Welcome to Passcreator, core concepts
Passcreator lets you create, distribute, manage and analyse digital Wallet passes for Apple Wallet, Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet, without writing any code. Before you build anything, learn the four words you'll see everywhere in the interface. They are template, pass, project and distribution. This article explains each one and how they fit together.
What is a Wallet pass?
A Wallet pass is the digital version of a card you'd otherwise keep in your wallet, such as a store card, coupon, event ticket, membership card, boarding pass or stamp card. Your customers save it to the Wallet app on their phone, and it stays there ready to use, update and scan.
Passes work on both iPhone (Apple Wallet) and Android (Google Wallet), and Passcreator handles the technical differences between platforms for you.
The four core concepts
Almost everything you do in Passcreator maps to one of these four ideas.
| Concept | What it is |
|---|---|
| Template | The reusable design and rules behind a pass. A template defines the pass type (coupon, store card, event ticket, generic or boarding pass), the colours, images, fields, barcode and behaviour. You build every pass from a template. |
| Pass | A single pass that belongs to one holder, created from a template. It carries the personalised values for that person (their name, membership number, barcode value) and has its own unique download link. |
| Project | A collection of templates that share settings such as a vanity URL, a sender email address, opt-out flows and workflows. Projects are also how you build bundles, where you group several passes together for one holder. |
| Distribution | Everything involved in getting a pass to its holder. This covers download (landing) pages, email and SMS sendouts, selling passes, iFrames and parameter links. |
How they fit together
The relationship is simple once you've seen it once. You design a template, create individual passes from it, and use distribution tools to deliver those passes to people. Projects sit above templates to group and govern them.
In practice the flow has three steps.
- Template. Design once (look, fields, rules).
- Pass. Create one per holder, with their personal details.
- Distribution. Deliver the pass by link, email, SMS, embed or sale.
A project can hold several related templates so they share branding, a download URL and automation.
A few more terms you'll meet
| Active registration | Passcreator's main billing metric. It counts one device (Apple Wallet) or one Google account (Google Wallet) that currently holds your pass. Older docs may call this an “active pass,” the term used before the June 2026 interface. Both mean the same thing. See What is an active registration? |
| Certificate | Apple Wallet passes need a certificate so you can issue and update them under your own brand. You can start with a demo certificate, but you can't update passes made with it, and they carry a Passcreator logo. |
| Personalisation / placeholder | A field whose value changes per pass, such as a name or a code. You define it on the template. Passcreator asks for the value when you create a pass. |
| Push notification / update | A change you publish to passes already saved on people's phones, optionally showing a notification. |
| Validation / Smart Scan | Scanning and checking passes at the door or till, using the Passcreator Smart Scan app. |
| Workflow | An automation that reacts to events (triggers) and runs actions, for example sending a pass when you add a record. |
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