Gifting lets customers buy one of your products for someone else. The customer pays, and the person they choose gets access to the product.
In this article, you’ll learn how to turn gifting on or off, choose which products can be gifted, and what customers and recipients see.
Overview
When gifting is turned on, customers will see a "This is a gift" option at checkout. They enter the recipient’s email address, and the recipient gets access to the product instead of them.
Products with a single payment price can be gifted:
Online courses
Digital downloads
Coaching
Bundles: The recipient gets the bundle and every product in it.
Events
Free products, subscriptions, payment plans, and community access can’t be gifted.
Once you turn gifting on, every product that can be gifted is turned on by default. You can turn it off for individual products.
The gift option only shows when every item in the cart can be gifted. If a cart has one item that can’t be gifted, customers won’t see the option.
The customer who buys the gift is charged and invoiced for it. The recipient only gets access. Coupons and affiliate commissions work the same way as any other purchase.
Turning gifting on or off
Here’s how to turn gifting on or off for your site:
From your home feed, click on your site name and select Admin from the dropdown menu.
From the Admin dashboard, click Settings > Payments in the sidebar menu.
Click Edit next to the Gifts option.
Check or uncheck Let customers buy products as gifts.
Click Save to save your changes. The Gifts option will show Enabled or Disabled.
Turning gifting off hides the gift option at checkout for all your products, even products that have their own Gifts setting turned on.
Choosing which products can be gifted
When gifting is on for your site, each product that can be gifted shows a Gifts option on its Pricing tab, set to On.
Here’s how to turn gifting on or off for a product:
From the admin dashboard, use the sidebar menu and click Products, to manage the gift option for a product.
Click on the Edit icon next to the product you'd like to edit.
Navigate to the Pricing tab.
If you offer a one-time payment, Gift is supported. Click Edit next to Gifts to update its settings.
Check or uncheck Let customers buy this product as a gift.
Click Save. You’ll return to the Pricing tab, and the Gifts option will show On or Off.
If you change a product’s price to free or to a subscription, the Gifts option will disappear, and the product can no longer be gifted. Read Setting up a price for your product to learn more about price types.
Customer and recipient experience
Buying a gift
Here’s how customers buy a product as a gift:
They add the product to their cart and go to checkout.
They enter their email address or log in. The This is a gift option will appear below their account details.
They check This is a gift and fill in the gift details:
Recipient email: The email address the gift is sent to.
Recipient name (optional): Used to greet the recipient in the gift email.
Personal message (optional): A message of up to 500 characters, shown in the gift email.
They pay by card or PayPal. They’ll see a confirmation page that says their gift is on its way.
The gift is signed with the customer’s public name, or their email address if they don’t have one.
Customers can’t send a gift to their own email address, to you or your teammates, or to someone who already has access to the product. They’ll see an error at checkout and won’t be charged. Customers who already own a product can still buy it as a gift for someone else.
Upsells aren’t shown after a gift purchase.
Receiving a gift
The recipient will get an email with the customer’s message and an Open your gift button.
Here’s where the button takes them:
New to your Podia: A page to finish creating their account. They’ll have access to the product once they’re done.
Already has an account: Straight to the product. This includes members of your site and people with a Podia account on another site, who can log in with their existing details.
If your site uses double opt-in, new recipients will also get an email asking them to confirm their email address.
Recipients are added to any purchase campaigns for the product, and get the product’s tags in your connected email integrations. The customer who bought the gift isn’t.
Gift emails
Each gift sends one email to each person involved, even if the gift includes more than one product:
Sent to | What it includes | |
Gift email | The recipient | The customer’s name, their personal message, the gifted products and the Open your gift button. |
Gift receipt | The customer | The gifted products, the recipient’s name (or email address) and the total paid. It doesn’t include a link to the product. |
Sale notification | You | The customer, the products and a Gift for row naming the recipient, with a link to the recipient’s customer page. |
Customers don’t get the usual access email for a gift, and recipients don’t get a purchase receipt. Each email is sent in the language of the person receiving it.
FAQs
Can customers buy a subscription or payment plan as a gift?
Can customers buy a subscription or payment plan as a gift?
No. Only products with a single payment price can be gifted. Subscriptions, payment plans, free products, and community access can’t be gifted.
Can customers gift more than one product at once?
Can customers gift more than one product at once?
Yes. Every item in the cart must be a product that can be gifted. The recipient gets access to all of them and receives one gift email listing every product.
If one of the items in the cart can't be gifted (e.g. because it is a free offer or a subscription), the gift option won't show up for the cart).
How can I tell which sales are gifts?
How can I tell which sales are gifts?
Gift purchases show Gift for and the recipient’s name or email address next to their status in Sales. You’ll see the same label on the invoice, in your dashboard activity, and in the customer’s activity.
When you export your sales, the file includes Gift recipient name and Gift recipient email columns.
What happens if I refund a gift?
What happens if I refund a gift?
If you remove access when you refund, the recipient will lose access to the gifted product. The customer who bought the gift keeps access to their own products.
If a gift includes more than one product, you can refund one of them, and the recipient will lose access to that product only. Read Issuing refunds for the full steps.
What does "Gift not delivered" mean?
What does "Gift not delivered" mean?
This means the payment went through, but Podia couldn’t give the recipient access. For example, the recipient’s email address became an assistant's email address before the customer paid.
I don’t see the gift option at checkout… HELP!
I don’t see the gift option at checkout… HELP!
If customers are not seeing the Gift option at checkout, check if:
Gifting is turned on in Settings > Payments.
The Gifts option is On for every product in the cart.
Every product in the cart has a one-time payment offer.
The customer has entered their email address or logged in. The option appears after that.
My customer gets an error when they enter the recipient’s email… HELP!
My customer gets an error when they enter the recipient’s email… HELP!
This is expected if the email address belongs to the customer, to you or an assistant, or to someone who already has access to the product.
The error names the product the recipient already has. The customer can send the gift to a different email address or buy a different product.
Can I schedule when the gift is delivered to my recipient?
Can I schedule when the gift is delivered to my recipient?
No. Gifts are sent as soon as they’re purchased. You can’t delay or schedule when a gift is delivered to its recipient.