Paper Gift Vouchers vs Plastic Gift Cards

How do paper gift vouchers and plastic gift cards compare?

Paper costs less per voucher, and printed at home it needs no minimum order. A plastic card lasts longer, is harder to copy and can carry a printed number, which is why it suits a business that sells vouchers all year.

We don’t supply paper vouchers, so the paper column describes what’s generally available rather than quoting prices. Our plastic vs paper cards guide covers the same question for every kind of card.

When is a paper gift voucher the sensible choice?

When you sell only a few, when the vouchers are for one event, or when each one is printed as it’s sold. Printed at home or as it’s sold, paper needs no stock and no minimum order, and in those cases a card’s strengths matter less.

• A handful a year. Our minimum is 25 cards per design, so if you sell five vouchers a year, a first order would last five years. Printed at home, paper costs little per voucher.
• A one-off event. A raffle prize, an auction lot or an opening offer, where the vouchers are spent soon after.
• Printed as you sell. Some booking and voucher systems print a paper voucher for each sale, at the till or by post, with the amount or experience filled in. Each one is made when it’s bought, so there’s nothing to keep in stock.

Staying with paper? Make it safer

Give every voucher its own number, write the value in ink, and record each one in a register when it’s sold. Check the register before you accept a voucher, and mark it used once it’s spent: our gift card printing guide sets out the routine. If your vouchers expire, the date must be clear and the terms fair: see our gift card VAT and expiry rules.

When is a plastic gift card the better choice?

When you sell gift vouchers all year or in numbers, when they sit in a purse for months before they’re spent, or when you want them on show at the till.

• You sell them all year, or a lot at Christmas. In their report on the second half of 2023, the Gift Card & Voucher Association (GCVA) and KPMG said physical gift card sales always rise around Christmas, because they’re convenient and suit giving as a gift. Cards bought in advance are ready to sell, with nothing to print at the till.
• The voucher has to last. In the GCVA’s 2025 survey, 88% of people said they used a gift card within six months of getting it, and 97% within a year. Paper creases and tears in a purse. On a full colour PVC card, the print is sealed in, so it can’t scratch or wear off.
• You want them on show. On a euro slot carrier, a card hangs from a retail hook or spinner by the till, ready to sell.
• You want fewer fakes. A printed number is sealed in with the rest of the print, and foiling or embossing can’t be reproduced on an ordinary printer.
• Your till keeps the balance. A card can carry a barcode or magnetic strip with its own number: see gift cards with barcodes. A barcode on paper can work, but paper is more prone to scanning failures from warping and damage.

Do people still buy paper gift vouchers?

Less and less. In the second half of 2025, paper vouchers were 2% of the sales reported by members of the Gift Card & Voucher Association (GCVA), and fell 10% on a year earlier. Physical gift cards were 46%, and grew 21%.

Those are members’ figures, not the whole UK market. The GCVA counts plastic and cardboard cards with a magnetic strip, barcode or chip as physical gift cards, and paper vouchers separately. Digital cards were the largest share, at 52%: our guide to digital vs plastic gift cards compares those.

One UK voucher scheme saw the same shift. In 2023 the Horticultural Trades Association said customer demand for its paper National Garden Gift Vouchers had fallen by 70% since 2020, as its gift cards became more popular. The scheme is now called the National Garden Gift Card, and its cards are cardboard, not plastic.

Are plastic gift cards harder to copy than paper vouchers?

Yes. A plain paper voucher can be copied on the same kind of printer that made it. A copy of a plastic card is easy to spot if it’s printed on paper, and foiling or embossing can’t be reproduced on an ordinary printer. No voucher or card is impossible to copy, though, so what stops a copy being spent is a number on each one, checked against your register.

Fake paper vouchers do happen. When the Horticultural Trades Association announced in 2023 that it would stop supplying paper National Garden Gift Vouchers, one reason it gave was the risk of fraudulent vouchers in circulation, as it had seen in 2021 and 2022.

• A number on every card, printed from a start number or your own list, and a register of what each one was sold for.
• Something hard to print, such as metallic foiling or embossing, so a home-made copy looks wrong at a glance.
• A check at the till. Look the number up in the register before you accept a card, and mark it used once it’s spent.

A written amount can be altered on paper or plastic, which is another reason to keep the register. Our guides to numbered gift cards, gift card fraud and stopping cards being copied go further.

Is there a middle way between paper and plastic?

Yes: a plastic gift card in a printed board carrier. The carrier gives you a paper voucher’s room for a message, the amount and the terms, and the card is the part that goes in a purse.

