The Rise of App-Exclusive Discounts: Why Your Phone Gets a Better Price Than Your Laptop (2026)

Something shifted in UK retail and nobody sent a memo. Walk into Tesco, grab a four-pack of Coca-Cola, look at the shelf label — you’ll see two prices staring back at you. One for the people who scan their Clubcard app. One for the mugs who don’t. Sometimes the difference is pennies. Sometimes it’s pounds. That’s not a loyalty reward anymore. That’s a two-tier pricing system, and the app is your ticket to the cheaper tier.

Grand View Research (2024): UK online food delivery revenue was USD 23.18 billion (about £18–19 billion at current rates), projected to reach ~USD 37.5 billion by 2030. And every major brand from Boots to Burger King is now dangling their juiciest discounts behind a download button. If you’re still shopping from your laptop and googling promo codes like it’s 2019, you’re paying more than you need to.

Groceries: The Category Where Apps Literally Change the Price Tag

This is the one that stings the most because it’s your weekly shop. The thing you can’t skip.

• Tesco Clubcard now has exclusive member pricing across over 8,000 products. Not points-based rewards you wait months to redeem — instant price drops at the till. Buy spinach three weeks running and the app learns, throwing personalised 20p-off deals your way. More than 20 million people actively use Clubcard, and Tesco doesn’t even pretend the non-member prices are competitive anymore. They quietly killed off the paid Clubcard Plus subscription and doubled down on free app perks instead.
• Sainsbury’s Nectar works differently but the principle’s the same. Personalised Nectar Prices through the app, bonus points challenges, and SmartShop integration that adjusts offers based on your browsing. The reach extends beyond groceries too — eBay, Argos, British Airways, Esso, Caffè Nero all feed into the same points pot.
• Lidl Plus feels more like a scratchcard than a loyalty scheme. Weekly digital vouchers, spend-based rewards, free bakery items, and the occasional prize spin. Every offer has to be manually activated inside the app and scanned at checkout. Miss that step and you get nothing. It’s a small ritual, but the people who do it consistently shave a few quid off every trip.
• Asda Rewards built a different model entirely — a Cashpot system where you complete “missions” (spend £10 on laundry products, get £1 back) and build credit you can convert into Asda vouchers. No points. No complicated maths. Just spend in the categories they nudge you toward and watch the pot fill up.

The uncomfortable truth? If you’re not scanning a loyalty app at the till in 2026, you’re essentially paying a laziness tax. That’s not opinion — it’s how UK supermarkets have structured their pricing.

Fashion & Beauty: First-App Discounts Nobody Advertises on Desktop

Fashion brands figured out something clever. New app downloads are worth more than new website visitors because phone users come back more often, browse longer, and spend more per session. So they bribe you.

• ASOS regularly pushes app-exclusive flash sales and early access to seasonal markdowns before desktop users even see them. Push notifications alert you when wishlisted items drop in price — something you’d never catch refreshing a browser tab. Their £9.95 Premier Delivery annual fee also gets managed through the app, bundling unlimited next-day delivery into one yearly payment.
• Boohoo and PrettyLittleThing run app-only discount codes that don’t work on desktop. We’re talking 15–25% off first purchases through the app, exclusive bundle deals, and early access to collaborations. The desktop site shows you the collection. The app shows you the discounted price.
• H&M built app-exclusive offers directly into their membership programme. Personalised suggestions, sustainability tracking, and money-off coupons that only appear in the app feed. Zara takes a different approach — their app integrates AR try-on features and real-time stock updates with “Store Mode” that makes in-person shopping faster, but the exclusives live in collection previews and early access drops.
• Boots Advantage Card has shifted heavily toward app-based offers. Personalised price drops, bonus points events, and health-related promotions that don’t appear anywhere on the website. For a brand where repeat purchases (prescriptions, skincare, toiletries) happen monthly, those app-only savings compound fast.

Food Delivery: Where the App Isn’t Optional — It Is the Service

This one barely needs explaining because you can’t really order from Deliveroo or Uber Eats without the app. But the savings difference between casual users and those who work the system is massive.

• Deliveroo Plus Silver costs £3.49/month normally, but Amazon Prime members get it free for a year — unlimited free delivery on orders over £15. Blue Light Card holders get the same deal. That’s NHS staff, emergency workers, and armed forces saving over £40 annually on delivery fees alone.
• Uber One runs at £5.99/month but students pay just £2.49 through SheerID verification — 58% off. From December 2025, family sharing lets you add another adult plus unlimited teen accounts. The first-order bonuses (often £10 off £25) stack with membership perks in ways that desktop ordering can’t replicate.
• Just Eat pushes rotating in-app offers from specific chains. McDonald’s runs app-only deals like 9 Chicken McNuggets and Medium Fries for £2.99 through MyMcDonald’s Rewards. Subway knocks £3 off Footlongs exclusively through their app. These aren’t on any voucher site because they’re triggered by location data and purchase history inside the app itself.

