Gifts are the simplest way to earn on top of memberships. A member who would never pay for a subscription will happily spend a few dollars to get noticed. Your platform takes a cut of every one of those payments.
There are four gift features on the platform. They do different jobs, and most owners switch on more than one.
Gift type | What the member buys | How you earn |
Virtual gifts | A picture that appears on someone's profile | You keep the full price. You set it yourself |
Money gifts | Sends real money to another member | Commission on every transfer |
Membership gifts | Pays for someone else's paid membership | Full membership price, plus a new paying user later |
Real gift shop | A physical present, delivered to an address | Your margin on goods and delivery |
Where to start. Switch on virtual gifts first: no logistics, no payouts, no legal questions. Money gifts and membership gifts come next, once payments are working.
Virtual gifts
A member picks a picture, pays for it, and it shows up on the recipient's profile for everyone to see. That last part is what makes it work: the gift is public, so it is both a message and a small status symbol.
What you do as the owner: upload the images, put them into categories, set a price for each. You can change all prices at once instead of editing them one by one.
Admin panel: Services > Customize your service > More matches > Virtual gifts.
Practical advice on pricing. Keep most gifts cheap enough to be an impulse — the point is volume, not margin per gift. Add a handful of expensive ones: a small share of members will buy them, and those few will bring a surprising part of the revenue.
Money gifts
One member sends real money to another. You take a commission on every transfer.
This matters more than it sounds. On many platforms members already send each other money — through external apps, outside your site. Every one of those payments is revenue that walked away, and a conversation that moved off your platform.
A simple calculation. A thousand active members, one in twenty sends a money gift each month, the average gift is twenty dollars, your commission is ten percent. That is a hundred dollars a month from this feature alone — and it grows with your member count, not with your effort.
What you control:
Your commission — a percentage or a flat fee. Usual range is five to ten percent on ordinary dating sites, higher on arrangement-focused ones.
Where the money comes from — the member's balance on your site, a card, or both.
Who can send to whom — anyone, or only people already connected. This is your main defence against spam.
Full history of transfers, for accounting and disputes.
Worth knowing: your commission stays with you even when the recipient refuses the gift. Without this, two people could send money back and forth for free and use your site as a wallet.
Money gifts need working payments. See how to accept payments on your site.
Membership gifts
A member pays for someone else's paid membership. You get the money twice: once from the sender, and again later when the recipient renews on their own.
Why this converts better than a free trial. A trial you hand out yourself feels like marketing. A membership someone paid for feels like a compliment — the recipient knows a real person spent money on them. People who receive a gifted membership renew far more often than people who take a free trial, and they cost you nothing to acquire.
How it runs:
The sender picks a member and a membership length.
The money is held — on their site balance or through the payment gateway.
The recipient gets an email and can accept or decline.
On acceptance the membership starts straight away.
On decline, or after the waiting period runs out, the money goes back to the sender.
Advice on commission: here it is usually worth taking little or nothing. You earn on the membership itself, and a low commission means more gifts, which means more new paying members.
Membership levels and what each one gives are set up separately. See memberships and paid access.
Real gift shop
Legacy module, included in packages up to Oasis 2022.
A full shop of physical presents — flowers, chocolates, soft toys — that one member buys and you deliver to the other. This is a real retail operation, not a feature you switch on and forget: you need suppliers, stock and delivery.
What you set up: categories, products with photos and descriptions, prices, stock levels, delivery cost and terms.
How the order goes, from your member's side: they add a present to the basket, choose who it is for, and pay. The recipient is asked whether they accept. Only if they accept does the recipient give a delivery address — the sender never sees it. Then delivery is paid and the order comes to you.
That address step is the point of the whole design: people on a dating site will not hand out their home address to a stranger, and they should not have to.
Before you switch this on, answer three questions: who supplies the goods, who packs them, and what happens when a delivery goes wrong. Without answers, this feature creates complaints rather than revenue.
Common questions
Do I need a registered company to take payments?
In most countries, yes. There is also the option of processing payments through us without registering a company — see payments on your dating site.
Can members send gifts without entering card details every time?
Yes, if you switch on the site balance. A member tops it up once and then sends gifts from it. Fewer steps means more gifts.
What if the recipient never replies to the gift notification?
You set a waiting period. After it runs out the money returns to the sender, minus your commission if you configured it that way.
How do I stop gifts being used for spam?
Several ways: require a few days of membership before someone can send gifts, limit how many per day, require a verified profile, or allow gifts only between connected members.
Which of these are in my plan?
See the feature table on the pricing page — it shows what is included and what is an add-on.