The three reward currencies are not three prices for the same thing - they are three different promises. Cash promises freedom, a gift card promises spendable value with a floor, and coins promise something inside the app. The consumer research is unusually settled on the ranking, and it is worth knowing why before you pick one.
What the consumer research says
The Kashkick survey of 224,679 US consumers across all fifty states, published by GlobeNewswire in May 2026, tested eight reward categories and found only two that drew meaningful first or second place: cash and gift cards.
54.14% of respondents ranked cash - PayPal or Venmo - as their number one reward, and 34.06% ranked gift cards, Amazon or Visa, second. 65.29% put cash in their top two and 45.21% did the same for gift cards. Everything else fell a long way behind: all-expenses-paid trips reached 24.72% in the top two, physical goods 18.89%, event access 10.00% and digital subscriptions 8.87%.
The ordering survived income. 33.20% of respondents reported household incomes under 25,000 dollars, and for that group cash and gift cards cover groceries, fuel or a bill rather than sitting unused as merchandise. The research conclusion is blunt: the rewards people value most are the ones that function like cash.
Cash: the flexible default
Cash wins because it requires no interpretation. A person does not have to work out what a balance is worth, what it is for or whether they can use it, because the answer is that they can use it for whatever they already spend money on.
For a publisher, cash is also the currency that does not put a ceiling on the offer. The value of a task is set by the task, not by what the app would like to sell. That is a genuine commercial advantage in a market where gift cards are growing fastest - Capital One Shopping estimates the US gift card market at 507.1 billion dollars of revenue in 2026, growing 11.4% a year - because cash competes across every category rather than inside one.
The costs are real and worth naming. Cash needs a payment account or a payout processor, it puts a compliance obligation on the publisher, and in some geographies it puts a tax question on the table that gift cards and in-app currency do not. TSG and Bank of America's 2026 US Consumer Gift Card Study found that 55% of US consumers would try a new business because of a gift card, up from 49% two years earlier, so the gift card route is not a compromise being forced by cash.
Gift cards: value with a floor
A gift card is money that can only be spent somewhere specific, and people understand that immediately. It is why it finishes a close second: it delivers most of what cash delivers, including being a real object rather than a discount on something the person was never going to buy.
For the publisher, gift cards are operationally simpler than cash in several ways. They can be issued and redeemed automatically without collecting banking details, they do not need a payment account, and the redemption obligation sits with the retailer rather than with the publisher.
The friction is at the threshold and at the catalogue. A gift card that cannot be redeemed below a certain balance is a cash threshold wearing a different hat, and a gift card wall that offers only three obscure retailers reads as a worse deal than the cash it replaced. The 2026 consumer study's finding that 55% of consumers would try a new business because of a gift card is about the currency, not about a bad catalogue.
Coins and in-app currency: the specialised case
Coins and in-app currency only win where there is something real to spend them on. Inside a game with a visible progression curve, the currency funds the thing the player came for, and the reward reinforces the game rather than replacing it.
Outside that case, in-app currency is the weakest of the three, and the reason is not that people dislike it. It is that it asks them to accept a constraint they did not ask for. The 8.87% who put digital subscriptions in their top two in the Kashkick survey is the clearest signal available: a reward that only makes sense inside the product is a reward for people who already want the product.
Choosing for your app
And test the redemption path in both directions. A player who has earned in one currency and cannot spend it has learned something about the app that no amount of good copy can undo.
Related reading
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Questions
Which reward do players actually prefer?
Cash, then gift cards. In the Kashkick survey of 224,679 US consumers, 54.14% ranked cash such as PayPal or Venmo as their first choice and 34.06% ranked gift cards second, with 65.29% and 45.21% respectively placing them in their top two. Trips, physical goods, event access and digital subscriptions all trailed well behind.
Are gift cards a close second to cash, or a distant third?
A close second. 34.06% ranked them second and 45.21% put them in their top two, and TSG and Bank of America's 2026 US Consumer Gift Card Study found that 55% of US consumers would try a new business because of a gift card, up from 49% two years earlier. Gift cards also avoid the payment-account and compliance overhead that cash carries.
When is in-app currency the right choice?
When the app has something the person wants apart from the reward - a game with a real progression curve, a catalogue with genuine upgrades. Then the currency funds what they came for and the reward reinforces the product. Where there is no progression, in-app currency reads as a discount on something nobody wanted, and only 8.87% of consumers put digital subscriptions in their top two.
Can a reward app offer more than one currency?
It can, and for many publishers offering both cash and gift cards is the practical answer, since they sit first and second in consumer preference and serve different redemption preferences. What does not work is a third, ambiguous option presented as equal - people take the highest-value-looking one and the catalogue stops being meaningful.