The maths: A regular Deliveroo user ordering twice a week saves roughly £180/year just on waived delivery fees through Plus. Add in the rotating app-only restaurant discounts and that number climbs higher.

Entertainment & Gaming: The Deals That Only Exist Inside the Download

This is where the gap between app users and desktop browsers gets properly wide. Entertainment companies know that once you’ve got their app installed, you’re a captive audience — and they reward you for it.

Cinema apps like Moxy and Odeon run member-only pricing through their apps, with cheaper tickets on selected days and advance booking perks. Lidl Plus even bundles a free Cinema Society membership into their grocery app, offering discounted movie tickets as a side perk of buying your weekly shop.

Lottery and gaming platforms have gone all-in on mobile exclusives. You can see this playing out on the Lottoland promotions page — while the website lists standard offers, the real value sits inside their mobile-only rewards. Their app runs tiered bonuses, like the “Wild West Adventure” where mobile users can pick up 100 wager-free spins on Wild Wild West after staking £100. These mobile-first deals extend across titles like Fishin’ Frenzy: Even Bigger Fish, giving app users a better entry point than anyone accessing the same platform through a desktop browser. Same brand, same platform, different prices depending on which screen you’re using.

Streaming services play the game differently. Spotify runs student pricing at £5.99/month but managing family plans, wrapped features, and offline downloads only works properly through the app. Apple Music, Audible, and various podcast platforms all push exclusive content and trial extensions to mobile users who engage more frequently.

Travel & Transport: Where Not Having the App Literally Costs You More

• Trainline regularly runs app-exclusive fare alerts and split-ticketing suggestions that don’t surface on their desktop site. Given that UK rail fares rose again in 2025, even a few pounds saved per journey adds up for commuters.
• Uber and Bolt both reserve their cheapest ride options and promotional credits for app users — there is no meaningful desktop alternative. Bolt specifically pushes first-ride discounts and referral credits exclusively through the mobile experience.
• Hotels.com, Booking.com, and Expedia all run “app-only prices” on accommodation. The discount is typically 10–15% below the listed web price for the same room on the same dates. For a £200/night London hotel, that’s £20–£30 saved just by booking through your phone.

The Catch: When “Free” Isn’t Free

Each of these apps ask something from you and you’re the trading partner. It might be your location data, shopping history or even push permissions. You scratch their backs with a better deal; they pick your pocket while adding to a dossier about what sort of person will buy that product at what price.

A few things worth being honest about:

Receiving too many alerts might overwhelm even the most conscientious spender. When you have six shopping apps hormones strain tester-words and your telephone becomes plankful of hard-drives, it’s difficult to resist buying an unexpected cheap item or two living room stuff en masse that you’d otherwise go without.

Storage adds up. Even on a cut-price budget smartphone of 32-64GB, things can get pretty crowded. Or to put it in numbers: the feeling of sheer relief that comes from successfully removing some innocuous app—saved draft quotes and all—for space back in 2011.

Not all “exclude proof” is true. Some brands deliberately increase the price of their desktop editions so that people who buy the same thing on an app appear like bargains–it’s a bit of psychological warfare. The Clubcard price war, where prices for non-members might be taken as too high selectively; this is not just paranoia on behalf those excluded from these memberships. Check different outlets before hand-in assuming the app is best bet for this product together with that deal.

Making It Work Without Losing Your Mind

The people who benefit most from app-exclusive deals aren’t the ones who download everything. They pick three or four apps that align with where they already spend money, set notifications to a weekly digest rather than instant alerts, and check offers before they shop — not because the app told them to.

Your weekly supermarket shop? One loyalty app. Your fashion buying habit? One or two brand apps you actually use. Entertainment? Whatever platform you’re already paying for. Travel? One booking app with price alerts on.

That’s five apps doing genuine work. Not twenty-three apps draining your battery and your willpower.

The wall between desktop prices and mobile prices isn’t coming down. If anything, it’s getting higher. The brands have decided that app users are worth more, and they’re pricing accordingly. Whether the savings justify the trade-off in data and attention is a calculation only you can make — but at least now you know what the calculation actually looks like.