Using voucher codes

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Table of Contents

What are voucher codes and credits?

Voucher codes are 8-character alphanumeric codes (like 1SAMPLE2). When someone enters a voucher code, they can download your tour directly in the app. Voucher codes also come in the form of links, which can be used to redeem the tour on the web.

Each credit is valid for a single download of your tour. Every time someone uses a voucher code to download your tour, one credit is deducted from your balance. When you run out of credits, you can purchase additional credits on your publisher dashboard.

Most of the time, you'll use voucher codes to give listeners access to your tour without them having to purchase it through the VoiceMap website or apps. This can be to share your tour with friends and family for free in return for ratings and reviews (we even give you 20 free credits once your tour is published so you can do this) or, if you want to sell your tours through your own platforms, like your website.

You can distribute voucher codes however you like. Give them away for free, sell them directly to users yourself – possibly through your website – or work with resellers and other distributors who buy them from you in bulk.

Voucher codes can also be added to a tour's url, allowing for redemption through the VoiceMap website. If your voucher code was "code1234", for example, you'd add "?voucher=code1234" to the end of your tour's url. When users click on links with a voucher code, they see Redeem instead of the tour's price. You can go to voicemap.me/tour/london/theatreland-tour-with-ian-mckellen?voucher=1sample2 for an example.

Voucher codes can be unique, with one code valid for only one copy of your tour, or you can make a single code valid for as many copies of your tour as you like. Unique codes are more difficult to manage, but they make it impossible for people to abuse this system by – for example – buying one copy of your tour and sharing the code they receive with friends. (We haven't noticed any abuse like this so far.)

VoiceMap only charges you for the voucher credit. After that, you keep all of the revenue for copies of tours sold this way, and in addition to being the most flexible way to distribute your tour, vouchers are generally more profitable.

This section of our documentation is about using the publisher dashboard to manage vouchers.

Managing vouchers using the publisher dashboard

The Manage Vouchers tab of the publisher dashboard has three sections: A Summary (of the vouchers you've issued and the amount of credits you have left), Issue Vouchers and Your Vouchers. You can access this tab from the My Account menu or from the first tab of the dashboard.

Summary

In the summary, you'll see the number of vouchers you've allocated to specific tours, the number of those that have been redeemed (so how many listeners have downloaded tours using those vouchers), and the number of credits you have left for voucher redemptions. Listeners can only use your voucher codes when you have enough credits left, so if you're running low, you can purchase some more on the Credit Balance tab.

How vouchers work

A single credit is valid for a single download of your tour. You can issue vouchers valid for an unlimited number of downloads or cap downloads for each voucher you create. To issue unique voucher codes, only allow one download per voucher. Vouchers will stop working if your credit balance reaches 0.

When you first sign up to VoiceMap, you receive 10 complimentary voucher credits. These are intended for testing your tour and getting your first ratings and reviews. You receive 10 more complimentary credits each time you publish a new tour.

You can buy additional credits under Credit Balance. Just click on Buy Credits, enter the number of credits you'd like to purchase, and make payment. The credits are added to your balance and will be used immediately. You'll see the purchase and a link to a receipt in the same list as your other allocations.

On the Basic Plan, extra credits cost $2 each. On the Growth and Priority plans, extra credits are $0.89 each. On the Pro Plan, you are allocated 1,000 voucher credits per year and additional credits cost $0.62. On the Premium Plan, you are allocated 5,000 per year and additional credits cost $0.31.

A screenshot with two voucher credit allocations: 10 received on sign up and another 200 purchased on the Basic Plan.

Issue Vouchers

To issue a new voucher, scroll down to the section called Issue Vouchers and select:

  1. The name of the tour your new voucher can be used to redeem
  2. How many unique codes you'd like to create
  3. How many downloads you'd like each voucher to be valid for

You can edit your codes later, under Your Vouchers, and you can also adjust how many downloads you've allocated to each code – or delete unused voucher codes completely.

Let's say you want to create 150 voucher codes, you could opt for 150 codes with 1 download each, 1 code with 150 downloads, 15 codes with 10 downloads, or any other combination. You can also choose to have "No download limit". The best choice comes down to how you intend to distribute your tour.

When you click on the Create Vouchers button the vouchers should appear in the list below, in the section called Your Vouchers.

Issuing 6 voucher codes with 25 credits each for the tour Starting Up in Woodstock.

Your Vouchers

The table under Your Vouchers lists all the vouchers linked to your VoiceMap account. It has six columns:

  • Voucher Code, which can be sorted alphabetically
  • Tour Name, which can be sorted alphabetically and also filtered, allowing you to only show vouchers linked to the tours you select
  • Limit, displaying how many downloads the voucher code is valid for
  • Used, displaying how many times this code has already been used to access your tour
  • Created At, which can be sorted to show the oldest or newest codes first
  • Redemption Link, displaying the url that can be used to redeem your tour at voicemap.me

To change the text of a voucher code, click on Edit, enter the new code, then click on Save. All voucher codes must be eight characters long. They must also be unique.

You can change how many times a voucher code can be downloaded by clicking on Edit. If you increase or decrease the number, the change will reflect in the number of issued vouchers, which is displayed under your Summary. If you have a credit balance of 100, for example, and you decrease the number of credits added to a particular voucher from 100 to 50, your credit balance will be 150 after you click on Save. Vouchers will stop working if your credit balance reaches 0.

