Gift card images: a personal card for every voucher, for email, print or social

A gift card bought online arrives as an email, and the email is the gift. A plain "Your code is X7K2-9QPL" does not feel like one; an image with the amount, the recipient's name, the buyer's message and your brand does. With Shareglint that image is rendered from the purchase's own data the moment it is bought — for the email, as a printable PDF, or as a social post when you run a gift card campaign.

The templates

They render in every size preset (og 1200×630, square 1080×1080, portrait 1080×1350, story 1080×1920, pinterest 1000×1500, youtube 1280×720) and as one-page PDFs; accent and theme carry your brand colours. Copy gift-card into your account to give it your own layout — a card shape, a seasonal background, your typography.

A card for every purchase

When your shop's order system records a gift card purchase, call the API with that purchase's data:

curl -X POST "https://shareglint.com/v1/images?wait=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "template": "gift-card",
    "format": "png",
    "modifications": {
      "amount": "$50",
      "title": "A gift for you",
      "recipient": "For Maya",
      "message": "Happy birthday — buy yourself something nice. Love, Tom",
      "brand": "Northwind Coffee",
      "cta": "Redeem at northwind.coffee"
    }
  }'

Put the returned url into the gift card email. For the printable version, the same request with "format": "pdf" returns a one-page vector PDF of the card. Without a server call at purchase time, a signed URL with the card's fields renders the image when the email is opened or prefetched by the mail client (personalised email images).

The code: on the image or not?

Gift card codes are money. Two sensible patterns:

• Code in the email text, not on the image. The image shows the amount, the recipient and the message; the code sits in the email body where it can be copied and where your email system controls who sees it. A forwarded or screenshotted image then does not leak the balance.
• Code on the printable PDF. A printed card needs the code; keep the PDF behind the order link rather than in a public place.

Either way, an image URL that contains the code in its query string (a signed URL) carries the code in the URL — treat such URLs like the code itself. Rendering through the API, the stored image's URL does not contain the field values.

Corporate and bulk vouchers

A company ordering 200 vouchers for its staff, or a campaign sending a voucher to every customer: send the list as a batch with one row per voucher — amount, recipient, message, and a filename — and receive every card and one ZIP. Rows per batch by plan: Free 50, Starter 500, Pro 1,000, Scale 2,000, Business 5,000. Use format: pdf when the cards will be printed and handed out.

Campaigns

For gift card promotions ("give $50, get $10"), render the announcement with flash-sale or coupon-code in the feed and story sizes, and the gift card itself as the image customers receive. JPEG is the format for anything a tool will post to Instagram, since its publishing API accepts only JPEG (Meta for Developers).

Seasonal designs

Gift card sales peak around holidays, and a seasonal design makes the same voucher feel new. Keep one template per season — a winter background, a spring one — or keep one template and change its accent and theme per campaign. The purchase flow passes the template's slug along with the card's data, so switching the design for December is a one-line change in your shop, not a redesign of every card. Old cards keep their images at their URLs; nothing already sent changes.

The email around the card

The image is the gift, but the email does the work. Put the image first, then in plain text: the amount, the code, how and where to redeem it, the expiry date if there is one, and the buyer's message again for mail clients that block images. Give the image an alt text that says what it is ("A $50 gift card from Tom"). Keep the image width around 600 pixels in the email — the rendered file is sharper than that, which keeps it crisp on phones — and use PNG or JPEG, not WebP, so every mail client shows it.

Rules that may apply

Gift cards are regulated in many places. In the US, for example, Regulation E restricts expiration dates on gift certificates and store gift cards: generally funds may not expire within five years, with conditions on disclosure (12 CFR 1005.20). Other countries have their own rules. If the card shows an expiry date or terms, make sure they match your actual terms — the template prints what you send.

Cost

One render per card and size; repeats are free. A shop selling 150 gift cards a month, each as an email image and a PDF, uses 300 renders. The Free plan's 100 renders carry a watermark, which customers should not see; Starter is $9 a month for 2,000 renders (pricing).

What it does not do

• It does not issue, store or validate gift card codes or balances; your shop or gift card provider does.
• It does not send the email; your shop or email service does, with the image URL.
• It does not process payments.

For certificates of achievement rather than value, see certificates; for product and sale images, e-commerce product images.