Shopify bulk gift cards: the complete guide

Why Shopify has no bulk gift card feature

Shopify's gift card admin was built for the one-off. A customer complains, you comp them $40, you create a card. Products, Gift cards, Create gift card, done in twenty seconds.

That design holds until you need volume. A holiday promo where every subscriber gets a unique $25 code. A corporate client buying 500 cards at $50. A migration off Square where 1,200 existing balances have to keep working from day one. None of those are twenty-second jobs, and Shopify has never shipped a bulk path for them.

The Admin API does support gift card creation, so the capability exists at the platform level. It just was never surfaced in the admin UI, which is why every solution to this problem is either an app or a developer with a script.

The gift card code problem nobody warns you about

This is the part that costs merchants real money, and it is worth understanding before you pick an app.

When a Shopify gift card is created, the full code exists exactly once: in the API response at the moment of creation. After that, Shopify admin shows ••••4821 and the Admin API returns lastCharacters: "4821". There is no setting, no permission and no support escalation that returns the rest. It is the same reasoning that makes payment processors mask card numbers, since a gift card code is a bearer instrument and anyone holding it can spend the balance.

The consequence: if the tool that created your cards did not store the code at creation, those codes are unrecoverable. Create 400 codes for a print run without capturing them and you have $20,000 of live balances and no idea which code belongs to which physical card.

So "does this app store and export the full codes" is not a nice-to-have feature question. It is the first question. Details in how to export gift card codes from Shopify.

How bulk gift card creation actually works

Two shapes, and you will use both.

The generator form is for identical cards. Quantity, amount, currency, and go. This is the right tool for a corporate order of 500 cards at $50, or a promo where everyone gets the same value.

The CSV is for anything where the rows differ: mixed amounts, named recipients, multiple currencies, or existing codes you are importing. One row per card:

amount,currency,code,customer_email,notify,note
50.00,USD,,,,Q4 promo US
40.00,GBP,,,,Q4 promo UK
100.00,USD,,dana@acme.com,true,Acme PO-4471

Whichever you use, the preview pass is not optional. Gift cards cannot be un-created, only disabled, and a preview that catches one malformed amount saves an afternoon of cleanup. Full walkthrough in how to create gift cards in bulk on Shopify.

Multi-currency gift cards, the category's biggest gap

Of the twelve bulk gift card apps on the Shopify App Store, ten say nothing about currency anywhere in their listing. They were built for single-market stores and never revisited.

The practical effect: your customer in Munich gets a card denominated in US dollars, has to convert the face value in their head, and sees a checkout total that does not match the number on the card. It works. It also generates a support email every time.

The fix is to denominate rather than convert. A $50 US card becomes a £40 UK card and a €45 EU card, not £38.14 and €46.12. Round numbers read as gifts; converted numbers read as refunds. See how to issue Shopify gift cards in multiple currencies.

Migrating gift cards into Shopify

If you are moving from Square, Toast, Lightspeed, Clover or another Shopify store, the outstanding gift card balances have to come with you. Shopify has no import, so this runs through the same bulk creation path with one difference: you supply the existing code instead of letting Shopify generate one.

Two rules decide whether this goes well. Import remaining balance, never original face value, or you hand money away on every partially used card. And turn notifications off, because these customers already have their cards and an unexpected email from your store will confuse them.

Then reconcile: the sum of your CSV amount column should match the old platform's outstanding liability figure to the cent before you switch anything off. Full procedure in how to import existing gift cards into Shopify.

What bulk gift card apps cost

Sticker prices in this category are misleading, because three of the highest-rated apps charge a percentage of gift card value on top of the monthly fee.

App	Free plan	Paid range	% of card value	Multi-currency
Bulk Gift Cards (ours)	20 cards per batch	$49/mo	None	Yes
BatchCard	25 cards/mo, export only	$4.99 to $24.99/mo	None	Not stated
Datora	50 cards, 1-day download	$9.95 to $99.95/mo	None	Not stated
Givy	None	$14 to $249/mo	1% to 2%	Yes
Gift Card Hero	Pay as you go, $9.99/mo minimum	$19.99 to $39.99/mo	2%	Not stated
Gist (Gift Card Pro)	None	$9.99 to $499.99/mo	0.5% to 2.5%	Not stated
Gift Card Factory	14-day trial	$19.99 to $99.99/mo	None	Not stated

The percentage matters more than it looks. On $50,000 of gift cards issued in a quarter, a 2 percent fee is $1,000 on top of the subscription. For a store running corporate orders or a serious holiday programme, that is the whole decision.

Full breakdown with pros and cons in the best Shopify bulk gift card apps.

Gift cards or store credit?

These get conflated constantly and they solve different problems.

	Gift card	Store credit
Redeemed by	Anyone holding the code	One specific customer, locked to their record
How it is used	Customer enters a code at checkout	Applies automatically when logged in, no code
Transferable	Yes, that is the point	No
Usually paid for	Yes, by the buyer	No, issued by the merchant
Accounting	Deferred liability until redeemed	Usually contra-revenue when issued as a refund
Expiry	Restricted or banned in most jurisdictions	Normal and useful
Best for	Corporate orders, gifting, promo codes, print runs	Refunds, loyalty, win-back, apologies

If you want a balance that follows one customer and applies itself at checkout, you want store credit. Start at the Shopify store credit guide, or bulk issue store credit via CSV.

If the value has to be handed to someone, printed, or bought by a company for its staff, you want gift cards.

Common mistakes

Not exporting the codes. Say it three times. Shopify will not give them back.

Setting an expiry because the field is there. Gift card expiry is restricted or outright prohibited in most of the US and the EU. Expiry belongs on store credit, not gift cards.

Importing face value instead of remaining balance. The most expensive migration mistake there is, and it is silent.

Emailing everyone at once by accident. Notification fires at creation. If timing matters, create silently and send through your own ESP.

Picking on sticker price alone. A $9.99 plan with a 2.5 percent fee costs more than a $49 flat plan the moment you cross $16,000 of gift cards issued in a month.

Where to start

Install Bulk Gift Cards free, build a five-row CSV, and run it against your own store. The free plan does 20 cards per batch with the full CSV import, preview, multi-currency and export, which is enough to prove the whole workflow before you spend anything.

When you have a real batch to run, Pro is $49 a month for unlimited batch sizes, with no fee taken from the value you issue.