VIP tiers that make status worth chasing
Status rules you write yourself and perks that come with each level — earning boosts, free shipping, gifts, gated access — so your best customers have a reason to stay your best customers.
Included on every plan, including Free →Every brand has a top 10% of customers who drive an outsized share of revenue. A tier system's job is to make those customers feel the difference — and to give everyone else a visible ladder to climb. ANOTHERSOLE runs a four-tier membership on Toki, and its members repeat at 87.8% against 12.4% for non-members.
Status rules you write yourself
Define your tiers — Bronze, Gold, Platinum, or whatever fits your brand — and set what it takes to get in. Conditions cover the ways customers actually show loyalty:
- Spend and orders — amount spent or number of orders, lifetime or within a window like the last 12 months
- Points — earned over time, or the highest balance a customer has held, so spending points doesn't knock them down
- Advocacy — what the friends they referred have spent
- Anything else — completed activities, Shopify tags, a Klaviyo segment, or a paid membership
Combine conditions with AND/OR, and use a time-in-tier condition to let members keep their status for a while after they qualify. The full list is in the tier conditions docs.
Perks that feel like status
Tiers are only as good as what they unlock. Toki has 10+ perk types:
- Earning boosts — an accelerator multiplies the points members earn, from 1.25× to 5×
- Free shipping — for the tiers that earn it
- Discounts and free gifts — fixed, percentage or buy-X-get-Y codes, or a product on the house
- Gated access — pages or collections only a tier can open, for early drops and VIP-only products
- Custom perks — anything you want to promise, from a birthday gift to a styling session
Each perk can be one-time or recurring, available after a delay ("after 30 days in Gold"), or visible only to certain segments. (Gated access relies on Toki's gating module, which comes with paid plans.) For deeper strategy — how many tiers, where to set thresholds, which perks actually move retention — read our guides to loyalty program tiers and tiered loyalty programs.
Progress customers can see
Status only motivates if customers can see how close they are. The Customer Hub shows members their next tier, the Your Status block puts the balance and the gap to it on any page of your store, the wallet pass carries the tier, and staff see tier progress at Shopify POS. "You're $40 from Gold" reliably beats a generic discount at nudging the next order, and it costs you nothing until the customer actually gets there.
Free tiers, paid tiers, or both
Spend-based tiers reward behavior that already happened. Paid memberships charge for the top of the ladder — think Prime, not punch cards. Toki runs both in one program: free tiers build the habit, and the paid tier turns your most committed members into recurring revenue.
Wired into the rest of your stack
Tier changes are events Toki sends to Klaviyo and Attentive, along with the member's tier and next-tier properties — so "welcome to Gold" emails and expiring-status warnings run themselves, and a workflow can react to a tier being unlocked or lost. Analytics show how many customers each tier gains and loses, and what every perk is used for.
VIP tiers are included on every plan, including Free — see pricing. Ready to build the ladder? Install Toki free.
Frequently asked questions
How do customers move between tiers?
You set each tier's conditions: amount spent, number of orders, points earned or held, what their referred friends spent, activities completed, Shopify tags, a Klaviyo segment or a paid membership — over all time or within a window like the last 12 months, combined with AND/OR. Toki tracks progress and moves customers as they qualify.
What perks can a tier unlock?
Toki has 10+ perk types: free shipping, discount codes (fixed, percentage or buy X get Y), free gifts, a fixed amount of points, an accelerator that multiplies what members earn (1.25× to 5×), gated access to pages or collections, collectibles, custom perks and Tremendous rewards. Perks can be one-time or recurring, delayed, or shown only to chosen segments.
Can I combine free tiers with a paid membership?
Yes — that's a common setup. Free tiers build the habit, and a paid membership sits on top as the premium level. Toki runs both in the same program with one member profile.
Do customers see their tier progress?
Yes. The Customer Hub shows members their next tier, the Your Status block puts their balance and progress to the next tier on any page of your store, the wallet pass shows the tier, and staff see tier progress at Shopify POS. Klaviyo gets the tier and 'next tier' properties for emails like 'you're $40 from Gold'.
How many tiers should a program have?
Three or four is the sweet spot for most Shopify brands — enough to create a ladder, few enough that each tier feels distinct. What matters more is that the top tier is genuinely worth reaching. Our guide to loyalty program tiers covers the math.