Gift subscriptions.

Go to /gift. Pick a duration (3, 6, or 12 months), enter the recipient's email and an optional message, and pay. The gift is prepaid — the recipient's card is never on file and they won't be auto-charged when the gift period ends.

The gift email lands immediately (or on a date you specify). The recipient clicks a redemption link, creates their own LADLE account (or logs in if they already have one), and the subscription activates.

Meals during the gift period earmark at the same rate as any subscription. Two things to know about the math:

**Monthly-billed gifts (3 and 6 months):** the recipient is on the monthly plan for the duration, so meals accrue monthly at 10 reserved per subscription per month. A 3-month gift reserves 30 meals; a 6-month gift reserves 60.

**12-month gifts:** billed as annual (10 months' price, 2 months free). Meals match months paid, so 100 meals are reserved — not 120 — earmarked to the meal fund the day the annual invoice clears. This matches the "annual = 12 months of LADLE, 10 months' meals" pattern for regular subscribers.

Meals reserved via gifts pool into the same meal fund as every other subscription, on the road to the $50,000/year threshold that unlocks a formal partnership with the hunger-relief charity we select. Once we cross it, meals ship at $0.80 each and real partner receipts publish; until then, the fund is held and each month's balance is disclosed in the monthly fund report.

The recipient sees their meal count in My Table, with their own personal ledger line. It's their account, their history, their subscription — you get a confirmation email when they redeem, but no visibility into their chats or usage.

**Unredeemed gifts** stay valid for 6 months. If they haven't been redeemed by then, we auto-refund to your original payment method. You'll get a reminder email at the 5-month mark.

**When the gift ends:** the recipient's subscription pauses, not cancels. They see a screen offering to continue on their own card. If they don't, their account stays intact (chats, projects preserved) but they can't send new messages until they subscribe.