Gift cards, vouchers, coupons, and store credit
These four concepts are often used interchangeably, but they behave differently in a WooCommerce store. Choosing the right one for your use case avoids confusion for both staff and customers.
The key distinction is prepaid value (gift card, store credit) versus discount on a new purchase (coupon, most vouchers). Gift cards and store credit reduce a balance you owe the customer. Coupons reduce the price of an order at the moment of purchase.
Gift Cards for WooCommerce
The Gift Cards for WooCommerce plugin lets customers buy gift cards as products, receive a code by email, and redeem the balance in a future order. The plugin handles the gift card lifecycle inside WooCommerce. When a customer redeems a gift card, the order total is reduced before the order reaches the Processing state. Smart Send sees the resulting order in WooCommerce and ships it like any other order.Coupon codes
WooCommerce includes coupon codes natively. You can create them under Marketing > Coupons in your WordPress admin and offer percentage discounts, fixed-amount discounts, or free shipping.A free-shipping coupon only affects what the customer pays — it does not change which carrier or service is used. Configure your shipping methods in Smart Send to control the actual shipment.
Related resources
Supported plugins
Other plugins that work with Smart Send
Shipping methods
Configure WooCommerce shipping methods