Updated October 15, 2025
Key takeways in this article:
- A gift-card aggregator is like a giant vending machine that offers every digital card you need in one spot.
- Good aggregators handle the tricky stuff—like sending loads of cards, making sure each code works no matter where you send it, and giving clear details about how many of your cards are redeemed.
- Want your rewards program to run smoothly? Choose an aggregator with clear, transparent pricing, a wide variety of international gift cards, detailed reporting, and hands-on support for you and your recipient's.
- Keep reading to learn 7 features to look for specifically.
Trust us: once you start using gift card aggregator to manage your gift card program, you'll never want to go back. The right aggregator will enhance your rewards program by streamlining all aspects of gift card distribution.
Companies use gift card aggregators to send bulk digital gift cards for any number of use cases.
Whether it’s for customer loyalty programs, employee rewards, global payouts, or something else, gift card incentive programs work best when they’re managed through a reliable system.
In this article, we’ll explore gift card aggregators, including how they work, and how to find the best one for your incentive rewards programs.
A gift card aggregator is an online platform that gathers a wide variety of digital gift cards and prepaid cards from different brands and retailers into a single interface.
Instead of having to manually source, purchase, and distribute different brand gift cards from multiple vendors, an aggregator lets you access a gift card catalog, manage bulk orders, and send digital rewards—easily, and from one account.
This, in turn, simplifies operations, saves time, and improves tracking and reporting.🙌
Specifically, a good gift card aggregator will offer:
Flexible delivery options – Use straightforward gift card email delivery, send via text, DM, or QR code, or integrate them into your own app or software with a gift card API or a no-code gift card integration.
A wide selection of global brands – Choose from hundreds of global and local retailers, prepaid cards, and charitable donation options.
Bulk ordering and automation – Issue thousands of rewards in seconds, whether manually with a few clicks in the gift card platform, or through an integration
Customizable branding – Personalize gift card emails and redemption experiences to match your brand.
Clear financial tracking – Stay on top of budgets with real-time reporting, expiration tracking, and reconciliation tools. You'll want to be able to easily see which cards have been delivered and redeemed
Note: some aggregators are cagey with this information, so be sure to check any reporting options before pulling the trigger.
Transparent pricing - Never accept sign-up fees or exclusivity contracts. It should be free and easy to send rewards, i.e. if you spend $50, your recipient should get $50 and not a penny less.
In short, by using a gift card aggregator, companies can make their rewards program more efficient, scalable, and enjoyable for recipients.
Note: Gift card aggregators go by many names—gift card distributors, gift card providers, gift card companies.
Whatever you call them, what really matters is how they function.
If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, a gift card aggregator, by any name, should still be reliable, flexible, and cost-effective.🌹
That said, there’s a difference between gift card aggregators designed for businesses running B2B and B2C incentive programs, versus consumer apps that help individuals store and manage personal gift cards and cash back.
For the rest of this article, we’re focusing on business use cases exclusively.
Gift card aggregators work as intermediaries between businesses and gift card issuers.
Namely, we establish our own partnerships with retailers (like Amazon and Apple), prepaid card providers (like Visa® and Mastercard®), coffee faves like Starbucks and Tim Hortons (hello, Canadian gift card program managers!👋🇨🇦), and other hundreds of other brands.
We then use these partnerships to source digital gift cards and prepaid cards in bulk and at scale.
Next, we make these eCards available to our clients through a centralized gift card platform and API.
💡 Specifically, when a company places an order with their aggregator, the aggregator will generate unique gift card codes directly from the issuer’s system. That company can then deliver these codes to their recipients via email, text, or direct gift links.
Many aggregators also handle fraud prevention, balance verification, and provide expiration tracking. All these added features can make it a lot easier for businesses to manage digital incentives and payouts.
Gift card aggregators can earn revenue in a few ways.
Many will charge service fees, mark up card prices, require prepayments, and/or have minimum gift card purchase amount.
Gift card aggregators also make money off of unused rewards (i.e., gift cards that are sent to recipients but not redeemed within a set period).
Traditionally, old school gift card providers have been cagey about this process and how much unused money they’re actually taking. That caginess benefits them, of course, and not their clients.
However, Giftbit has always been 100% upfront about our clients’ unused rewards. And we have always offered generous revenue sharing (and bulk discounts) with our customers.
