Providers of digital receipts compared

On August 7, 2026, Germany's Federal Ministry of Finance presented a draft law that would replace the paper receipt issuance requirement with a receipt provision requirement starting January 1, 2028. For now, though, this is only a draft, not an enacted law. Currently, a receipt may still be issued on paper or – with the recipient's consent – electronically. The trend toward the digital receipt is picking up speed, both technologically and regulatorily.

Even more interesting, though, is what happens next: by what route does the receipt reach customers, and who gets to see the valuable purchase data along the way? Around the receipt issuance requirement, a young, fragmented market of providers has emerged, one where the solutions differ less on price than on this single question. We picked out four providers that represent four very different answers.

However different these providers sound, at their core they can be sorted by delivery method – and that's what determines who ultimately holds the data.

The digital receipt is generated at checkout and reaches the customer via QR code, email, or retailer app. The data stays in-house. This has so far defined the German market (anybill, refive).

The receipt is linked to the card payment and can appear automatically in the banking app. Convenient, but the data additionally flows through the payment ecosystem (ReceiptHero).

Not a finished retailer solution, but the technical foundation that POS manufacturers build in via an interface. Legally compliant issuance – everything else is up to the partner (fiskaly).

That said, these routes aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, since several providers combine different delivery models.

anybill thinks about the receipt from the end goal backward: as a data point. The company's own words: what was once an "anonymous buyer" is meant to become a measurable customer relationship – through loyalty programs, newsletters, or personalized offers right at checkout. According to its own figures, the provider processes more than 100 million receipts' worth of data per month and is integrated into more than 60 POS systems across more than nine countries. Transaction data – down to the item level – stays with the retailer in real time, GDPR-compliant, in European Azure data centers. Prominent users include ROSSMANN, HIRMER, and GLOBUS, whose meinGLOBUS app reportedly collected more than 30,000 sign-ups in its first week alone, according to anybill.

refive thinks about the receipt from the endpoint backward: as a data point. The company's own words describe turning an "anonymous buyer" into a measurable customer relationship, via loyalty programs, newsletters, or personalized offers right at checkout. According to its own figures, the provider processes over 100 million receipts per month and is integrated into more than 60 POS systems across more than nine countries. Transaction data – down to the item level – stays with the retailer in real time, GDPR-compliant, in European Azure data centers. Prominent users include ROSSMANN, HIRMER, and GLOBUS, whose meinGLOBUS app reportedly collected over 30,000 registrations in its first week, according to anybill. The finer details – wallet, email, PDF, even e-invoicing via ZUGFeRD – almost feel like an afterthought by comparison.

The Finnish provider ReceiptHero flips the model: the receipt doesn't originate at checkout but at the card. Customers link their payment card once and then automatically receive the receipt afterward, in some cases directly in their banking app. Accordingly, the company sits close to the payment ecosystem, with partners including VISA, Mastercard, Adyen, Worldline, and Verifone. Automatic receipt delivery is just one of several paths: at the Danish home furnishings brand Søstrene Grene (with over 400 stores across Europe), a partner since April 2026, another variant appears – customers without the app hold their smartphone up to an NFC reader and open the receipt directly in the browser, which doubles as the moment for marketing consent and an app download prompt. That convenience comes at a cost: wherever the receipt travels via the payment, banks and service providers may end up seeing it too.

fiskaly doesn't sell a retailer solution but the pipeline behind it: "Ship digital receipts. Skip the build." A legally compliant receipt can be embedded into any POS system via a single API. The target audience, then, is POS and software manufacturers – not the individual store. The appeal lies in reduced effort: wallet and Mastercard delivery come pre-integrated, legal updates (KassenSichV, RKSV) are maintained automatically by fiskaly, and the whole thing is ISO 27001 certified. Above all, it's fast: what would take an in-house build months, the provider says, can be integrated in a matter of days. More than one million receipts issued and over 1,900 fiscalization customers since 2019 speak to the infrastructure-first approach.

There's no common receipt standard, and even these four providers pull in noticeably different directions. Three questions can guide the choice:

• Who should own the data? That's the real fundamental decision. Anyone who sees the receipt mainly as a paper replacement will do well with a payment- or wallet-adjacent delivery method. Anyone who wants to build first-party data and retail media, on the other hand, needs a model that keeps transaction data in-house – and ideally routes the receipt through the retailer's own channels.
• Who should handle the integration? For an individual retailer, quick setup on the existing POS system is what counts. For a POS or software manufacturer looking to bring digital receipts into its own product, an API-based infrastructure like fiskaly's may be the better building block.
• And how should we read the success numbers? Whether it's 100 million receipts a month or 30,000 app registrations in the first week, the impressive figures cited throughout this piece all come from the providers' own self-representations. That doesn't make them false, but it's worth reading them for what they are: marketing arguments. When in doubt, it's worth asking for an independent reference or running your own pilot.

In the end, choosing a provider isn't a matter of price – it's a strategic fork in the road. It determines which path the receipt takes to reach the customer, and who keeps the purchase data. Retailer-integrated and data-sovereign, payment-adjacent and convenient, or infrastructure running quietly in the background: behind seemingly similar solutions lie very different strategies. Choosing deliberately also means deciding whether the receipt becomes its own data and advertising channel – or stays just a digitized strip of paper.