GS805 guides · loyalty and promotions · written by an operator who runs one
GS805 loyalty and promotions: what the factory software does, and what VendCaptain adds
A shake machine in a gym lives on repeat customers, and the tools you have for that depend on the software selling the drink. This page describes the factory software's promotion features as they really work, what VendCaptain Connect adds through those same tools, what Run adds once VendCaptain is on the screen, and keeps what exists today apart from what is planned.
What the factory software offers, as it really works
- Limited-time discounts
- A fixed promotional price per drink, over one continuous window from a start date and time to an end date and time, on the machines you tick. There is no percentage, no "every Tuesday", no "4 to 6 pm daily": a recurring happy hour is one activity per occurrence, made by hand. A new discount is created switched off and must be enabled. A running discount cannot be deleted; it must be paused first. A discounted sale is an ordinary sale with a lower paid amount, and nothing in the sales list links it to the discount that caused it.
- Free-drink codes
- Batches of six-digit codes, each with a QR image, for a free product. The batch knows how many were redeemed and how many are left, and nothing else: no who, no when, no attribution. Codes are free-product only; there is no discount code. We ran coach referral codes this way, one batch per coach, by hand.
- Screen content
- Playlists of images or videos with a time window per machine. Play statistics exist on paper; ours were always empty.
- A "new" tag
- A visual label on a product. That is the whole feature.
What does not exist in the factory software
A loyalty programme of any kind, a stamp card, a discount code, a recurring schedule, a record of who redeemed what, a way to tell which campaign a sale came from, or any idea of who the customer is. The GS805 sells to strangers. How the factory software and cloud fit together is in the owner's guide.
What VendCaptain Connect adds, through the same factory tools
- Campaigns that recur
- A happy hour every day from 4 to 6, a Monday discount, a launch price for two weeks, as a percentage, an amount off or a fixed price, on the machines and drinks you choose. VendCaptain fans it out into one factory discount per occurrence, named with the date, and shows you the job size before it runs: three machines, four drinks, fourteen windows. Ending or archiving pauses the factory discounts, never deletes them, so nothing keeps running by accident. Overlapping campaigns are refused.
- What is really running
- A live check that lists every discount on the factory cloud, including ones made in the maker's portal by somebody else, and lets you pause them all or adopt one. VendCaptain reports a campaign as running only when the factory cloud says it is.
- What each campaign did
- Discounts and margin by product, and every list-price change over your whole history with cups before and after per machine. A flavour of the week with its result. Observation windows for a competition or an event, so you can read the effect of something you did not price.
- Courtesy codes
- One single-use code for one customer, valid on any drink, emailed in their language, for the time the machine let them down. A registry of every code: who holds it, when it expires, and the accounting entry it belongs to, so a free cup is a marketing cost in your books and not lost revenue.
- Who comes back
- From your Nayax export: repeat rate, how much more a repeat customer spends, weekly retention, your most loyal cards, and when each regular usually comes. Card brand and last four digits only. It is the only way to see repeat customers on a machine that sells to strangers. What that export contains, and its 200-row trap, is on GS805 and Nayax.
What Run adds, because VendCaptain is on the screen
- A stamp card in Apple Wallet and Google Wallet
- No app to install. The customer scans a QR on the screen during the make and claims the stamp on their phone within 30 minutes of the sale; one stamp per paid shake, none for a free one. Ten stamps make a free shake, delivered as a six-digit single-use code valid for 60 days and consumed by the kiosk. The card updates live and announces the free shake. The first stamp-card cycle ran on our machine on 31 July 2026, before VendCaptain was the seller.
- A reminder near the gym
- A line on the Apple lock screen, up to 120 characters, when the phone is near a venue you choose, up to ten venues; Google shows its own alert. Written by you, per venue or group.
- Something to do for 85 seconds
- A game during the make, with a weekly leaderboard from Monday to Monday where only scores tied to a real sale count, under a nickname the customer picks at the QR. A one-question survey, tips, a review QR on the ready screen, and an offer on the final screen shown to every buyer. Each feature switches on and off per machine.
- Tests instead of guesses
- Two prices for a drink or an add-on, or two menu orders, assigned per customer on the same machine. A verdict only when each version has a hundred sales and the gap is too big to be chance; then one click uses the winner. In one operator's 25 machines, a 40 percent price rise had halved the cups; a test would have shown it on one machine first.
