Frequently asked questions

Most programs cost a flat monthly platform fee plus the price of card stock, which runs from a few cents to about a dollar per card depending on quantity and finish. The bigger variable is transaction pricing: a provider charging per activation or per redemption costs more as your program succeeds. Factor4 quotes by location count, channel mix and integration rather than a fixed rate card.

Two to four weeks is typical from first call to first card sold. Digital-only programs can go live faster because there is no production step. The two things that extend the timeline are custom card artwork, which needs approval and a print run, and POS integrations that require coordination with your POS vendor or reseller.

Usually not. Factor4 integrates with the POS or payment terminal you already use, so activation and redemption happen on the equipment on your counter today. If your system is not supported, the browser-based Virtual Terminal issues and redeems cards from any computer, and the Factor4 Kiosk is an optional addition rather than a requirement.

Yes, and many merchants do. Digital launches fastest because there is no artwork approval or print run, and it lets you validate demand before committing to card stock. Adding plastic later does not disturb existing balances — both formats draw on the same real-time ledger, so a customer's digital balance and a physical card behave identically.

A single location is enough. Factor4 serves independent restaurants, salons and shops alongside multi-location groups and franchises. The practical threshold is whether you have enough customer traffic for cards to circulate — a business with steady repeat customers will see returns from a program well before it reaches multiple locations.

A gift card holds prepaid stored value the customer or a gift-giver has already paid for. A loyalty program awards value the merchant grants based on spend or visits. They serve different purposes but work best on one ledger, so a single account and one card number carry both and one report shows their combined effect.

Both, and the increase is the larger effect. Cards move revenue forward in time, but they also add new revenue three ways: redemption tickets run above card value — Blackhawk reports 65% of consumers spend about 38% more — cards introduce new customers who were given them, and around 10% of issued value is never redeemed.

Start with the denominations your category supports and adjust from data. Paytronix puts average full-service restaurant cards near $66 and quick service near $31. Offer three or four fixed amounts plus a custom option, then review your average denomination after a season and set any bonus threshold slightly above it.

Per-transaction pricing exists across the industry and is the fee structure most likely to make a successful program expensive, because cost rises with volume. Ask any provider you evaluate to state in writing whether activations, redemptions, reloads and balance checks each carry a fee. A flat monthly fee with unlimited transactions is the structure that favors high-volume merchants.

The recurring ones are per-transaction charges, monthly minimums that apply regardless of sales, auto-renewal with a short notice window, fees to access your own liability data, separate invoices for gift and loyalty, per-location charges quoted as a single business fee, and conversion or data-export fees disclosed only when you try to leave.

Per-card cost depends on quantity, finish and whether you use a stock design or custom artwork. Stock designs — Factor4 offers roughly 70 — are the least expensive and fastest option. Custom production on 30mil PVC adds artwork setup and a longer lead time. Prices fall sharply with volume, so order for the full year rather than a month.

Terms vary by program and are set during scoping. Before signing with any provider, confirm three things in writing: the contract length, the auto-renewal notice window, and what it costs to cancel. Also confirm that you will receive a card-level liability file at no charge if you leave, which is what protects your customers' balances.

Factor4 does not publish a standard rate card because cost depends on location count, whether you need physical cards, digital, loyalty or a mobile app, and which POS integration applies. The cost guide on this page lists every line item you should expect so you can ask precise questions on the first call rather than receiving a vague quote.

Factor4 maintains more than 150 certified integrations covering major POS platforms, payment terminals and gateways, including Clover, Toast, Lightspeed, Shopify, Micros Simphony, Epos Now, Heartland and GoTab, plus PAX, Verifone and Dejavoo terminals. Use the searchable integration list on this page to check your exact system, and ask about the RewardOS™ API if it is not listed.

There are two paths. The RewardOS™ API exposes Setup, Campaign, Transaction and Reporting endpoints so your POS vendor or your own developers can integrate directly. Alternatively, the browser-based Virtual Terminal issues and redeems cards from any computer with no POS integration at all, which is often enough to launch while an integration is scoped.

