The Biggest Tip Split in TiPJAR History – and What It Might Be Telling Us About Hospitality in 2025
Ben Thomas, CEO at TiPJAR
Last week, we processed the highest volume of weekly tips in TiPJAR’s history.
A new high-watermark record isn’t unusual for us this past year – we’ve seemed to hit them almost every month! But this one felt different. It was the first time we’ve seen tip distribution reach a run rate of £100 million a year.
I remember doing our first-ever tip payout only a few short years ago. It was about £50 to our first 12 users, via individual manual bank transfers completed at my kitchen table whilst my endlessly understanding wife Tara read the figures from a spreadsheet! So this number for all of us at TiPJAR felt like a pretty big deal.
It’s clearly a moment for appreciation. Growth at the pace we’ve achieved is very, very hard work (that number represents nearly 500% year on year, for the record), so we’re hugely grateful to our incredible team who have worked tirelessly to realise the vision of fast, fair, transparent tipping. Equally, we are so thankful to our customers who trust us to do that for their teams, and to the tens of thousands of users we know now rely on us to get them their tips as fast as is humanly possible, week in, week out.
In parallel, though, we wonder if our journey points to something exciting happening in hospitality, around how we think about teams, motivation, appreciation, and how technology is unlocking new opportunities.
Perhaps because what we’ve learned is that any conversation about tips, service charges and how this money gets to teams is really a conversation about the intersection of strategy on three things: revenue, people and service.
Big Days and Bigger Questions
Key trading days have always mattered in hospitality—but in 2025, we’re seeing something shift. Operators seem less inclined to just hope for a strong day. They’re planning for them, optimising and engaging teams in new ways to make every moment count.
Take the Butcombe Group, who saw a 31% year-on-year sales increase this Mother’s Day. That kind of uplift is striking—but what’s driving it? Could it be that a motivated team, one that feels recognised and fairly rewarded, is key to unlocking these moments?
When team members can see their tips in real time, understand how they’re shared, and access them when they need—it makes sense that it will have a tangible impact on morale and performance – and frankly the sheer bloody minded will we so often rely on our teams bringing to make these big moments happen!
A Budget That’s Tightening the Screws
The April 2025 budget is already being felt across the sector. Increased NICs, higher National Living Wage—it’s more pressure on margins that were already thin for many. For many operators, the question isn’t just how to stick to the rules but how on earth to do whilst building something sustainable?
In this context, team retention isn’t just nice to have—it’s business-critical. And in a very tough context for everyone out there, financial wellbeing plays a huge part. According to recent research from KAM, 32% of hospitality workers are facing significant financial stress. Many are still living paycheque to paycheque.
Again, we’re seeing that tipping done well makes a massive difference. Can instant access to some regular additional income, reducing the risk of becoming reliant on credit products, payday loans, or paying to draw early from a month end pay-cheque – help bridge the gap between financial insecurity and stability?
For many, if it does, maybe it can help people view their role as the start of a career, rather than the stop-gap sometimes teams are forced to consider their hospitality role?
New Laws, New Expectations
Six months in, the new tipping legislation has started to settle into the fabric of the industry. 100% of tips must go to staff. Distribution must be transparent. What once felt like best practice is now the law.
But compliance, while essential, might only be the start. Many of the businesses we work with aren’t just looking to tick a legal box—they’re rethinking their approach entirely. They want to celebrate their teams. They want to build cultures where fair reward isn’t an afterthought and instead is seen as the way to build ever-improving service.
So we find ourselves wondering—what happens when tipping becomes strategic? When it’s woven into team engagement, brand reputation, and even recruitment? Could tipping—when done well—be one of hospitality’s most underused tools?
Can transparency around tips build more trust between operators and teams, and does that create a better customer experience? Does being served by a happy, motivated and trusting team member, proud to represent their brand, make a difference? We think it very probably does, and are building tantalising evidence to prove it—but it’s a space that deserves more exploration.
A Record That Raises More Questions Than It Answers
Yes, last week was a record-breaker for us. And yes, we are proud and we are so appreciative of everyone who has been a part of bringing our vision for a new way in tipping even closer to reality. But, it’s made us more curious too!
Why are more people tipping? Why has it become a bigger part of public consciousness than ever before? Why are some teams seeing extraordinary uplift while others struggle? What can we learn from those who are thriving—and how can we share that more widely?
At TiPJAR, we don’t pretend to have all the answers. But we’re committed to being part of the conversation, discovering them with the amazing community of operators and teams that we support. As we go, we’ll keep innovating and building, with new features like Spend & Save, and connecting our users to sources of advice and support, and doing our best to listen and learn as the industry evolves.
To every team member who gave brilliant service last week and shared in that £100m —thank you hugely for your trust. To every operator rethinking how you recognise and reward your teams—we see you and we’re here for you. And to everyone trying to build a stronger, fairer hospitality business—we’re right there with you, asking the same questions.
Here’s to many more milestones—not just for us, but for us all in the wonderful, creative, inspiring, challenging, passionate, joyous, community that is hospitality!
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