The gifting feature is currently unavailable on self-serve sites created after March 1, 2025.
Gifting is automatically enabled on all checkout forms across Vimeo OTT. No matter what you are selling (subscriptions or transactional), your customers can buy gifts of your content. Their gifts never expire, provided the content they purchased a gift of remains available for redemption.
Any product can be gifted in any currency as long as you have multi-currency enabled and the product is available in the gifter and recipient's country.
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How do my customers gift a subscription?
Customers can gift 1-12 months (up to your annual subscription price, if you have one) of your content. If you’re running a subscription video service, when a customer checks out they can click Gift this subscription, choose the length of time the gift covers, and enter the giftee's email address. The recipient gets an email and can instantly activate their subscription and start watching.
Gifts can be given to new or existing subscribers. If the gift recipient has an active subscription to your site, when the recipient redeems the gift, they will have free access for the duration of their gift. When the gift duration expires, their paid subscription will automatically start billing them again on their typical recurring frequency (ie. monthly or annually).
💡Tip: Want to speed up the process for someone trying to send a gift? You can provide a direct URL that puts the checkout page into Gift mode and sets the duration of the gift automatically.
- Go to your subscription product's checkout page.
- In your browser's address bar, remove anything after the word `subscribe` including slashes.
- After checkout, add this parameter to put the checkout form into Gift mode:`?gift=1`
- To set a default length, add `&duration=12` (this would set the default duration to 12 months). Omitting this will default the gift duration to 1 month, although the gifter could change this manually on the form.
- Example: https://purplefitness.vhx.tv/checkout/subscribe/?gift=1&duration=12
⚠️Note: Gifters can still change the settings on the checkout form if they want to. The goal of this is to help eliminate some steps for them.
When someone receives a gift email, they can click the link to redeem, at which point the clock on the time they were gifted will start. We will send the gift recipient an email one day before their gift expires letting them know they need to add their payment information to continue to access the content.
⚠️Note: The site's product image will also appear at the top of the email.
⚠️Note: Free trials and promo codes cannot be applied to gifts.
A streaming video subscription means you’re not just giving a single video, but an ever-expanding library of videos.
Customers can set a delivery date for any video gifts on Vimeo OTT. When your customers gift a subscription or an individual video package, they can opt to have it digitally delivered on a particular date, such as a holiday or a birthday.
How does gifting a rental or purchase product work?
If you're selling transactional products (purchases/rentals), the Vimeo OTT checkout form includes a Gift This option, where they can enter the recipient's email address, enter an optional gift message, and set an optional delivery date.
Once purchased, we'll send the recipient an email to redeem and start watching right away, or if you have a delivery date set, we'll send it then. The customer can select either the rental or purchase option, depending on what you've enabled.
💡Tip: If you want to speed up the process for someone trying to send a gift, you can provide a direct URL that puts the checkout page into Gift mode and sets the duration of the gift automatically. To do so, go to your product's checkout page, and in the URL, add "/gift?=purchase=1" after the product name in the URL.
Example: https://purplefitness.vhx.tv/checkout/workout-class-day-1/gift?purchase=1