Gift cards are one of the few things that pay you today and bring you a new customer tomorrow. Yet most small businesses still don’t sell them, not because they don’t want to, but because setting it up used to mean big upfront costs, custom builds, annual contracts, and a pile of admin. Good online gift card software removes all of that. This guide explains what it actually does, who it’s for, how online purchases and redemption really works, and how to choose a tool that fits your business instead of fighting it.
What is online gift card software?
Online gift card software is a tool that lets you create, sell, deliver, redeem, and track digital gift cards for your business, all from one place, entirely online. (Depending on where you are, you might call them gift vouchers or gift certificates, but it’s the same thing.) No plastic, no printing, no clunky point-of-sale hardware. A customer buys a gift card from a link, the recipient gets it by email in seconds (or in the future), and you can see and manage everything from an easy dashboard.
The key word is online. Everything happens digitally: the buying, the sending, the redeeming, the balance checks. That’s deliberate: tools like Cardivo are 100% digital by design. We don’t do physical cards at all, and for most businesses that’s a feature, not a gap. You skip the cost, the inventory, and the “lost in a drawer” problem, and your customers get something they can buy and send from their phone at 11pm on a Sunday.
Good gift card software should do the boring stuff for you automatically (the emails, the delivery, the redemptions, the running balances) so you can stay focused on actually running your business.
Who is online gift card software actually for?
Short answer: Almost any business. If you sell a quality product, service or experience that your customers would happily gift to a friend or family, you can probably benefit from offering gift cards. A good online gift card system works just as well for a one-person small business as it does for a big brand. In fact, it’s a particularly strong fit for small businesses because it helps bring in cash upfront and very likely brings you new customers too, this is rare for any marketing channel! Cardivo works well for most types of businesses including:
- Digital products & services: software, templates, design work, agencies, freelancers, or anyone selling online
- SaaS businesses: With our easy redemption API, or Stripe hosted checkout integration your customers can easily redeem their gift cards
- Coaches, course creators & memberships: where a gift card is the perfect “try this thing, it’s awesome” nudge.
- Experiences & bookings: studios, classes, retreats, glamping, wellness, anything with a high ticket price – since your loyal customers want to share their experience with their friends and family
- Restaurants, cafes and offline retail: Cardivo’s easy manual redemption options make it painless to redeem a customer’s gift card when they walk in or at payment time and take that amount off the bill – your POS vendor can also choose to integrate it directly into their checkout with our free and open API. Buying gift cards is easy too – you can create a printed QR code that takes customers straight to the purchase page and lets them buy a gift card in seconds.
- Online stores: if you run WooCommerce or Shopify, gift cards plug straight into checkout.
- Event organisers: Cardivo gift cards can be redeemed on Eventbrite events, manually via the admin dashboard for in-person redemptions and even on WooCommerce event plugins like Event Tickets Plus.
In summary, it’s hard to think of any business that can’t benefit from gift cards. The common thread of course is having a product, service or experience that is good quality and that your customers would want to recommend to their network.
What good online gift card software should do
It’s easy to get lost comparing feature lists. Strip it back and the tool you choose really needs to nail six things:
1. Sell from one link, anywhere
Well designed software should give you a single branded sales page that works on any device and accepts the payment methods people actually use: card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and even other popular ones like Cash App Pay. Drop that link in your website’s navigation, your footer, your bio, email signatures, sms, whatsapp or your link in bio. If a customer can tap it, they can buy.
2. Redeem across everywhere you do business
This is the part most people underestimate (more on it below). Your gift cards should be redeemable wherever you actually sell, not just one narrow channel – what happens if you change or expand in the future?
3. Automate the busywork
Buying, sending, scheduling, delivery emails, confirmations, balance updates, redemptions: all of it should run itself. You sell more, you don’t do more. Recipients get their own self-serve gift card page where they can check their balance 24/7, so your inbox stays quiet.
4. Put your brand front and center
Custom designs, your logo, your colors, expiry rules, preset or custom amounts, multi-currency, discount codes. The software should be invisible; your brand should be the thing customers see.
5. Give you insights without the spreadsheet
A simple dashboard showing how many gift cards you’ve sold, their status, and what’s been redeemed as well as some stats like the average purchase value and more. Enough to make decisions, not so much you need a degree to read it.
6. Charge you fairly
Avoid big upfront costs, setup fees, lock-in contracts, and fat monthly fees you pay whether you sell anything or not. Look for transparent, pay-as-you-go pricing that scales with your sales and aligns with your success. Cardivo, for example, charges a flat 5% per sale only, with no monthly fees, nothing upfront, and you can even pass that fee on to buyers. There are typically separate payment processing fees (including when you use Cardivo) that are payable and charged directly by the payment processor – eg: Stripe that typically range from 1.6% to 2.9%. You can just pass this on to buyers too if you prefer, or split the cost to even things out a bit.
One more non-negotiable: make sure it’s a closed-loop system.
