Before you sign

Corporate gifting platform buyer's checklist

Ask every vendor on your shortlist the same questions, in writing, and compare the answers side by side. If a vendor can't answer one, treat that as the answer.

Last reviewed November 10, 2026

Budgets

A gifting program without caps grows quietly until finance notices.

Can we cap spend per gift, per recipient, per sender, per team and per campaign?
Is the cap enforced before anything is bought, or reported after?
Do shipping, taxes, duties and packaging count against the cap?
Do we prepay into a balance? If so, does unused money expire or come back?
Can finance see spend by team and by campaign without asking the vendor?

Approvals

Every gift goes out under your name. Someone should be able to see it first.

Can a person approve each gift before it is bought? What do they see: the recipient, the gift, the reason, the price?
Can approvals depend on value, team or recipient type?
Is there an audit log of who sent what to whom?
Can we block gifts to recipients whose employers limit or ban gifts, such as government buyers?

Delivery

A gift in a mailroom or a customs queue is money spent on nothing.

Which countries and cities do you deliver to, and how? Courier, post, or by hand?
Where is the gift sourced and packed? How far does it travel?
What happens if the recipient is out of office or working from home?
Do we need the recipient's address, or can they give it themselves?
Who handles customs and duties for international gifts?
Can we see delivery status for each gift?

Data sources

Personalisation is only as good as what the platform knows, and how it knows it.

What do you use to choose a gift: our CRM fields, public sources, or the recipient's own choice?
If you research recipients, which kinds of source do you read, and can we see the reason behind each pick?
Do you exclude sensitive and protected characteristics from what you use?
How do gift sends and results get back into our CRM?

Privacy

You are handling home addresses and personal details, often across borders.

Where is recipient data stored, and for how long?
Who at the vendor and its suppliers can see home addresses?
Will you sign our data processing agreement?
Can a recipient ask for their data to be deleted, and how fast is it done?
Which security reviews or certifications can you share? Ask for the documents themselves.

Pricing transparency

The platform fee is often the smallest part of the bill.

Is there a platform or subscription fee, and what does each plan include?
Are there per-send, handling, storage or kitting fees?
Is there a minimum annual spend or minimum order?
What would a sample campaign of our size cost in total, gifts and delivery included?
Can we try it on a small list before we commit?
What are the contract length, renewal and cancellation terms?

Then match the answers to your use case

For outreach, weight research, approvals and delivery highest. For employee and client programs, weight reach, recipient choice and cost per gift. The rankings for sales outreach and for employees and clients already do that weighting, using the criteria in how we rank.