UK coffee shop chain, Pret, made waves last year when they launched their coffee subscription service. The premise was simple in exchange for GBP 20 per month receive ‘unlimited’ coffee - unlimited being equivalent to five barista made drinks per day. Despite launching between lockdowns, it has anecdotally become extremely popular in London amongst office workers. Others have tried, including Leon, but thanks to their reach in major cities Pret has had the most success but there is a new kid in town - Mishi Pay.

What is Mishi Pay?

Mishi Pay was originally established in 2015 as a service to scan product barcodes, pay via the app and then exit without needing to deal with the ‘hassle’ of checkout and queuing. Since then, the app has stuck pretty much to this principle and can be used in a few stores including Muji and Flying Tiger - with it being particularly pushed during the pandemic to reduce contact at stores. The traction though hasn’t been massive without checkouts very much a thing in most shops or technology like Amazon Fresh stores leapfrogging Mishi Pay’s technology.

How does this relate to Pret?

In November, Mishi Pay launched coffee subscriptions on their app and I was immediately interested. Although the Pret proposition is an interesting one, they have the worst coffee of all the high street chains and I prefer to go to independent coffee shops instead. The premise of Mishi Pay Coffee Subscriptions is:

• Pay GBP 9.99 per month (first 7 days free trial)

• In return get 2 coffees per day

• Select from one of the independent coffee shops nearby to redeem

I love this idea and would definitely be up for subscribing if I was in the office more often. However, there are a couple of downsides which will hold most people back and that is reach - there is currently just three coffee shops that the subscription can be redeemed at. Now I realise it is early days but that is a pitiful amount even to begin with and they are concentrated in Central/West London.

The concept of Mishi Pay is excellent - I would far prefer to support local independents over large chains but until the reach grows its simply no alternative to other coffee subscriptions on offer in the market. Now it’s just time for them to scale up and capture more outlets to redeem in! Who knows, maybe we have the next super app like WeChat on our hands…