Merkle brings a real combination to the loyalty market: a global cloud platform in LoyaltyPlus paired with the consulting breadth of a dentsu company. The platform handles transactional and engagement-based loyalty programs across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, and their services capabilities – strategy, creative, gamification, analytics, customer care, reward management – are among the most comprehensive of any vendor in this space.

The limitations are equally well-documented. The LoyaltyPlus platform UI has been flagged by customers as an area needing modernization. Several platform features – rewards management, promotions, and KPI reporting – suffer from an outdated interface and inconsistent user experience. AI-driven personalization delivery has been slower than customers would like. And innovation speed, along with the breadth of the technology partner ecosystem, trails some competitors.

If those gaps are driving your evaluation, here are the platforms worth a serious look.

What to Look for in a Merkle LoyaltyPlus Alternative

Merkle’s model is built around end-to-end managed services – they’ll handle strategy through execution – combined with a solid loyalty platform underneath. What brands typically want when they look for alternatives is one of three things: a more modern platform UX, faster AI-driven personalization, or deeper emotional loyalty measurement capabilities.

That last one is increasingly where programs are won and lost. Our Humanizing Loyalty research found that 83% of consumers say they want loyalty programs to surprise and delight them, but only 66% say the programs they use most actually do. That 17-point gap isn’t a feature problem – it’s a measurement and design problem. Most programs don’t track whether they’re closing it. The platforms and partners worth considering are the ones that have built measurement frameworks specifically around those emotional dimensions.

The 6 Best Merkle LoyaltyPlus Alternatives

1. Phaedon (Tally)

Loyalty technology should give brands more control over their programs, not create another layer of complexity. That’s the thinking behind Tally, our flexible SaaS loyalty platform built to help teams move faster, adapt to changing customer expectations, and manage sophisticated programs without constant technical support.

Tally supports everything from single-brand programs to complex, multibrand ecosystems across travel, hospitality, and retail. With configurable program capabilities, 270+ built-in integrations, and AI orchestration through the Tally AI Connector (MCP), teams can manage rewards, adjust program rules, and resolve member issues using natural language through tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. No waiting on IT tickets or lengthy development cycles to make routine changes.

Our capabilities extend beyond the platform, including loyalty strategy and design, predictive AI modeling, real-time fraud prevention, and connectivity that brings loyalty into the personal AI assistants consumers increasingly use. Underpinning it all is nearly a decade of proprietary Humanizing Loyalty research identifying six drivers of emotional loyalty: Trust, Reliability, Appreciation, Investment, Empathy, and Shared Values.

What customers consistently value about working with us is our adaptability, transparency, and willingness to work alongside their teams. We bring the technology and strategic expertise without requiring brands to surrender control of their programs.

Best for: Travel, hospitality, and retail brands looking to modernize their loyalty technology with flexible program management, AI-assisted capabilities, and a broad integration ecosystem, without the complexity or operational dependencies.

2. Kobie (Kobie Alchemy Loyalty Cloud)

Kobie’s full-service model and 35+ year track record offer a comparable managed-services approach to Merkle’s, with a more modern AI layer. The Panoramic Customer Profile, AI monitoring, and Loyalty Health Monitor are genuine differentiators. The North American focus matters for global programs.

Best for: Large North American enterprises wanting full-service managed loyalty with advanced AI personalization and data unification.

3. Capillary Technologies (Loyalty+)

Capillary’s AI depth – conversational AI for promotion configuration, behavior-based personalization, aiRA intelligence – directly addresses Merkle’s slower AI delivery as a customer concern. Strong global reach and multi-industry configurability.

Best for: Global brands wanting AI-embedded loyalty with strong configurability and faster AI personalization delivery.

4. Salesforce (Loyalty Management)

For brands in the Salesforce ecosystem, the cross-cloud data unification and Agentforce AI layer create a loyalty environment with more native AI integration than LoyaltyPlus currently delivers. The modern CRM-first interface also addresses the UX modernization concern.

Best for: Salesforce-native enterprises wanting loyalty inside an existing Customer 360 environment with more modern UX.

5. Bond Brand Loyalty (Synapze)

Bond’s combination of Synapze LX and Synapze XI – the execution platform backed by the intelligence engine trained on 35 million data points from the Bond Loyalty Report – offers a comparable platform-plus-services model to Merkle, with a more modern technology architecture and stronger emotional loyalty analytics. Primarily North American.

Best for: North American multibrand enterprises wanting intelligence-led loyalty with strong consulting services.

6. Loyalty Juggernaut (GRAVTY)

GRAVTY’s multinational compliance infrastructure, 8,000+ pre-integrated connectors, and coalition program capabilities extend beyond what LoyaltyPlus handles natively for global programs. The KPI visualization gap is worth probing.

Best for: Multinational brands running coalition or multipartner programs with serious international compliance requirements.

The Platform Modernization Question

Merkle’s consulting services are genuinely strong. The strategic thought leadership, the breadth of managed services, the global reach – those are real. What customers consistently flag is that the technology layer underneath those services hasn’t kept pace with the market. An outdated UI creates friction for loyalty marketers who need to move quickly. Inconsistent UX across the platform creates inefficiency that cascades into program performance.

If the platform is the constraint, the answer isn’t just finding a newer interface. It’s finding a platform where the technology and the strategy are built from the same philosophical foundation – where the measurement framework tells you whether the program is actually working, not just whether transactions are processing. That’s what we built Tally to do. If you’re ready for that conversation, we’re ready to have it.