-party pricing is attributed where it appears and is not our number. This is general business information, not legal, financial or investment advice.