Ask for the redemption rate, in writing
The number that determines whether a programme worked is what proportion of issued value was actually redeemed. Vendors report issuance, delivery, and open rates because those are flattering. Redemption is the one that tells you how much of your budget reached a human being.
Make it a contractual reporting requirement before you sign, broken down by denomination and brand. Unredeemed value is money you spent that benefited nobody you meant to benefit, and in most arrangements the issuer keeps it. If a vendor is reluctant to report it, that reluctance is the answer.
Price the fees against volume
Per-card fees that look trivial at retail become a real line item at scale. A few dollars of purchase fee across a few thousand cards is a meaningful sum, and it buys you nothing the recipient values. Network-branded cards look generous and carry exactly this cost.
Then look for the fees the deck omits: programme setup, per-transaction charges, custom branding, expedited delivery, reissuance for failed deliveries, and any monthly platform minimum. Ask for a single all-in cost per delivered, redeemed dollar. That figure is comparable between vendors and it is the only one that is.
Tax treatment is not the vendor’s problem
In most jurisdictions a gift card given to an employee is compensation, not a gift, and is taxable accordingly. The de minimis reasoning that applies to a turkey or a small physical item generally does not extend to cash equivalents, and gift cards are treated as cash equivalents.
This catches organisations regularly, because the programme is run by marketing or people teams rather than finance. Get your tax position confirmed internally before launch, not after an auditor asks. Recipient-facing communications should also be clear about withholding, since a reward that arrives smaller than announced generates exactly the resentment the programme was meant to avoid.
Delivery at scale fails in specific ways
Bulk digital delivery collides with corporate mail infrastructure. Messages carrying redemption codes look like phishing to filters and to security teams, and are quarantined in volume. Codes sent to work addresses become inaccessible the moment someone leaves the organisation.
Both are avoidable with planning: coordinate with IT before the send, prefer a portal where recipients claim value over pushing codes by mail, and use personal addresses for anything a leaver should retain. Budget for a reissuance rate rather than being surprised by one.
Choose brands for redemption, not for prestige
Aspirational brands present well in a deck and redeem poorly, because a card for a shop people admire but rarely visit is a card that sits unused. Broad general retailers, groceries, and fuel redeem near-completely because everyone has an immediate use.
The most effective compromise is a curated choice — a short list across a few genuinely different categories, letting recipients self-select. That preserves the sense of a considered reward while letting people route value somewhere they will actually spend it, which is the only outcome that counts.