Vanilla cone (Upgreat: $0.10)!
Wednesday McDonald's vanilla cone with the Upgreat app — $0.10. App-discounted soft-serve at the lowest possible price.
Wednesday afternoon McDonald’s stop — vanilla cone at $0.10 via the Upgreat app. App-discounted soft-serve at the lowest possible price tier.
We ordered:
- Vanilla cone — $0.10 (Upgreat app price, regular $1)
The $0.10 vanilla cone pricing is the Upgreat app deal mechanism — the app runs aggressive 1-cent or 10-cent promotions on specific McDonald’s items as the user-acquisition tool. The standard McDonald’s $1 vanilla cone gets discounted to $0.10 via the app’s promotional pricing.
Upgreat was the Singapore-developed loyalty app that ran cashback and dining discounts across multiple chain restaurants. The app’s signature feature was the deeply-discounted promotional items — at $0.10 per vanilla cone, the deal effectively makes the dessert pickup essentially free.
The vanilla cone is the standard McDonald’s $1 cone format:
- Standard vanilla soft-serve from the machine
- Piled high in the standard waffle cone
- The signature McDonald’s machine swirl pattern
- The standard sweet wafer cone
McDonald’s globally has the vanilla soft-serve as the bedrock dessert option that’s stayed consistent across decades. Different from the rotating limited-edition flavours (pandan, peach, strawberry, coffee milk tea), the vanilla is the always-available baseline option that the brand has held at the same $1 pricing for years.
At $0.10 via Upgreat, the price-per-cone basically rounds to free. The 10-cent transaction is more about the app engagement tracking than the actual revenue — McDonald’s sees the user redeem the deal, the user gets the cone, the loyalty data updates accordingly.
App-based dining loyalty programs proliferated across Singapore 2017-19:
- Upgreat (loyalty + cashback)
- The Entertainer (annual subscription, similar to Burpple Beyond)
- Eatigo (timed restaurant discounts)
- Hungry Hub (Bangkok-origin restaurant discounts)
- ChopeDeals (restaurant deals platform)
- Fave (formerly KFit/Groupon-style deals)
Each app targets a different segment of the dining discount market. The combination of multiple apps + the credit card rewards layer + the Burpple Beyond annual subscription creates the multi-stack discount approach that defines Singapore’s middle-class dining habits.
The Wednesday afternoon McDonald’s cone pickup at $0.10 is the casual snack pickup. Different from the destination dessert cafe, the app-discounted McDonald’s cone is the impulse-stop while running errands.
Overall: 4.5 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Vanilla cone at near-zero pricing — always worth the app stack.
