Giftlark — WooCommerce Gift Cards & PDF Vouchers

WooCommerce gift cards that work like real ones

Gift cards bring in new customers and cash before the sale. Giftlark adds WooCommerce gift cards as their own product type. Choose Gift card in the product editor, type the amounts you sell separated by commas (for example 25, 50, 100, 150) and publish. Gift card products are always virtual and not taxable, so no shipping is asked for, and the shop shows the range of amounts you offer. On the product page the shopper picks an amount, enters the recipient's name and email (leaving the email empty sends the card to the buyer), adds their own name and a message of up to 300 characters, and watches a live preview of the card. Each card goes into the cart as its own line showing who it is for.

How codes are issued and sent

Codes are only created once an order is really paid. By default that is when the order reaches Processing; you can switch it to Completed. Pending, on-hold and failed orders never get a code. Cash-on-delivery orders that contain gift cards are put on hold until you mark them as paid, so nobody receives a spendable code before you have the money. The recipient then gets the WooCommerce email "Gift card received", which you can edit or switch off under WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, and which a theme can override by copying the template. The issued code and its live balance also appear under the gift card line in the order screen.

• 16 random characters from a 31-character alphabet, about 79 bits
• Codes are not case-sensitive and work with or without dashes
• If a gift card order is cancelled or refunded, its cards are disabled
• Gift cards bought in another currency can only be redeemed in that currency

Spending a card at checkout

There is no extra field to learn: the recipient types the code into the normal coupon box (Add coupons in the block checkout, or the classic cart and checkout). Behind the scenes a valid code becomes a fixed-cart discount worth the card's live balance. The discount is never larger than the balance or the products in the cart, several cards can be combined on one order, and a gift card can never be used to buy another gift card. The value is deducted when the order is placed for real (on hold, processing or completed) and put back automatically if that order is cancelled, refunded or fails. Balance updates are locked, so two orders using the same card at once cannot spend it twice.

• Free: one card pays for one order and any unused value is closed (the email says so)
• Pro: the unused balance stays on the card for later orders
• Gift cards pay for products, not shipping or fees
• Ten wrong codes from one IP in 15 minutes blocks further tries for a while (store managers exempt)

Managing cards from the admin

Gift Cards → All gift cards shows totals for cards issued, value issued, outstanding balance and value redeemed, followed by every card with its balance, original value, status, recipient, order, created date and expiry. Filter by Active, Used up, Expired or Disabled, or search by code, email or order number. Opening a card shows its full history — issue, every redemption online or in store, returns, manual adjustments and emails sent — and lets you set a new balance with a reason, disable or re-enable the card, and preview the email exactly as the recipient sees it.

Pro: printable vouchers and in-store redemption

The Voucher designer builds an A4 PDF with a cut-out card: pick the Classic, Modern or Minimal template, a main and accent colour, a PNG or JPEG logo (the store name is printed without one), a heading and your terms, and choose whether to print a QR code and attach the PDF to the gift card email. Buyers can also download the voucher from their order in My account through a private link, so they can print it and hand it over. In the shop, a Shop Manager or Administrator who is logged in scans the QR code with a phone or tablet; it opens Redeem in store with the code filled in, shows the balance, status and expiry, and deducts the amount spent with an optional note such as a receipt number. The deduction is logged in the card history with the staff member's name.

Pro: more ways to sell and manage cards

Let shoppers type their own amount between a minimum and maximum you set, and let them pick a delivery date from today up to a year ahead so the card lands on a birthday; scheduled sends run through WooCommerce's Action Scheduler and any card can be emailed again with Resend. Generate & import creates up to 500 cards in one go with an optional recipient, message and expiry — useful for prizes, refunds, corporate gifts or cards sold at the till — and can email them straight away. CSV import accepts code, amount, balance, recipient, expiry and message columns (up to 2 MB or 5,000 rows) so you can move cards from another system with their opening balance; codes that already exist as a card or WooCommerce coupon are skipped and reported. Export covers all cards or one status. Expiry rules set how many months new cards last, and a daily job emails recipients a set number of days before a card with balance expires.

Who Giftlark is for

It suits WooCommerce shops that want to sell gift cards for holidays and birthdays without a separate service, stores with a physical counter that want one balance for online and in-store spending, and teams that hand out store credit for returns, prizes or corporate orders. The free edition is enough to sell single-use digital cards; Pro is for shops that need balances to carry over, printed vouchers and bulk work.

Compatibility, requirements and honest limits

Giftlark needs WordPress 6.4 or newer, PHP 7.4 or newer and WooCommerce 8.8 or newer, because it relies on a coupon filter added in 8.8. It was tested on WordPress 7.1 with WooCommerce 11.2 on PHP 8.3, with High-Performance Order Storage on and every test order placed through the block checkout. Coupons must be enabled in WooCommerce. The free plugin makes no outside connections; Pro only contacts coodecraft.com to activate and check the licence.

• Emails (delivery, resend, PDF attachment, reminders) were checked by preview only — test once on your site with working mail
• Partial refunds do not change balances automatically; adjust the card by hand
• PDF text uses DejaVu Sans: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and ₹ work; Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Indic scripts do not
• PDF logos must be PNG or JPEG; WebP and SVG are not supported
• Behind a proxy or CDN, guessing protection needs the real visitor IP via a filter
• Multisite and classic themes have not been tested yet