Yes. Factor4 provides a hosted, branded storefront for selling e-gift cards from your website, and integrates with e-commerce platforms including Shopify. Because online and in-store draw on the same ledger, a customer can buy online and redeem at the counter, or the reverse, without a separate balance or a manual sync.

Yes, through pooling. A card sold at one location redeems at any other in the group while the platform records which store sold it and which honored it. That produces the settlement data multi-owner and franchise groups need, and brand-level reporting rolls every location into one outstanding liability figure.

Redemption clears against a real-time ledger rather than a nightly batch, so the balance updates the moment the card is used on any channel. This matters most in high-volume environments like coffee shops, quick service and convenience stores, where any lookup delay at the register creates a line.

Factor4 prints on 30mil PVC at standard CR80 sizing — the same dimensions as a credit card — so cards fit every wallet and every terminal reader. Cards can carry a magnetic stripe, a barcode or a QR code depending on how your POS reads them, and finishes including foil and spot gloss are available on custom runs.

Yes. Factor4 prints in house and supports fully custom artwork, or you can choose from roughly 70 predesigned stock templates to launch faster and at lower cost. Custom runs require an artwork approval step and a production lead time, so start design well before the November and December selling window.

A carrier is the printed folder or backer the card is presented in. It is worth ordering because it makes the card look like a gift rather than a piece of plastic, and it gives you a surface for your terms, the balance-check URL and a reload prompt — which reduces the most common gift card support call.

Order for a full selling season rather than a month, because per-card cost drops sharply with quantity and running out of plastic in December is far more expensive than the cards would have been. Count remaining stock in October and reorder ahead of the holiday run, when lead times are longest.

Yes. The Factor4 mobile app issues wallet passes for Apple Wallet and Google Wallet that display a live balance, so the card stays visible on the customer's phone instead of forgotten in a drawer. Passes can also carry loyalty progress and active offers alongside the stored value balance.

Yes. Community programs put one card in circulation across many independent businesses in a town or district, with per-merchant settlement reporting so each participant is reimbursed for what it redeemed. They are typically run by a chamber of commerce, business improvement district or municipality, and redemption can run on lightweight terminals for merchants with mixed POS systems.

Four ways: at the register, on a balance-check page you link from the card carrier, in the branded mobile app, or on a wallet pass that updates automatically. Publishing the balance-check URL on the carrier removes the majority of gift card support calls, which are almost always the same question.

Because the balance lives on the platform rather than on the plastic, a lost card's remaining value can be looked up by card number or purchase record and moved to a replacement card. This is a configuration and policy question — decide in advance what proof you require and which staff roles are permitted to perform the transfer.

Yes. If a $50 card is used on a $32 ticket, $18 remains on the card and the customer pays nothing further. If the ticket exceeds the balance, the card covers what it can and the customer pays the difference by another method. Both behaviors happen in the normal POS flow with no special handling.

Most gift card loss is internal and procedural rather than technical. Set role-based permissions so only designated staff can void, adjust or transfer balances, review the adjustment log monthly, and remove portal access the same day someone leaves. An unrestricted void permission at the register is a bigger exposure than the card format.

Yes, and it is one of the more overlooked uses. Issuing store credit to a gift card keeps the funds in your business and brings the customer back to spend them, instead of refunding to a payment card and paying a network fee. It also reduces cash handling at the counter.

Support runs seven days a week, which matters because gift card questions cluster on weekends and holidays when most merchants are busiest and most vendor support lines are closed. Onboarding includes staff training on activation, redemption, partial redemption and balance inquiry — the four workflows that cover nearly every situation.

Yes. The Virtual Terminal issues and redeems cards from a browser, which covers phone orders, catering deposits, pop-ups and farmers markets where the main POS is not present. Transactions post to the same ledger, so there is never a question of which system holds the true balance.

Yes. Bonus promotions are configured in the platform with a purchase threshold, a bonus amount and a campaign window. The bonus value can carry its own expiration date separate from purchased funds, which is what makes a December promotion drive a January visit rather than sitting on your books indefinitely.

