Why

"CRM" in B2C F&B means loyalty + email marketing — not the sales-pipeline software HubSpot/Pipedrive sell. Your instinct on the DIY math is right: at 4 outlets with zero existing customer data, paying $10k year one to Advocado is buying a Ferrari before you've learned to drive. The "points accumulation factor" you're worried about losing is a solved problem with off-the-shelf tools that cost a fraction of that — you just haven't found them yet.

What you actually need

1. Tally form (free) or Typeform (~S$35/mo) — one QR code at every table/counter linking to a 3-field signup: name, mobile, birthday. This is your data capture, the thing Advocado would charge you four figures a year to do.
2. Square Loyalty (~US$45/location/mo ≈ S$240/mo for 4 outlets) OR Loyverse Loyalty (free, if you switch POS) — gives you the real points-accumulation mechanic tied to actual transactions at the counter. Either is ~1/5 the cost of Advocado with 80% of the function.
3. Brevo (free up to 300 emails/day, then ~S$12/mo) — sends the birthday voucher, the "we miss you" 30-day-lapsed email, and the monthly promo. Connect it to the Tally form with a Zap or native integration.

Do this today

Open tally.so, create a form titled "Join [your brand] Rewards" with four fields: Name, Mobile, Birthday, Favourite Outlet (dropdown of your 4 locations). Generate a QR code, print 10 copies, put them on tables at your busiest outlet tomorrow. By end of week you'll have real signup volume data to size whether Advocado-level spend is ever justified.

What to ignore

Skip Advocado at S$10k/year — you have no baseline to measure their "100% improvement" claim against, so you'd be paying for a benchmark you can't verify. Also skip HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Eber's enterprise tier — all built for brands with existing customer databases in the tens of thousands, not for someone capturing signup #1 next Monday.

What doing nothing costs you

You gave no volume numbers, so no revenue math — but every week you delay is a week of footfall walking out of 4 outlets with zero contactable record. That compounds: a year from now you'll still be at zero, and Advocado's pitch will sound even more reasonable because you'll have nothing to compare it to.

When to revisit this

When your signup list crosses ~5,000 contacts AND you can prove email-driven repeat visits — then Advocado or Eber's pricing starts being defensible against a measurable baseline.