Giftbits’ clients also only pay for what they send—no hidden fees, no prepayment required. It’s incredibly easy and free to create an account and start sending.
This model keeps incentive programs cost-effective, ensuring all clients get the most value out of their rewards budget.
💡At the end of the day, if a gift card aggregator doesn’t make your incentive program smoother, smarter, and more scalable, it’s just a middleman, not a solution.
Instead, reliable gift card aggregators will do a lot more than showcase a wide selection of gift cards—they also take the majority of the work out of sending gift cards to your customers.
Specifically, they should be able to automatically trigger rewards when customers complete certain actions or send bulk gift card links to hundreds of people with one click.
Simply put: it should be easy for you to send your gift cards. It should be easy (and delightful!) for your recipients to redeem and use them.
To ensure you find an aggregator that will help your program grow and thrive, look for one that offers the following features
A good gift card aggregator should be simple on both ends—easy for you to set up and easy for your recipients to redeem their rewards. If the platform is clunky, time-consuming, or confusing, it defeats the purpose.
Look for an aggregator that lets you send rewards in just a few clicks, whether you’re distributing one gift card or thousands. A clean, intuitive dashboard will make it easy to track spending, monitor redemption rates, and adjust your campaigns as needed.
The experience should be just as smooth for recipients. They should be able to access their gift cards instantly—no complicated logins, extra steps, or unnecessary friction. Make sure your aggregator also has a support team to deal with any recipient issues that arise.
A great rewards program starts with a great selection. So your gift card aggregator should offer a wide variety of international eGift cards that your recipients actually want.
That said, catalog size isn’t the only thing that matters.
The catalog also needs to be accurate and reliable.
If a gift card doesn’t work when a recipient tries to use it, the entire incentive program falls apart—turning what should be a moment of delight into frustration (and this is more common than you might think, even from some of the big names in the space).
Meanwhile, a strong catalog also gives you the freedom to tailor rewards to your audience while keeping the process smooth and dependable.
🔑 And flexibility is really key here.
You should be able to send a single brand, a curated selection, or give recipients access to the full catalog. Choice matters—sometimes, a specific gift card makes sense for your program, but in other cases, letting recipients pick ensures they get something they truly value, whether that’s Applebees, Starbucks, The Home Depot, or anything else in the global rewards catalog.
Think about it: the perfect gift card for one recipient isn’t going to perfect for the next. When you let people choose, they're sure to get exactly what they want.
Top-tier gift card providers go the extra mile to prioritize security at every level. They implement robust security protocols and advanced encryption techniques to protect transactions and user data.
A reliable aggregator should also be SOC 2 compliant, meaning it meets strict industry standards for data security, availability, and privacy.
A good gift card aggregator keeps pricing transparent and predictable.
Watch out for hidden fees, prepayment requirements, or complicated pricing structures that eat into your budget. The best platforms will let you pay only for what you send and offer flexibility—whether you’re sending one reward or scaling up to thousands.
💬 “Order as much or as little as you want from us, and we’ll demonstrate value to you by doing a good job. We believe that as your partner if we can provide transparency around your program and make it easy to send, you’ll keep using us" says Nat.
Ultimately, it’s a pricing model that works with your program, not against it, that will ensure you get the most value out of every dollar spent.
Some gift card aggregators only prioritize big spenders, offering hands-on support only to companies sending millions in incentives.
But whether you're running a small pilot program or a large-scale rewards initiative, you deserve reliable, responsive support.
Look for a provider that offers helpful, human support—not just a generic help center. A good aggregator should be ready to assist with setup, troubleshooting, and strategy, no matter the size of your program.
🙌 Just as important, they should also handle all your recipient support, too.
Manually sending rewards one-by-one will technically work. But it certainly won't scale.
So a good gift card aggregator should let you trigger rewards automatically based on customer actions—whether that’s completing a survey, referring a friend, or hitting a sales milestone.
And automation shouldn’t be complicated.
Look for a platform that makes it easy to set up workflows, integrate with your existing tools, or send bulk rewards in seconds. The less time you spend managing gift cards, the more time you have to focus on what really matters—growing your business.
Learn more about how to do this here 👀
No-Code Gift Card Integration:
Send Rewards Easily & Automatically
Once you send a reward, you need to know what happens next.