Gift cards vs vouchers, and every way to hand each of them out

The words gift card and voucher mean different things in different languages, systems and situations. Picking the wrong one costs you a rebuild, so it's worth being precise. This article explains the difference, then lists every way to hand out each of them, so you can pick the one that fits.

Voucher

A voucher is a promotional code: a free item, a discount, or whatever else you define. It belongs to a promotion, which is where its validity, its limits and its discount are set. Each voucher is one code.

A voucher is redeemed, not spent down: there's no balance on it, and it can't be reloaded.

A voucher doesn't need a contact to exist. Codes you generate in bulk belong to nobody until you hand them out. To give one of those codes to a specific contact, open it and use Actions → Link to a contact.

Gift card

A gift card holds an amount of money that comes off a bill. It can be spent in several goes, each one a transaction against the card.

Whether a card can be loaded again is its Reusable setting. With Reusable off, a card takes one load only.

Gift cards come in two kinds:

Digital cards are created for a recipient, who usually gets them by email.
Physical cards are printed. They're active from the moment they're created. A card made without an amount is loaded at the till when it's sold; a card made with an amount is already loaded.

Gift cards can be limited too. A program can make its cards expire, under the program's Settings → Expiration settings, and every card has its own expiry date. Under Groups → Linked groups you choose which business profiles accept the program's cards. See When a gift card expires, and what sets its expiry date.

The ways to hand out a voucher

All of these start from a promotion, so create that first. See How to create a voucher.

Generate codes in bulk. On the promotion's Vouchers page, Add vouchers creates up to 5,000 codes per batch that aren't linked to anybody. Data → Generate does the same in batches of up to 10,000. Use this for printed codes or codes you hand out yourself.
Send one to one contact by email. On the contact's page, Send voucher in the ⋮ menu creates a new voucher from an active promotion and emails it to them. See How to send a voucher to one contact.
Give one code to one contact. Open a code and use Actions → Link to a contact. This sends the contact nothing. See How to send a voucher to one contact and Managing a single voucher: its status, tabs and actions.
Let a contact claim it through a link. For a code that isn't linked to anyone yet, you create a claim link with the Leat API: POST /v3/oauth/clients/vouchers/{uuid}/link-url, with the voucher's ID in place of {uuid}. The link opens the Claim voucher page of your contacts portal, where the first contact to log in or sign up gets the voucher and can add it to their wallet. The page shows the name and description of the promotion, never the code. The link expires after 7 days, unless you send your own expires_at with a date in the future. A link can't be created for a voucher that already belongs to a contact, that has expired, been redeemed, deactivated or locked, or whose promotion is inactive. The contact who claimed the voucher can open the link again. Anyone else who opens it after that, or after it has expired, sees that we couldn't find the voucher. To change the words on the page, see How to configure the contacts portal.
An issuance. Hand a voucher to a whole audience, once or on a schedule, with the audience looked up again at every run. Use this for a monthly tier perk or a one-off list campaign. See Issuing vouchers to a group of contacts, once or on a schedule.
Attach it to an email. A campaign, automated email or recurring email can carry a voucher, so every recipient gets their own code. See Adding a voucher, gift card, points or a wallet pass to an email.
An automation. Issue a voucher as an action in a flow, so it reacts to something the contact did.
Through Klaviyo, if that's where your email lives. See Showing a Leat voucher in a Klaviyo email.

The ways to create a gift card

One card, by hand. Go to Store → Giftcards → Cards and click New giftcard, or open the contact and choose Send giftcard in the ⋮ menu. This always makes a digital card: fill in the Amount, Reusable and the Business profile, pick the recipient, and the card is emailed to them. See How to create a gift card manually. If somebody's card exists but the email never arrived, open the card and use Send to recipient on its Recipients tab instead of making a new one.
An issuance. A list of contacts and amounts, issued in one go. Each contact can be emailed their own card, or you can turn off Send by system email to issue the cards without sending anything. Built for staff gifts and corporate orders. See Issuing gift cards to a group of contacts in one go.
Generate in bulk. Data → Generate makes up to 10,000 cards per batch, with or without an amount. This is how you make printed cards. See Physical gift cards.
Import existing cards with balances, when you're moving over from another provider and those cards have to keep working. See How to import gift cards with balances.
Sell them online, through the widget or the contacts portal, paid for by the buyer. See Selling gift cards online, and Setting up digital gift cards in Shopify or WooCommerce - Digital Giftcard Set Up if your shop runs on one of those.
Attach one to an email, the same way as a voucher. See Adding a voucher, gift card, points or a wallet pass to an email.

Adding value to a card that already exists isn't a way to create one: that's a transaction against the card. See How to create a gift card transaction.

Which one do you want

Giving away something specific, like a free coffee or 20% off, and you want to know who redeemed it: voucher.
Giving or selling an amount of money that comes off a bill, possibly over several visits: gift card.
Something a buyer pays you for up front: gift card.
Only valid on certain days or at certain hours, a cap on the number of codes, or a cap on redemptions per contact: voucher. Those are the Timeslots section on the promotion's Validity page and the promotion's Limits, and gift cards have neither.
An expiry date or a limit to certain locations: either. A promotion sets them under Validity, a gift card program under its expiration settings and Groups.