Getting Started with Instant Gift Cards

Instant Gift Cards let your team redeem tacos for real gift cards — delivered instantly and automatically by HeyTaco. This guide walks through the full admin journey: from funding your Taco Shop to launching gift-card rewards, monitoring balance, and running a healthy taco economy.

Step 1: Add Funding (Required First)

Before your team can redeem gift cards, you need to pre-fund your account. These funds pay for gift cards when redeemed.

How to add funds

1. Navigate to Admin → Gift Cards in HeyTaco.
2. Click the “Add Funds” button.

3. Enter the amount you want to fund.
4. Complete payment using the credit card on file for your HeyTaco subscription.
5. Once added, funds appear automatically under Available Balance.

Important notes about funding:

• All funding and gift-card charges are processed in USD, regardless of the gift-card currency.
• If you run out of funds (balance hits $0), users cannot redeem gift cards — and you will not go into a negative balance.
• You can set a Low Balance Alert threshold in your user settings. HeyTaco will email you when your available balance falls below that threshold.
• If you decide to stop using Gift Cards and have leftover funds, you can request a refund of unused balance.

Step 2: Curate Gift Cards — Add to Taco Shop

Once funding is added, you can curate which gift cards to offer in your Taco Shop.

How to add gift cards as rewards

1. Go to the Taco Shop.
2. Click 'Add Reward' (only visible if you have admin permissions).
3. Choose Gift Card as the reward type.
4. Browse the catalog of available gift cards (HeyTaco supports thousands of options across 100+ countries).
5. Select which gift cards (brands, denominations) to make redeemable by your teammates.

Because gift cards are automatically fulfilled by HeyTaco, there’s no manual work for you after setup. When someone redeems a gift card, HeyTaco handles fulfillment and sends it directly to the user’s email linked to their HeyTaco (or Slack) account.

Step 3: Launch & Communicate to Your Team

Once gift cards are added, you’re ready to go:

• Announce to your team that gift cards are now available in the Taco Shop.
• Give folks guidance: redemption is instant, final, and processed automatically.

Many teams find it works well to mix gift cards with non-monetary rewards (e.g., extra PTO, swag, team lunches, experiences) to keep the Taco Shop balanced and culturally meaningful.

Step 4: Track Redemptions & Manage Budget

As redemptions happen, your available balance decreases automatically. HeyTaco keeps track of:

• Remaining gift-card balance
• Redemption history (who redeemed what, when) — visible in the Gift Cards / Admin area
• Invoices and receipts (available for download) for bookkeeping or accounting needs.

When balance gets low, top up as needed. Set a low-balance alert to avoid any surprise “out-of-funds” situations.  You can set a Low Balance Alert threshold in your user settings. HeyTaco will email you when your available balance falls below that threshold.

If you later decide to stop using gift cards, you can request a refund of any unused funding.

Transitioning from Manual Rewards to Instant Gift Cards

Many teams currently fulfill rewards manually through HeyTaco custom rewards.

For example, an employee might redeem tacos and an admin sends them a gift card manually.

Instant Gift Cards automates this process, allowing employees to redeem tacos directly for digital gift cards without admin involvement.

Why teams switch to Instant Gift Cards

Switching to Instant Gift Cards helps teams:

• eliminate manual reward fulfillment

• offer more reward choices

• give employees instant redemption

• reduce admin workload

Gift cards are fulfilled directly by HeyTaco, so admins don’t need to purchase or distribute rewards.

How to transition

Switching typically takes just a few minutes.

Step 1

Enable your Deluxe trial.

Step 2

Add gift cards to your Taco Shop.

Step 3

Remove custom rewards so there is no confusion for employees as to which reward to redeem.

Employees can now redeem tacos directly for gift cards that are sent automatically to their work email address.

What happens to existing tacos?

Nothing changes.

Employees keep their tacos and can continue earning and redeeming them as usual.

Should you remove all custom rewards?

That’s up to you.

Some teams keep custom rewards for internal experiences like:

• lunch with leadership
• team outings
• charity donations

And use Instant Gift Cards for gift cards.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)