What is a Giftly? According to their site, “a Giftly is money that comes with a thoughtful suggestion of how to spend it.” For instance, let’s say I really love that new coffee blend they have at my local coffee house. Create a custom Giftly for one totally awesome cup of Joe at my favorite coffee place and send it to a friend so that they can redeem my Giftly and get that cup on me. It’s like sending  personalized gift cards with what I want them to try. They get my person Giftly in their emails and can receive the funds via: as a credit to their own credit card or via PayPal. If you’re not comfortable giving out your credit card number, I suggest PayPal.

I have yet to try it myself, but from my understanding what happens is that if someone sends me a $5 Giftly for instance to a local place. I use the redeem code on my Giftly account and then go to that local place and pay for either the suggested item or any item of my choosing at full price using my credit card. Giftly then goes ahead and then credits you back $5 on your credit card. In essence, it’s a gift card that never gets shown to the store and instead goes directly to crediting your account. Of course if you choose the PayPal route, you could essentially just spend it on anything after receiving your funds.

I plan on checking out Giftly a bit more after I’ve had some experience with it, but overall, it sounds like a pretty neat service if you want to send your own personalized gift cards.