Set an expiration date, and state it before you charge
Set the expiration date based on what you sell and spell it out right where people pay, so the gift card's end date is never a surprise at the counter.
By Yodai · Published on September 6, 2026 · Updated on October 12, 2026
A gift card needs more than an amount, it needs a date: how long it lasts before it becomes your problem. A gift card with no expiration date sounds generous. It reads well on the sales page: "valid forever." But redeeming a three-year-old gift card opens a drawer full of problems: the price of the service isn't the same anymore, the person who bought it might not even remember which card they paid with, and your books carry a charge you don't know will ever clear or will just sit there forever.
Whether the amount is fixed or the buyer picks it, there's a question many businesses never stop to answer: how long is that gift card good for? And more importantly, who needs to know, and when?
How long a voucher lasts, depending on what you sell
An expiration date isn't a number you pull from a table of legal deadlines. It's a business decision, and it depends on one simple thing: how long it takes someone to find the time to use what they bought. A dinner gift card gets redeemed within weeks: nobody buys an anniversary dinner thinking about next year. A physical therapy or yoga class gift card is often bought with no date in mind: the person who receives it tucks it in a drawer until their back starts hurting or a Saturday opens up.
The more impulsive the purchase of the service itself, the shorter the gift card's expiration can be. The more it takes planning, the longer it needs to be, or the gift card turns into money you charged for nothing.
There's one case that breaks this rule: the company that buys twenty gift cards in December to hand out to its staff. There, the problem isn't the end recipient, it's the company itself, which takes weeks to organize the internal handout before each gift card reaches its owner. If you sell to businesses, count the expiration from the moment the gift card reaches the person who'll use it, not from when the company bought it, or you'll end up expiring gift cards that haven't even left a supply closet.
If the buyer chooses the amount, the expiration changes too
A fixed-amount gift card, say $30 or $50, is often bought for a specific occasion: a birthday, a holiday gift, a quick thank-you. That kind of card behaves like the rest of its category: the expiration date depends on the service, not the amount. But an open-amount gift card, the $90 or $200 the buyer decides on, usually carries a different intention: a wedding, a retirement, a gift that's planned further ahead and sometimes handed over with more ceremony. In that case, it's best not to rush the expiration date even if the service itself is normally a quick purchase. Six months is too short for a $200 gift card meant for an occasion that doesn't even have a date yet.
What the buyer needs to read before paying
The expiration date can't live only in the fine print nobody reads. It has to be on the same screen where the buyer clicks to pay, right next to the price, in the same size type. And it has to be an actual date, not a phrase. "Valid for one year" forces the recipient to do math they don't feel like doing. "Valid through March 15, 2027" leaves no doubt.
That same date also goes in the confirmation email, and if the gift card is sent as a gift, on the page or card the recipient sees. Three places, the same date. If one says "one year" and another gives a specific date, someone's going to argue on redemption day about which one counts, and you're the one who'll lose that argument, not the customer.
This isn't just about being transparent for transparency's sake. It's protection for you: if someone ever disputes an expired gift card, the proof that they saw it before paying is that same screen, not a paragraph buried in a link nobody ever opened.
- Fewer forgotten gift cards and less money on the books that you don't know when it'll go out the door
- Pushes people to use the gift card soon, a good fit for services that aren't planned ahead
- Gives the person who got the gift time to find the right moment
- Better for pricier services or ones that need advance planning
- Works with tight schedules or waiting lists
- In exchange, you build up more unredeemed gift cards on your books
Which one to pick: If the ticket is low and the service gets used without much thought, like dinner out or a haircut, three to six months. If the ticket is high or the service takes planning, like a course or a long course of therapy, twelve months or more. Less than three months isn't an expiration date, it's pressure, and people can tell.
- You picked the expiration based on what you sell: short for things people use without thinking, long for things that take planning
- That date is written out, not described in words, and it shows up the same way on the purchase page, the email, and the voucher itself
- There's no room left for a surprise at the counter
- It's still up to you to decide when the voucher gets sent: right when they pay, or on the day the buyer chooses
Test yourself
Answer before opening each one. If one gives you trouble, go back to the section that explains it.
1. You sell a 90-minute massage voucher for $65. Someone buys it in December to give as a holiday gift in early January. What expiration date do you set?
Twelve months from the purchase date, not from the gift-giving day. The service itself isn't something people plan far ahead, but the gift does take a while to reach the person who'll use it, and six months would be too short between a December purchase and the real window to use it in summer.
2. A customer shows up in month 13 with a voucher that expired at twelve months and says they never saw the date listed anywhere.
Check where that date was actually written before you decide. If it only appeared in the general terms and not on the purchase page or in the email, the mistake is on you, and the voucher gets honored. If it was in all three places with the same date, you're in the right, and you can explain that with the proof in hand. Even so, don't just write off what an individual customer paid: a short extension costs you little and saves you a dispute.
3. You sell a four-session course that has to fit into the schedule of a teacher with very few open slots.
Go with a long expiration, twelve months or more, because the bottleneck isn't the buyer, it's the teacher's availability. A short expiration here doesn't protect your books, it just dumps your scheduling problem onto the customer.
The expiration date is already set and written where people pay. What you still haven't decided is when that voucher leaves your inbox: whether it goes out the moment you get paid, or on the day the buyer chooses.
NextYou send the voucher when it's paid for, or on the day the buyer chooses