Yes — link the hosted storefront from anywhere. A QR code on a table tent, a receipt, a window decal or a social post routes directly to checkout, which matters because every extra step between seeing the offer and completing the purchase removes buyers. The balance is live the moment payment clears.

Campaign-level reporting isolates the value issued under a promotion from ordinary sales and tracks how much of it was redeemed and what the redemption tickets totaled. Compare bonus value given away against incremental spend brought back during the campaign window, not against total gift card sales for the period.

Under the federal CARD Act of 2009, gift card funds must remain valid for at least five years from the date of purchase or the most recent load, and inactivity fees are restricted and must be disclosed. Several states impose stricter rules. Promotional value you issued yourself is treated differently and may expire sooner if disclosed.

Escheatment is the legal requirement to remit unclaimed property, including unredeemed gift card balances, to a state after a dormancy period. Whether it applies depends on the state — some exempt gift cards, some require the full balance, some a percentage. Confirm your obligations with counsel in every state where you operate.

A gift card sale is deferred revenue, not revenue. Under ASC 606 you recognize revenue when the card is redeemed, and unredeemed balances remain a liability on the balance sheet. This is why your accountant asks for an outstanding liability figure and why card-level reporting matters more than a monthly sales total.

Breakage is gift card value that is never redeemed, commonly estimated at around 10% of issued value. Under ASC 606 it can sometimes be recognized proportionally as other cards are redeemed, provided you are not required to escheat it and you have a defensible estimate based on your own redemption history.

Card-level detail: card number, balance, activation date and last activity date, retained for the periods your state and auditor require. Keep the final reports from any prior provider if you switch, because once that account closes the data is usually gone and you may need it for an unclaimed property filing years later.

Any fees and expiration terms must be clearly disclosed on the card or its packaging at the time of purchase. In practice that means printing them on the carrier and publishing the same terms at a stable URL, keeping the printed and online versions consistent so what the customer reads matches what the register enforces.

No. The compliance material here describes how the platform supports your obligations and summarizes widely applicable rules, but gift card law varies by state and your circumstances differ. Confirm expiration, fee and escheatment obligations with legal counsel and your accountant in every state where you sell.

Yes. The conversion imports a card-level liability file from your current provider and recreates each active balance on the new platform, preserving existing card numbers where the prior provider's numbering allows. Cards already in customers' wallets keep working. Where numbers cannot be reused, a lookup layer maps old numbers so a swipe still resolves.

A full liability report with card-level detail in CSV: every active card number, remaining balance, activation date and last activity date — not a summary total. Also pull your final transaction history and any escheatment filings before the account closes, and read the termination clause for the notice window.

The import itself is quick; the timeline is driven by getting a clean liability file from the outgoing provider and verifying the POS integration before cutover. Plan for the same two-to-four-week window as a new launch, and schedule the cutover on a low-volume day rather than during the holiday run.

Issuance is frozen on the old system at a stated timestamp, the final liability file is pulled at that moment, imported and spot-checked, then issuance resumes on the new platform. A moving target during import is the main cause of balance discrepancies, which is why the freeze window matters more than its length.

They should not, if the conversion is run properly. Their cards keep working and their balances are unchanged. What changes is the balance-check URL on new card stock. Most merchants send a short email and put a note at the register anyway, because it costs nothing and prevents anxious questions.

No. Keep honoring existing plastic indefinitely — there is no need to force a swap. Order new stock with the updated balance-check URL and terms, and phase the old design out naturally as it runs down. Both old and new cards draw on the same ledger.

Card-level balance data is your business record. Start with the contract's data provisions and escalate in writing. This is also why you should confirm export terms before signing with any provider — a company that will not commit in advance to returning your liability file is holding your customers' balances as leverage.

The recurring reasons are per-transaction fees that grow with success, support that closes before the weekend when restaurants are busiest, a provider that cannot integrate with a newly adopted POS, gift and loyalty split across two vendors, no pooling as a second location opens, and reporting that cannot produce an outstanding liability figure.

After, almost always. November and December carry roughly 80% of physical card volume, so a cutover during that window puts your highest-traffic weeks at risk for no operational gain. January through March is the natural window: volume is low, staff have time to train, and you are ready before the next season.