Considering &Open as your partner for gifting needs? Unsure about what they offer and what they lack? Well, if you’re looking for an in-depth review of &Open, then you’ve come to the right place! 

In this comprehensive analysis, we’ll examine &Open’s capabilities, best use cases, and disadvantages to help you determine if it’s the best gifting platform for you.

&Open Overview

&Open was founded in 2017 by Jonathan Legge, Mark Legge, and Ciara Flood in Ireland. Even from its early days, &Open has already positioned itself as a corporate gifting platform that is built around sustainability and ethical sourcing. 

&Open helps businesses foster stronger relationships with employees, customers, and partners through thoughtful gifting and curated campaigns.

Main Features

Curious about what makes &Open stand out? Here’s a closer look at their best features.

Ease of sending

&Open simplifies gift sending for its users by only requiring them to provide an email address. The rest of the gifting process is handled by the platform. This is great if you’re in a hurry or have a busy schedule and can’t take care of the gifts yourself.

Campaign curation

Another key feature of &Open is its curated campaigns. With this, you can make each gift within the campaign more personalized or tailored to your target recipient, allowing you to better connect with them. You can also work with your dedicated point of contact, who will help you design a campaign strategy that aligns with your company’s brand and goals.

Gift tracking

With &Open, you can easily see the status of your gifts. In their tracking page, you’ll see the request reference number, your recipient’s details, and your gift message. There is also a unique link directly associated with each of your individual gifts that you can use in a private email, DM, or text message to remind your recipients to redeem their gift.

Pricing

&Open offers three pricing options to its users. However, these tiers don’t have a price on their website as they are tailored depending on your company’s needs, so you would need to get in touch with their team. Nevertheless, we’ll dive into the features and benefits of each pricing tier they have.

Good

The Enterprise Tier 1 of &Open is called Good. Under this tier, you will have access to their gift catalog, where you can browse the gifts you wish to send to your recipients. You can also enjoy unlimited sends, provided that it’s within the platform’s regional warehouses. This tier can be a good fit if you only have occasional gifting needs.

Better

Better, the Enterprise Tier 2 has everything in Good. What makes it better is that under this tier, you will now have the ability to customize your gifts to make your gifting more personalized. A dedicated Customer Success Manager will also be assigned to you, ensuring that all of your needs, requests, and questions are addressed. OneLink is also available for this tier. This feature enables you to send gifts directly to your recipients through a gift link or a QR code.

Best

&Open’s last tier is Best, which has everything in Better plus additional features. For one, under this tier, you now have access to unlimited customization for your gifts, which is suitable for big campaigns or events. Two, all of &Open’s integrations, such as HubSpot and Salesforce, as well as their SSO, are accessible. And lastly, you can now send gifts to your international recipients as this tier allows global shipping.

Pros and Cons

Pros

✅ Sustainable approach to swag: If you and your company are conscious about your carbon footprint, then choosing &Open is a good choice due to their overall sustainable approach with gifts and vendors.

✅ Good security measures: The platform is SOC2 compliant and also works with SSO platforms, such as Okta and Auth0, to ensure strict data and access security for its users.

✅ Campaign reporting and statistics: Alongside curated campaigns, &Open also provides its users with important data that enables them to manage and track the success of their campaigns and other gift initiatives.

Cons

❌ International shipping locked behind Best tier: While &Open has its warehouses in the US, UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Australia, their global shipping is only available to their Best tier. As such, if you’re not an enterprise-level business, you won’t be able to send to your global recipients.

❌ Exclusion of shipping fee on gift prices: A gift’s price on &Open’s platform doesn’t include the shipping fee, which may cause confusion, especially when you’re adding budgets for your team or recipients.

❌ No automation for milestones: &Open doesn’t offer automation for onboarding new hires and employee milestones like work anniversaries and birthdays.

&Open is best for…

… companies prioritizing sustainability and ethical sourcing 👍

As established early on, &Open is deeply committed to sustainable gifting. As such, if you or your clients put great value on eco-friendly gifts or a gifting approach, then &Open’s can be a great gifting partner for you. The platform chooses its suppliers based on their strict adherence to ethical sourcing and overall process. &Open also prioritizes locally sourced gifts to lessen carbon emissions from deliveries.

… enterprises with strict security or SSO requirements 👍

&Open supports SSO integration, allowing you and your organization to securely manage user authentication through applications like Okta, Auth0, SecureAuth, and Shibboleth. This way, you can ensure that your employees can access the platform using their company credentials without needing separate passwords, reducing security risks. &Open’s SOC 2 Certification also guarantees that it manages and protects customer data effectively.

… managers who want zero customs fees 👍

Customs and local tax compliance can be tricky. Luckily, if you were to partner with &Open, you don’t have to worry about such things. The platform ships using the DDP incoterm, where it bears all the costs, including import duties and taxes, when delivering gifts to your recipients. This ensures a hassle-free process for you and your giftee.

&Open may not be a good fit for…

… leaders needing automation for recurring gifting 👎

&Open has integrations and DIY features that allow for some degree of automation. However, this still requires manual setup, depending on your campaign and tier. So, if you need fully hands-off, recurring, or trigger-based gifting, you will find &Open less suitable than platforms with high-volume automated gifting.

… businesses with international recipients 👎

While &Open presents itself as a global corporate gifting platform, its international capabilities can be limiting and expensive. It does have warehouses in the US, UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Australia, which helps with regional fulfillment. However, full-scale international shipping is only available to users on the Best tier. If you’re on a lower tier or on a tight budget, you will be restricted to domestic shipping, further limiting your gifting initiatives.

… companies that prefer full pricing upfront 👎

If you value upfront budgeting, &Open’s platform pricing may be a drawback. This is because the platform’s pricing model doesn’t include the item’s shipping costs; rather, they’re billed separately depending on your contract terms. Such a separation for the costs can make it more difficult for you to accurately estimate total gift costs in advance, especially when planning budgets for large teams or global campaigns.

All in all, &Open is a compelling choice for corporate gifting. Its platform is generally easy to use, allowing users to send gifts quickly. Its strong commitment to sustainability and ethical sourcing also sets it apart from its competitors. However, if you’re looking for transparent pricing, easy access to global shipping regardless of tier, a vast selection of lower-cost gifts, or gifting automation, you should go for other platforms that will better meet your needs.

Looking for gift and swag solutions? Explore the best &Open alternatives

If you’re searching for gift and swag solutions in one platform, it’s important to note that &Open is focused exclusively on sending curated gifts. If you need custom swag kits or branded swag, then there are many other platforms you may want to consider. Check out our list of &Open alternatives to know the right gift and swag partner for your company.

&Open vs PerkUp, the #1 platform for swag, gifts, and international shipping

Both &Open and PerkUp have unique strengths, but they serve different needs. If you’re evaluating gifting platforms for global gifting or company-wide swag, it’s important to understand where the two diverge. In our comparison of &Open vs. PerkUp, we break down key features, automation, pricing, and shipping capabilities to help you decide. Discover why companies like Microsoft and Product Hunt trust PerkUp when scale and simplicity matter most.