Gift Cards & Store Credit: Get Paid Before You Do the Work

A gift card is revenue the moment someone buys it — not when they redeem it. Store credit is a balance that lives on a client's profile instead of a physical card. Both are included in Pronto from the Starter plan up, sold and redeemed right through the point of sale you already use.

Gift cards get you paid before you do the work

Someone buys a $50 gift card in December. That $50 is in your account today — weeks or months before you deliver the haircut, facial, or service it eventually pays for. It's one of the only ways a service business gets paid in advance without asking for a deposit.

Some of that balance never gets redeemed at all, industry-wide roughly 14% of gift card value goes unspent. That's not the point of selling them, but it's a real, if modest, side effect on top of the upfront cash.

They also bring in clients you haven't met yet

72% of small businesses that sell gift cards say they bring in customers who'd never walked through the door before. Someone gives a card to a friend or family member, and that person now has a specific reason to book with you instead of whoever's next on a search results page.

31% of gift card recipients visit a business for the first time because of the card, and they tend to spend more than the card is worth once they're in the chair — an average of $41 above the card's value, according to recent industry data. A gift card is a lead with money already attached to it.

Store credit keeps the clients you already have

Store credit is money tied to a client's own profile, not a card you hand to someone else. It gets funded two ways: a refund you'd rather keep in-house than hand back as cash, or a goodwill credit after something didn't go right. It's redeemed the same way as a gift card, as a payment method at checkout.

Where a gift card brings someone in, store credit gives an existing client a reason to come back specifically — the balance is sitting there, tied to their name, waiting to be used. Paired with a loyalty program, it rounds out a simple toolkit for keeping the clients you already have.

How it works at checkout

Selling a gift card takes three taps at the register: pick a preset amount or type a custom one, optionally add the recipient's name or phone number, and charge it like any other sale — no separate payment flow to learn.

The client gets the code immediately through whichever channel you already use with them — email, Telegram, WhatsApp, or Viber — along with a button to add it straight to Google Wallet. Redeeming it later works the same way in reverse: at checkout, "gift card code" sits next to cash and card as a payment method. Enter or scan the code, and the balance is deducted on the spot. If the balance doesn't cover the full purchase, the remainder just stays on the card for next time.

Digital cards get used. Paper ones get lost in a drawer

Digital gift cards get redeemed at roughly a 91% rate, against about 82% for paper cards, and they get used 2.3 times faster. Most of that gap comes down to something simple: a code in a text message doesn't get lost in a coat pocket or forgotten in a kitchen drawer the way a paper certificate does.

The Google Wallet button matters here too. Where the base tier of tools like Fresha or Vagaro typically hands a client a code in an email or a PDF, Pronto's card can sit in their phone right next to their bank cards — one less place for it to get lost.

Available from Starter

Gift cards and client wallet are included from the Starter plan up, the same tier as deposits and no-show protection. They're not available on the Free plan — everything else about booking, reminders, and client records works the same either way.