- Code campaigns
- Batches of codes with a discount rather than a free drink, and rewards triggered by a purchase, exist on Run, where the kiosk checks the code against VendCaptain's cloud.
- Add-ons
- Creatine as a toggle on the drink with its own price, not a second product. Every drink on one screen; the factory app's card limit does not apply. The limit, and the two products that never sold on our machine, are on GS805 troubleshooting.
What Run is, and what it changes on the machine, is on GS805 integrations.
For gyms specifically
- A login for the gym
- A partner login shows the gym its own machines' sales, read-only, with its commission, and the card-loyalty page. Nothing else, so it is useful rather than confusing.
- The gym's own screen
- On Run, the standby screen plays the gym's classes and offers on the schedule you set, from the kiosk's own cache, so it keeps playing offline.
- Coaches, on our own machine
- We credit a paid cup bought within 40 minutes after a class to that class's coach, from a class schedule we import, and run a monthly coach contest with cups per class beside total cups, because a coach who teaches more classes sells more cups. This runs on our own machine today and is not offered to other operators yet; it is here so you know it can be done. The whole story of that machine is in Running a GS805 in a gym.
- Walk-ins
- Coaches report non-members coming in just for the machine, many from Google Maps. What exists today is the evidence: a list of cups bought outside any class window, with how often the paying card was seen before. A free-class offer on the screen for walk-ins is designed and not built.
Today against planned
Exists today
- On Connect: recurring campaigns as fixed prices, amounts or percentages, with the live check of what is running; courtesy codes; the codes registry; repeat-customer analytics from your Nayax export; what each price change did; a partner login.
- On Run: the Wallet stamp card, the nearby reminder, the game and leaderboard, the survey, tips, the review QR, the final-screen offer, per-customer price and menu tests, discount-code batches and purchase-triggered rewards, add-ons on one screen.
- On our own machine only: coach attribution and the coach contest.
Planned or not offered
- A walk-in offer shown only to walk-ins: designed, in review with the kiosk designers.
- Member check-in at the machine, and discounts read from gym membership software: not offered.
- Drink packs bought online and redeemed at the machine: we sell them for our own machine; not offered to other operators yet.
- Marketing messages to card holders: the consent is collected, nobody sends anything yet.
- Redeeming by scanning a phone at the machine: waits for scanner hardware.
Questions owners ask
Can I run a happy hour on a GS805?
On the factory software, one window at a time, by hand, as a fixed price per drink. With VendCaptain Connect, a daily or weekday happy hour as a percentage or an amount, fanned out into the factory's windows for you, paused in one click. With Run, the same, natively.
Does the GS805 have discount codes or coupons?
The factory software has free-drink codes only, in anonymous batches. VendCaptain Connect adds single-use courtesy codes emailed to one customer and a registry of who holds what. Discount codes and purchase-triggered rewards need Run.
Is there a GS805 loyalty programme?
Not in the factory software. With Run, a stamp card in Apple and Google Wallet: ten paid shakes, one free. On any GS805, VendCaptain shows repeat customers from your Nayax export, which is the next best thing.
Do customers need to install an app?
No. The stamp card lives in the wallet the phone already has, and the game and survey run on the machine's screen.
Can I see who redeemed a code?
In the factory software, no: a batch knows only its counts. In VendCaptain, courtesy codes are tied to the customer they were emailed to, and every code's holder, expiry and accounting entry are in the registry.
Does a free shake earn a stamp?
No. One stamp per paid shake, claimed within 30 minutes of the sale, and the free shake itself earns nothing.
More GS805 guides
- GS805 integrationsConnect, Run, where Nayax fits, and which APIs and SDKs are not offered.
- GS805 and NayaxHow the payment and the drink are connected, and what happens to the money after a failed vend.
- GS805 troubleshootingPaid but no drink, idle machines, run-outs, the waste bucket, a frozen screen: what each is and what to do.
- GS805 remote monitoringFactory telemetry against VendCaptain Connect and Run, and which data exists at all.
- GS805 owner's guideSoftware, payments, setup, calibration and cleaning, with the official manuals linked.
- Running a GS805 in a gymOne machine in a Madrid studio since May 2026: what we found, and what changes when our software becomes the seller.
See who comes back, and run your first happy hour this week.
Free for 15 days, nothing changes on your machines. No card needed.
Daniel Escobar escobar@vendcaptain.com +34 623 345 790 Email, WhatsApp or phone