Some tools just slap your logo on a prepaid Visa that can be spent anywhere, including at your competitor, or the supermarket. A truly useful gift card is one that is bought from you and redeemable only at your business.
That’s why every big brand like Apple, Starbucks and Airbnb choose this approach, and it’s the only version that actually grows your revenue and brings you new customers.
How online gift card redemption actually works
Here’s where a lot of cheaper tools fall down. Selling a gift card is easy. Letting customers redeem it smoothly, across all the different ways you take payment, is the hard part, and it’s what separates real online gift card software from a glorified payment link.
The right tool meets your customers wherever they check out. With Cardivo, the same gift card can be redeemed across:
- WooCommerce: a free plugin adds a “Redeem a gift card” option at checkout.
- Shopify: native redemption inside Shopify checkout, synced back in real time.
- Stripe Checkout & payment links: for anyone selling directly through Stripe.
- Paythen payment plans: let customers apply a gift card to their payment plan.
- Your own app or site: via the redemption API, you control the whole experience.
- Eventbrite: allow customers to buy event tickets with their gift card.
- Zapier: connect a form or other tool to check balances and redeem with no code.
- Manually: redeem in full or in part from your dashboard for phone or in-person sales.
Because it’s platform-agnostic, you’re not locked in. Switch ecommerce platforms later, add a new service, start taking phone orders: your gift card program comes with you. Send yourself a demo gift card and you can try the redemption flows yourself.
Why digital-only is an advantage, not a compromise
If you’ve only ever pictured gift cards as plastic, the switch to digital can feel like you’re losing something. You’re not. Going fully online means:
- No overheads: no printing, shipping, inventory, or stock you’ve paid for sitting in a drawer.
- Instant delivery: perfect for the last-minute buyers who make up most gift card sales.
- Better security: nothing to physically lose or steal, and you can verify or deactivate from a dashboard.
- Smarter tracking: real-time sales, redemptions, and balances without manual entry.
It’s also just where the market has gone: digital gift cards now outsell physical ones globally. If you want the deeper comparison and a full feature checklist, our gift card software guide goes further on physical vs digital.
How fast can you actually get started?
Faster than you’d expect. With Cardivo you can be live in under 10 minutes, and you don’t even need a website. The flow looks like this:
- Create a free account (no credit card needed, ever).
- Connect Stripe (or create a Stripe account), which handles payments securely.
- Add your branding, designs, and amounts.
- Share your gift card link and start selling.
Quick tip: tell people you sell them. The single biggest mistake is setting up gift cards and never mentioning them. Put your link in your main nav, footer, product pages, email signature, and socials. Then repeat it. The next time a customer needs a birthday or holiday gift, you want them thinking of you, not defaulting to Amazon.
Why businesses choose Cardivo
We built Cardivo to give small businesses the same gift card firepower the big brands have, minus the cost and complexity. A few reasons owners stick with it:
- It just works: live in minutes, fully featured, no extra admin, no website needed.
- Redeem anywhere: WooCommerce, Shopify, Stripe, Paythen, API, Zapier, or manually.
- Customers love it: buy and send now or schedule for later, add a personal message, pay any way they like, and manage everything from a branded self-serve page.
- Pricing that’s on your side: a flat 5% per sale, no monthly fees, nothing upfront, and you can pass the fee to buyers. We only make money when you do.
Want to see it for yourself? Try Cardivo free, with no credit card needed, ever.
Online gift card software FAQs
It’s a tool that lets a business create, sell, deliver, redeem, and track digital gift cards entirely online, with no physical cards, hardware, or printing. Good software automates the admin so you sell more without extra work.
It varies widely. Enterprise tools can cost thousands per month or require a custom quote. Others charge a fixed monthly fee. Per-transaction tools like Cardivo charge a percentage per sale instead. Cardivo is a flat 5%, with no monthly or upfront fees, and you can pass that surcharge on to buyers. A separate payment processing fee (via Stripe) applies, as with most tools. See Cardivo pricing.
No. You get a shareable branded sales page that works on its own, so you can sell from a link in your Instagram bio, an email, or a text message, with no website required.
Yes. Cardivo redeems natively in WooCommerce and Shopify, on Stripe Checkout and payment links, on Paythen payment plans, through your own app via the API, or manually from your dashboard for phone and in-person orders.
No. Cardivo is fully digital by design. That means no printing, shipping, inventory, or breakage from lost cards, and instant delivery to recipients. For most businesses, digital is faster, cheaper, and easier to manage.
With Cardivo, payments are processed through Stripe, and each gift card can be tracked, verified, and deactivated from your dashboard. There’s nothing physical to lose or steal, and balances update automatically.
Gift card holders will still be able to access and click through to the “Check balance” link when the sales page is inactive. When you toggle it back on, your sales page will immediately start working again. This toggle has no impact on existing gift cards and their redemptions and those will continue to work. It just prevents new gift cards from being purchased.
