---
title: 🎁 6.9 Gift Cards
slug: 69-gift-cards
docTags:
createdAt: 2026-09-21T18:28:42.234Z
---
## Overview
Gift cards let your community members buy credit for someone else — a friend, a partner, a colleague — and let you hand out credit yourself whenever you need to.
Once your gift card is live, it shows up on your community page and in your embed widgets, so anyone can buy one. The recipient gets an email with their code, and that balance comes off the price when they book with you.
You can also issue a card yourself, for free, straight from your dashboard. That's handy for making things right after a cancelled class, thanking a regular, or running a giveaway.
:::hint{type="warning"}
Everything below happens in the **host dashboard on the web**. Gift card setup isn't available in the mobile app yet.
:::
### Finding your Gift Cards
In the left sidebar of your dashboard, click [Gift Card.](https://dashboard.sweatpals.com/gift-cards)
If you haven't set one up yet, you'll be asked to create your offering first. If you have, you'll land on your gift card overview — your card design, your numbers, and every card that's been issued.
The four buttons in the top right are where everything happens:
- \ — grab the embed code for your website
- **🔗** — copy a direct checkout link you can paste anywhere
- **Send a gift card** — issue a card to someone yourself
- **Edit** — change your amounts, expiry and card design
### Setting up Gift Cards
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Click **Edit** to open your gift card settings. The preview on the right updates as you go, so you can see exactly what your community members will see.
- **Amount** — the preset amounts a buyer can pick from. Type them separated by a comma and they turn into chips; click the ✕ on a chip to remove it. Pick amounts that map to what you actually sell: a single class, a five-pack, a month.
- **Let buyers enter their own amount** — turn this on to add a free-entry field next to your presets, so buyers can choose any amount they like.
- **Expires after** — how many days a card stays usable, counted from the day it's issued. The default is 365. This applies to every card: bought or issued by you.
- **Display on the community page** — leave this on and your gift card appears on your public community page, ready to buy. Turn it off if you only want to issue cards yourself or sell through an embed on your own site.
- **Card design** — this is the artwork the buyer and the recipient see. Choose a **Photo** or a **Solid color**, and use **Add cover** to offer more than one design so the buyer can pick the one that fits the occasion.
- Click **Save** when you're done. Changes apply to new purchases right away; cards already issued keep the terms they were issued under.
### Where your community members will find Gift Cards
1. **On your community page **— With **Display on the community page** turned on, a **Gift cards** section appears on your public community page.
2. **On your own website **— Click the \ button on the Gift card page to open the embed builder with the gift card widget already selected. Match it to your site — brand color, background, fonts, spacing, corner radius — and preview it in light or dark mode and at desktop or mobile width.
When it looks right, click **Get code** and paste the snippet into the \ of your page. There's an optional snippet for your \ too — it preloads the widget so it appears faster.
3. **As a direct link **— Click the **🔗** button to copy a link that goes straight to gift card checkout. Drop it in a newsletter, an Instagram bio, a WhatsApp group — anywhere a full embed would be overkill.
### What buying looks like
Wherever they find it, this is the flow: pick an amount, add the recipient's name and email, pay. Three steps.
As soon as the payment goes through, we email the recipient their gift card and their code. The buyer doesn't have to forward anything.
### Issuing a Gift Card yourself
Sometimes you want to give credit rather than sell it. Click **Send a gift card**.
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Fill in:
- **Amount** — pick one of your presets, or click **Custom** and type any value
- **Recipient name** and **Recipient email** — the email is where the code goes, so double-check it
- **Recipient phone** — optional
- **Send email to the recipient** — leave it ticked and we email them straight away. Untick it if you'd rather hand the code over in person or in your own message; the card is still created either way, and you can send the email later from the list.
Then click **Send gift card**.
:::hint{type="warning"}
Please keep in mind that you cannot change the amount of an issued Gift Card. If the amount entered was incorrect, cancel it from the **⋮** menu and issue a new one for the right amount.