To delete a code, select it using the checkbox to the left of the table, then click on the Apply button at the top of the table, next to the Bulk Actions dropdown. You can only delete vouchers that have no redemptions. All the credits linked to deleted vouchers are returned to your credit balance.

You can export the entire list as a CSV by clicking on the button at the top of the table labelled – you guessed it – "Export table to CSV".

Credit expiry

Credits normally expire after one year. This expiry date is displayed on the Publisher Dashboard, under the Credit Purchases tab. After this date, expired credits no longer reflect in your credit balance. You'll receive an email when your credit balance is running low. But, if you're actively using vouchers, make sure to check your credit balance regularly. If you're on an annual Pro or Premium plan, your new annual credits will automatically be added to your balance.

Instructions for redeeming tours with voucher codes

When you provide a listener with a tour code, you also need to provide them with instructions to redeem that code.

We recommend giving instructions for redemption in the VoiceMap mobile apps – unless you specifically intend for the tours to be played using the interface at voicemap.me, that is, in which case you can use the urls at the far right of the voucher code list.

The basic instructions for redemption through the VoiceMap mobile apps normally look something like this:

🎫
YOUR VOUCHER CODE: 1SAMPLE2
🚶🏽‍♀️
TO USE IT:

1. Install VoiceMap from the Apple App Store or Google Play
2. Create an account
3. Select Tour Codes from the menu, then select Enter Codes
4. Enter the code 1SAMPLE2 then select Download Now

This is often enough, but over time – and tens of thousands of redemptions – we've expanded these instructions to include more detail, and we now recommend something like the following:

To use your tour, please read the important instructions below and disregard all other codes except for this one: 1SAMPLE2
⤓
DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Install the VoiceMap mobile app. (Just search the Apple App Store or Google Play for VoiceMap Audio Tours.)
2. Create an account
3. Select Tour Codes from the menu, then select Enter Codes
4. Enter the code below then select Download Now
#
YOUR CODE:
1SAMPLE2
[FOR UNIQUE CODES, VALID FOR 1 COPY PER CODE] This code can be used to redeem one copy of the tour. Codes are not case sensitive.
[FOR CODES VALID FOR MULTIPLE COPIES] This code can be used by every member of your party. If you have booked for three people, for example, three people can download this tour using the same code. Codes are not case sensitive.
⌁
PLEASE ALSO NOTE:

* You can download the tour at any time, before or after your booking date. It's best to download the tour before you set off for the starting point.
* When the download completes, you'll see a screen with a photo of the starting point and directions to it. The red start button will become active when you are at the starting point.
* This tour follows a set route and includes turn-by-turn directions. It works best if you start it in the right place and follow the directions from one location to the next.
* The download should only take a few minutes to complete. If it takes longer, please cancel the download, go to Account, select Purchased and download the tour from there.
* Remember to bring your own headphones, unless you have booked a driving tour.
✉
SUPPORT:
For technical support and other queries, please email [email protected]

Download credits

Download credits can be used in two ways:

  1. To issue voucher codes that you can use to distribute tours through your own channels. Voucher codes can be unique, with one credit per voucher, or you can add multiple credits to a single voucher.
  2. To make tours available for free at voicemap.me and in the VoiceMap apps. (Listeners don't need to sign up to listen to any of the locations on a free tour at voicemap.me. You'll find an example here.)

Your credit balance

Your VoiceMap account has a download credit balance that you can see by going to the Publisher Dashboard. Every download deducts one credit from this balance, but this works differently for vouchers and free tours:

  1. When you allocate credits to a voucher, these are deducted from the credit balance. But if you reduce the number of credits allocated to a voucher, or delete the voucher before it gets used, these credits are returned to your credit balance. For example, if you have a balance of 100 and issue a voucher valid for 50 downloads, your balance goes down to 50. But if you reduce the credits allocated to that voucher by 20, your credit balance goes back up to 70.
  2. When a free tour is downloaded, one credit is deducted from your balance. If your balance drops to zero, the fallback price you chose when you completed the tour's final touches is used. When you top up your credit balance, the tour is immediately available for free again.

Credit expiry

Credits normally expire after one year. This expiry date is displayed on the Publisher Dashboard, under the Credit Purchases tab. After this date, expired credits no longer reflect in your credit balance, but credits that have already been allocated to a voucher don't expire.

Going back to our example balance of 100 credits, if you bought these on 1 August 2022, they'll expire on 31 July 2023. But if you allocated 30 to a voucher code, and only 10 of these have been redeemed, that voucher code can still be used for an additional 20 downloads at any time.

That doesn't mean you can remove those 20 expired credits from the voucher to reallocate them. Expired credits can't be returned to your overall credit balance.

Promotional credits

When you create your first tour, you get 10 download credits for free. You get 10 more for each tour you publish.

Credit pricing

VoiceMap has five pricing plans for publishers, and the price you pay for download credits depends on your plan. The five plans are Basic, Growth, Priority, Pro, and Premium. You'll find more information about them here.

On the Basic Plan, credits cost $2 each.

On the Growth and Priority Plans, credits cost $0.89 each.

On the Pro Plan, you receive 1,000 credits for $620 per year and each additional credit you require after that is $0.62. (There is a similar monthly option too.)

On the Premium Plan, you receive 5,000 credits for $1,570 per year and each additional credit you require after that is $0.31. (Once again, there is a similar monthly option.)