EMERGING TREND: Successful senders either gave their recipients access to the Full Catalog, or offered no choice at all with only a Single Brand option. Meanwhile, Custom Selection took a nose-dive.

Don't worry if you don't know which brands your audience wants-they want to pick their own rewards, anyway. Give your recipients more autonomy by letting them choose their incentive from a large catalog.

Full Catalog dominates

Full Catalog is when a sender offers their recipients the entire catalog of options in their specific region. In some cases that means hundreds of searchable brand options.

With a whopping 38.6% increase, offering Full Catalog is officially the Gold Standard for reward senders.

When to send Full Catalog? While always popular, Full Catalog is especially strategic for broader and/or global audiences, such as employee milestones, service awards, and long-term loyalty programs where personal preference is paramount.

Single Brand is holding strong

Single Brand is when a sender selects one option (e.g. Starbucks or Amazon) that recipients can claim and redeem without making a choice.

While it saw a minor 3.9% decrease, the Single Brand category remains a core model for many reward senders. Brands like Starbucks, Amazon, and Visa® are excellent choices for focused single-option incentives.

When to send a Single Brand? This model is ideal for tactical campaigns, say for a coffee to reward webinar attendance, or any other moment where the action is specific and the reward should feel instant and simple.

Good-bye, Custom Selection

Custom Selection is when a sender curates 2-15 brands and lets the recipient choose one.

While it still has its place, curating a specific list of brands is waning in popularity. The 29.5% decrease in Custom Selection highlights a significant shift in sending behavior.

When to use Custom Selection? This option remains a good strategy for campaigns with a dedicated theme. For example, if you're doing a dispersement to an underserved population, curated lists of gas and grocery gift cards work well.

EMERGING TREND: The incentive market is currently in a state of transition. Standard rewards have overtaken Promotional ones, meaning more senders are opting for non-expiring claim-by windows.

Standard rewards are evergreen (no claim-by date) and built for always-on programs, while Promotional rewards are timebound (with a claim-by date) and designed for short-term campaigns that need fast action.

The best incentive programs now run on one of two engines, depending on their goals. Use always-on rewards for loyalty programs, and rewards with claim-by dates when you want to create a sense of urgency → and potentially optimize financially.

Let's look at the breakdown of Standard an Promotional by choice types:

🌲 Standard (no claim-by date)

⏱️ Promotional (time-bound)

And, just for curiosity's sake, let's look at reward types and their most popular use case and recipient behavior:

Standard reward systems are moving in

A trend we're seeing is the growth of evergreen reward programs. The total monthly average of Standard rewards sent grew by 10% year-over-year.

In 2025, Standard rewards accounted for 58.2% of all rewards sent.

Within the Full choice category, the shift to Standard was aggressive, moving up 42%. Nearly half of all Full Catalog rewards are now permanent fixtures in client programs.

Promotional rewards lose some share, but remain a core model

With an 11.3% average monthly drop, Promotional rewards now power only 41.8% of all sends.

Promotional rewards remain the top pick for specific use cases like Consumer Incentives, where claim times actually became 28.6% faster in 2025. Senders rely on these for quick-turnaround marketing tactics that require swifter actions and for senders looking to claim breakage.

When a reward has a "claim-by" date and goes unredeemed, the leftover funds are called "breakage." Giftbit shares a portion of breakage with clients, meaning Promotional rewards allow senders to recoup funds and repurpose them for future campaigns.

The rise of recipient freedom

The 2025 data reveals a clear move toward recipient autonomy. In Standard programs, Full Choice has become the dominant strategy, now representing 50.9% of all rewards-a 42% year-over-year increase.

This trend extends to Promotional rewards as well. While Single Brand remains the volume leader at 54.9% (ideal for "coffee on us" style hits), Full Choice is the fastest-growing segment in this category, surging by 56% since 2024.

Across the board, clients are increasingly choosing to give their recipients total freedom of choice.