:::
:::hint{type="info"}
**These issued cards are free.** Nothing is charged, no order is created, and the amount doesn't appear in your revenue. Think of it as credit you're choosing to give.
Where this comes in handy:
- You cancelled a class and want to make it up to everyone who'd booked
- A member had a bad experience and you want to offer more than an apology
- You're refunding outside the usual window and would rather keep the money in your community
- You're running a giveaway, a referral reward, or a thank-you for your regulars
:::
## Track and manage issued cards
Every card — bought or issued by you — lands in the table on the [Gift card page](https://dashboard.sweatpals.com/gift-cards).
The stats along the top:
| Category | What it means |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Revenue** | What members actually paid you for gift cards. Cards you issued for free aren't counted. |
| **Issued** | Every card, bought by members or sent by you |
| **Yet to be spent** | Money already paid for but not used, which should be used on future experiences hosted by you. |
| **Redeemed** | Money already spent from gift cards |
| **Expired** | Balance left on cards that ran past their expiry |
| **Most popular amount** | The amount buyers choose most often |
Each row shows the recipient, the code (masked — click the copy icon to get the full one), the initial and current balance, what it's been used on, the status, and the issue and expiry dates. Use the search box to look up a code, name or email, filter by status or amount, and use the download icon on the right to export the list as a CSV.
The **⋮** menu at the end of a row gives you three actions:
- **Copy code** — the full code, for when someone needs it read out or pasted
- **Resend email** — sends the gift card email again. It shows when it was last sent, so you know whether it actually went out.
- **Cancel card** — voids the remaining balance. Use it for a typo'd email or a card issued by mistake.
## What happens on the member's side
Someone buys a gift card — from your community page, your website widget, or your checkout link, or you issue one from your dashboard.
1. The recipient gets an email with their gift card and their code.
2. They browse your experiences and book the one they want.
3. The gift card amount comes off the total. If the class costs less than the card, the rest stays on the card for next time. If it costs more, they pay the difference.
4. They keep using the balance until it's gone, or until the card expires.
The balance works across your whole community — any experience you run, not one specific class. That's the point: you're giving them a reason to come back and browse.
:::hint{type="success"}
FAQ
**Do gift cards expire?**
Yes. Every card expires after the number of days set in **Expires after** on your settings page, counted from the day it's issued. The default is 365 days. Any balance left over when a card expires shows up in the **Expired** stat.
**Can someone use a gift card across more than one booking?**
Yes. The balance is spent down over time, not all at once. Book a $30 class with a $75 card and $45 stays on the card.
**What if the class costs more than the gift card?**
They pay the difference at checkout as normal.
**Do I get charged for cards I issue myself?**
No. Host-issued cards create no payment, no commission and no payout — they don't touch your revenue reporting at all. You're giving away credit, so the cost to you is the class you'll deliver later.
**The recipient says they never got the email. What do I do?**
Check the address on the row first, then use **Resend email** from the **⋮** menu — it tells you when the last one went out. If it still doesn't land, ask them to check spam, or use **Copy code** and send it to them yourself.
**I sent a card to the wrong email address.**
Use **Cancel card** on that row to void it, then send a new one to the right address. Cancel it even if you think nobody saw it — the code is live until you do.
**Can I stop selling gift cards without losing the ones already out there?**
Yes. Turn off **Display on the community page** and remove the widget from your site in case you used the embed option. Cards already issued keep working until they're spent, expired or canceled.
**Can I change the amounts on my existing Gift Cards later?**
Yes, any time. New amounts apply to new purchases. Cards already issued aren't affected.
**Can I do any of this from the mobile app?**
**Not yet** — gift card setup and issuing are web dashboard only, the same as memberships. Your Pals can buy and use gift cards on any device.
**Who on my team can issue cards?**
Admins and leaders. Everyone else on your team can see the list and the stats but can't create, issue or cancel.
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