Our card carriers and wallets are printed in full colour on both sides of 350gsm silk board, apart from the card sleeve, which is printed on the outside. We quote the card and carrier as one job, and the carriers are produced alongside your cards and arrive with them. They come unattached: the standard display carrier has glue dots, and the other formats hold the card in die cut slits or a pocket. The standard display carrier starts at £40.00 +vat for 25.

For a card sold over the counter, the landscape wallet is the usual choice: it takes a handwritten message and folds to 75 x 105mm, so it drops into a standard envelope. For a display, the euro slot carrier hangs on a retail hook. Our guide to designing a gift card carrier covers the layout.

1. The crease. Folded, the wallet is 75 x 105mm.
2. Two die cut slits hold opposite corners of the card.
3. Room for a message, written by hand, as on a paper voucher.

That matters to the person giving it. In a September 2024 survey for the GCVA, 28% of UK consumers said gift cards don’t feel thoughtful enough, and the GCVA’s 2025 report names personalised messages and themed packaging as ways to answer that.

Avoiding plastic?

Choose our Plastic-Free Board cards. They’re paper-based board with no plastic in them, 620 microns thick and printed in full colour on both sides, and they take a pen anywhere, so they need no write-on panel. For a plastic-free gift, pair them with a board carrier. They start at £89.00 +vat for 25.

Board has limits as a gift card. For a card kept a long time, PVC may suit better, and board can’t take a scratch-off panel, a magnetic strip or a gloss or matt finish.

Our PVC gift cards can be recycled where facilities accept PVC, but not all household collections take plastic cards, so check with your local council. The GCVA reported in 2024 that shops’ physical gift cards are increasingly made from recycled or easily recyclable materials such as cardboard. Our recycled PVC, biodegradable and EcoTough cards are compared on our eco plastic cards page.

How do I switch from paper vouchers to plastic gift cards?

Keep accepting the paper vouchers you’ve sold until they expire, start the cards at a number the vouchers never used, and record both in one register. Customers have paid for the vouchers, so honour them on the terms printed on them. This is general information, not legal advice.

The Horticultural Trades Association kept honouring its paper National Garden Gift Vouchers when it stopped supplying them from 1 January 2024. The last ones it supplied expire on 31 December 2026, and it says very old vouchers with no expiry date are still accepted.

1. HonourAccept every paper voucher you’ve sold, on its printed terms, until its expiry date.
2. NumberStart the cards above your last voucher number, at 10001 for example, so no card shares a number with a voucher.
3. RecordAdd the cards to the register the vouchers are in, and mark each voucher used as it comes back.
4. SwitchStop selling paper, and change your website and till wording to match the card.

What goes on the back of the card?

Everything the voucher said. The details you filled in by hand go on write-on panels, and two or three lines of terms point to the rest on your website.

1. The card number, printed small. Re-orders carry on from the last number issued.
2. To and From, on write-on panels, filled in at the till.
3. The amount and the valid-until date, written on when the card is sold, so one design covers every amount.
4. Two or three lines of terms, with the full terms on your website. Use the same words on the card, the website and at the till.

Write-on panels take an ordinary ballpoint pen. Each one sits on a white part of the design, at least 4mm from the edge, with its label beside it.

One register for both

If a voucher or card can be spent over more than one visit, add a column for the balance. Our free gift card register template is a good place to start.

How do I order plastic gift cards to replace paper vouchers?

Email sales@cpcards.co.uk or use our gift card quote form. We often reply within minutes, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Tell us:

• How many cards, and whether you’d like carriers or wallets with them.
• The numbers: a start number or an Excel file. Coming from paper? Start above your last voucher number.
• The write-on panels you’d like, for the amount, To and From, and the valid-until date. With dates written on rather than printed, unsold cards stay usable.
• Your artwork, at 92 x 60mm with 3mm of bleed, or your logo and wording for our £29 +vat design service, which can set up the card and carrier together.

Our plastic gift cards are 86 x 54mm and 760 microns thick, printed in full colour on both sides, then bonded between clear PVC sheets and cut, so the print can’t scratch or wear off. Every order gets a free email proof, so you can check the layout and wording before anything is printed. The colours on the proof are a guide only, because every screen shows colour differently.

Production takes 7 working days from proof approval and payment. Express takes 3 to 4 working days: ask us for cost and availability.

How much do plastic gift cards cost?

Gift cards start at £75.00 +vat for 25, and the price per card falls as the quantity goes up, because much of the work in an order is the same whatever the quantity. Our guide to what gift card printing costs goes into more detail.

Prices are for one design from your print-ready artwork. Delivery is free within Great Britain, and our delivery prices list the charges for Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands. They exclude VAT and extras such as numbering and write-on panels, which are priced on your quote.