How to make a digital gift card for your business in 5 steps

To make a digital gift card for your business, you design it, set the amounts and validity, add the order module to your website, place a test order and then promote it. It works for business owners who want to sell gift cards online without printing or stock. According to the documentation, adding the order module takes only a few minutes.

The five steps at a glance

1. Design: pick a template or upload your own design in the Gifty dashboard.
2. Amounts and validity: decide which amounts customers can choose and how long a card stays valid.
3. Order module: add the module to your website with a plugin or a small piece of code.
4. Test order: buy a card yourself, check the email and redeem it.
5. Promote: give the gift card a fixed place in your menu and tell your customers.

Not selling online, or want to give cards away? Then you create digital gift cards yourself in the dashboard. That is covered further down.

What is a digital gift card?

A digital gift card needs no printing and no stock. The recipient gets it by email as a PDF in your branding, with its own code and its own balance, and can also add it to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet.

There are two ways to put a digital gift card into circulation. Customers buy it themselves through the order module on your website, or you create it in the dashboard and send or download it yourself. This article first walks through the steps for selling cards and then shows how to create cards yourself.

What do you need before you start?

• A Gifty account with a business email address. See Start Selling Gift Cards: A Checklist From Sign-Up to Your First Sale (in Dutch) for how to set one up.
• Your logo and brand colours, so the card looks like yours straight away.
• A website where you can add a plugin or a small piece of code, or a page where you can place a button.
• A choice for your amounts: free amounts, fixed quick-select amounts or packages.

Which features you can use depends on your plan. You can compare them on the pricing page.

Step 1: design your digital gift card

You design the card in the dashboard under Design and then Gift card. The editor guides you step by step: you pick a template and a font, set the background and add your logo. Then you fill in the back with your address. On the right you see the front and back straight away.

For the background you can use your own image, a pattern, a plain colour or a fully custom design file. Upload the image in the highest resolution you have, so the card stays sharp. If you would rather not do the design work, you can upload your own design as a PDF or ask Gifty to design it for you.

A new design applies to every card you issue afterwards, physical and digital. Cards that were already issued or printed do not change. The email that delivers the card and the Wallet pass are also set under Design.

Step 2: choose amounts and validity

In the order module you decide which amounts customers can choose. You set a minimum and a maximum amount, add quick-select amounts and, if you like, create packages with a fixed value, such as a dinner or a treatment. If you want customers to choose only a package, you can switch off free amounts.

For orientation: in 2025 the average card sold through the order module was €90.21 (66,820 cards, Gifty data, excluding test accounts). Our advice is to choose quick-select amounts so that this value fits in, and to allow a free amount as well.

You set the validity in the settings of your gift card, under Expiry date. You choose unlimited or a fixed period of up to ten years, and you decide whether an expired card may be extended. In the Netherlands there are rules on the minimum validity of a gift card, so read our Dutch article Geldigheid cadeaubon: minimaal 2 jaar, wat kies jij? before you pick a period.

Step 3: add the order module to your website

The order module is the checkout where customers choose an amount or package, fill in the recipient’s details and pay. According to the order module documentation you can sell gift cards with it on your own website within five minutes. Treat that as a guideline: how long it takes for you depends on your website.

• WordPress: install the Gifty plugin. The steps are in the WordPress documentation.
• Other websites: add a script with your key at the bottom of your website’s HTML, between the body tags. You find the integration code in the dashboard under Order module and Installation.

Then you choose how visitors open the module: from the menu, from a link or button, from the gift icon, or embedded on a page. According to the documentation you sell the most gift cards by adding ‘Gift card’ to your main menu. The documentation also recommends a page of your own with a button, because such a page can be found well in search engines.

In the dashboard under Order module you also set which payment methods customers see, such as iDEAL and credit card.

Step 4: place a test order

Test the whole route before a customer does. Buy a card yourself for a small amount, preferably on your phone as well.

1. Choose an amount or package and enter your own email address as the recipient.
2. Pay with one of the payment methods you enabled.
3. Check the confirmation, and see whether the card arrives in your inbox and looks right.
4. Redeem the card from the dashboard start page and check that the balance is correct.

A test order is a real order with a real payment. If you are unsure about the handling or the costs, ask Gifty beforehand.

Step 5: promote your digital gift card

• Put the gift card in your menu and on your homepage.
• Mention it in your newsletter and on social media.
• Use an action code for a first campaign, if your plan includes that.
• Measure your sales with the Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel or Google Ads integrations from the documentation.

Mind the timing. In 2025, 28.7% of all cards issued through the order module were issued in November and December. December alone accounted for 19.5% of the year (Gifty data 2025, excluding test accounts). To catch that rush, make sure you are live before November.

Creating and sending digital gift cards yourself in the dashboard

Not selling online, or want to give a card away? Think of compensating a guest, rewarding an employee or running a campaign. Then you create digital cards yourself in the dashboard under Order and then Digital cards. These are the settings:

• Quantity: 1 to 250 cards per order.
• Value: a custom amount or a package.
• Validity: 1, 3 or 6 months, 1, 2, 5 or 10 years, or a custom number of days.
• Personal message: up to 300 characters, printed on the back of the card.
• Internal reference: required, and only for your own administration.

Next you choose how the cards reach the recipients. You send them by email to a list of addresses, with one address per line and as many addresses as cards. With Test send you first email a trial message to yourself. An order can be emailed only once, so check the trial email carefully. Or you download the whole batch as a zip file, with one PDF per card, and share them yourself, for example in your own mailing.

In 2025, 25,379 digital cards were created this way, with an average value of €52.49 (Gifty data, Digital cards channel, excluding test accounts).

Digital or physical: which fits you?

	Digital gift card	Physical gift card
Delivery	By email, immediately	By post or in your shop
Printing and stock	None	Order blank cards and keep them in stock
Useful for	Last-minute buyers, buyers at a distance, campaigns and compensation	A gift the buyer can hand over in person
Design	The same design from the editor	The same design from the editor
Plan	Selling online works on every plan	According to the pricing page, selling physical cards in your shop is included in Essential and Pro

You do not have to choose. In the order module a customer can have the card delivered by email or as a physical card, and your design works for both.

Frequently asked questions