Why Aren't My Customers Receiving Rewards?

If customers are making purchases but not receiving Bitcoin rewards, there are a few things to check. Work through this list from top to bottom — the most common causes are at the top.

1. Is Your Rewards Program Active?

Your rewards program must be activated before rewards are distributed. If you haven't launched yet, or if you've deactivated a program, no rewards will be issued for those transactions.

Check: Open your Oshi dashboard and confirm that each program you want to use (Purchase Rewards, Referrals, Social Engagement, etc.) is toggled on.

See How to Manage Rewards Settings for details on activating and deactivating individual programs.

2. Do You Have a Rewards Balance?

Oshi distributes rewards from your funded balance. If your balance hits zero, rewards can't be paid out. Transactions will still be tracked, but payouts are held until the balance is topped up.

Check: Look at your rewards balance on the dashboard. If it's low or empty, add funds.

• How to Fund Your Rewards Balance — Add funds via Stripe (dollars) or Bitcoin.
• How to Set Up Auto Recharge — Automatically top up your balance so it never runs dry.
• How to Resolve an Unpaid Rewards Balance — If your balance went negative or has unpaid transactions.

3. Is the Customer Opted Out of Email Marketing?

This is the most common ongoing issue. If a customer's transaction shows an Opt-Out status, it means they didn't consent to email marketing when they checked out. Without that consent, Oshi holds the reward instead of delivering it.

Check: Go to Transactions in your dashboard. If you see transactions with an Opt-Out status, the checkout marketing settings are the cause.

Why This Happens

When a customer makes a purchase, your platform sends Oshi a flag indicating whether the customer opted in to email marketing (accepts_marketing). If that flag is false — either because the customer explicitly unchecked the marketing box, or because no opt-in mechanism was presented at checkout — the transaction is recorded with an Opt-Out status.

Opt-out transactions are excluded from automatic reward payouts. The rewards are held but not delivered.

How to Fix It (Shopify)

Shopify lets you control whether the email marketing checkbox is pre-selected at checkout:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Checkout
2. Scroll to Marketing options
3. Make sure Email is checked
4. Under pre-selection, choose one of:
   • Regions recommended by Shopify — Automatically pre-selects the box in regions where it's legally permitted (like the US) and leaves it unchecked where required by law (like the EU). This is the recommended option, especially if you sell internationally — it handles GDPR and other privacy regulations for you.
   • Regions you choose — Manually select which countries have the box pre-selected.

For more details, see Shopify's documentation:

• Checkout form options
• Collecting customer contact information

How to Fix It (WooCommerce)

Make sure your checkout form includes an email marketing consent checkbox. If you use a marketing plugin (like Klaviyo or Mailchimp for WooCommerce), it typically adds this checkbox automatically.

How to Fix It (BTCPay Server, Zaprite, and Other Platforms)

If you use a custom checkout or payment processor, make sure you're passing the buyerAcceptsMarketing field in your transaction metadata. If this field isn't included, the default behavior varies by platform — some default to opted-in, others to opted-out.

See How to Set Up Referral Tracking on Your Website for guidance on passing metadata through your checkout.

Paying Out Existing Opt-Out Transactions

Even if a customer opted out, you can still manually pay out their reward as long as you have their email address or phone number on file. See How to Manually Pay Out a Reward for step-by-step instructions.

4. Can Customers Claim Rewards After Checkout? (Shopify)

If you use Shopify, you can add app blocks to the thank-you page and order status page so customers can claim their rewards immediately after purchasing. Without these, customers have to wait for an email notification — which they might miss.

• How to Add the Shopify Thank You Page Extension — Show rewards on the post-checkout thank-you page.
• How to Add the Shopify Order Status Page Extension — Show rewards on the order status/details page.

Still Not Working?

If you've checked everything above and customers still aren't receiving rewards, reach out to us at contact@oshi.tech — we'll help you troubleshoot.

What's Next

• How to Manually Pay Out a Reward — Pay out a specific opt-out transaction from your dashboard.
• Understanding Transaction Statuses — Learn what each status means.
• How to Filter and Search Transactions — Find specific transactions in your dashboard.
• How to Manage Rewards Settings — Activate or deactivate individual reward programs.