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This article is the result of months of research into the best employee rewards and recognition platforms so that HR teams can buy the right software for their business. It includes in depth reviews on the top vendors, along with how to think about pricing, ROI, use cases, and everything else we think you need to be successful when buying employee experience software.
Below you'll see our list of the top employee rewards and recognition solutions including Bucketlist, Kazoo, Bonusly, RewardGateway, Snappy, and more. We describe each of these in greater detail below along with how employee recognition software allows HR teams to build stronger cultures, increase employee engagement, and retain top talent.
COVID-19 has made it even more important to engage employees on a regular basis in a way that aligns with company values. This article will help you find the right vendor, understand the hidden pitfalls you need to be aware of, the keys to a successful implementation, how to calculate ROI, and much more.
We hope this guide will save you hours of research, and allow you to purchase the right solution for your business!
We spend hundreds of hours researching the best HR and recruiting software so you don’t have to. We never take money from vendors during our research phase and rely heavily on practitioners and experts to help us recommend the right software. Most of the vendors featured on our site have no commercial relationship with us, we want to feature the best software for our readers regardless. Learn more
We track thousands of HRTech solutions, these are the best employee reward programs per our research and expert council as of September 2020
Why we love it
:
Bonusly is easy to use and setup, comes with a large rewards catalog, and is simply a great peer to peer recognition platform.
Bonusly
Review
Bonusly’s peer to peer employee recognition platform is designed to increase employee engagement and retention through employee shout outs that are tied to company values and redeemable for real-world rewards.
They’ve focused on allowing employees to access this solution from a plethora of integrations and apps which results in 75-90% of employees using the platform each month.
Bonusly
Customers:
Hulu, InVision, SurveyMonkey, Headspace, & more.
Bonusly
Stats:
Bonusly
Pricing:
Best for:
Bonusly is ideal for HR, department heads, and small business owners who want to put recognition in the hands of the team through a social media-like experience. Companies with 50-5,000 employees should check them out.
Worth Checking Out:
Bonusly has automated bots built in that will reward people for things like anniversaries and birthdays.
Why we love it
:
Reward Gateway is an employee engagement platform that combines employee recognition, surveys, discounts, communication, and analytics in a single solution.
Reward Gateway
Review
With over 1,800 customers and over 5 million users, Reward Gateway is a leader in the rewards and recognition space. Their solution is built on an engaging peer to peer recognition platform that allows colleagues to recognize one another and turn that recognition into perks and rewards.
Reward Gateway
Customers:
Samsung, Orbis, KPMG, Five Star Bank
Reward Gateway
Stats:
Reward Gateway
Pricing:
Best for:
Companies in any industry could benefit from one or several of Reward Gateway’s employee engagement tools.
Worth Checking Out:
Reward Gateway has a very strong employee engagement tool that is focused around building culture and retaining employees.
Why we love it
:
Bucketlist helps HR teams to engage employees through a customizable rewards and recognition platform that easily integrates with the apps your employees already use like Slack, Teams, Outlook.
Bucketlist
Review
Bucketlist is one of the fastest growing rewards and recognition platforms for a couple of reasons. They have a fully customizable solution that fits any organization's workflows. They have also invested into a rewards catalogue that includes everything from gift cards to learning how to fly.
They are always rolling out new features and one of our favorites is an events platform where team members can setup in person or virtual events, invite co-workers, and see who's coming. These are great team building exercises for anything from a virtual celebration to an in person get together.
The key to any successful recognition program is employee engagement, and this solution meets employees where they are - on slack, mobile, email, etc
Bucketlist
Customers:
RBC, Chick-fil-A, and 1-800-GOT-JUNK.
Bucketlist
Stats:
Bucketlist
Pricing:
Best for:
Mid to large size companies (100 - 5,000 employees) that want higher employee engagement and lower voluntary turnover.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Kazoo combines continuous performance management, employee recognition, rewards, and engagement surveys into one powerful platform to help your team build a better employee experience.
Kazoo
Review
Kazoo combines employee rewards and recognition with engagement and performance management into one platform. This three pronged approach allows People teams to use one vendor that seamlessly shares data across all three modules. On the rewards side of things, they see over 80% of employees engaging with their platform on a monthly basis. They also have a customer retention rate over 90%.
Kazoo
Customers:
Allianz, Hitachi, Kia Motors, Patagonia
Kazoo
Stats:
Kazoo
Pricing:
Best for:
Everyone from small-to-medium-sized businesses to Fortune 100 enterprises can use Kazoo.
Worth Checking Out:
If you’re in the market for employee rewards, and also thinking about performance management / employee engagement down the road, then Kazoo is definitely worth your time.
Why we love it
:
Blueboard is a one-stop-shop to create personalized and meaningful rewards for employees, most in the form of real-life memorable experiences.
Blueboard’s platform helps companies of any size create personalized employee recognition and incentive programs that celebrate and elevate their best talent. From skydiving to virtual cooking classes to family days at the zoo, Blueboard’s intuitive platform makes it easy for companies and their managers to reward top-performing employees with exceptional experiences.
Once a reward is sent by a manager, recipients can choose the experience that’s most meaningful to them, and Blueboard’s high-touch Concierge service seamlessly handles all bookings, payments, and logistics. Hundreds of diverse companies use Blueboard to create impactful moments with ease. This tool is simple for the smallest of companies to get setup with employee recognition, and the price point is extremely hard to beat!
Blueboard
Customers:
Pinterest, Ubisoft, Otis, Webcor.
Blueboard
Stats:
Blueboard
Pricing:
Most of Blueboard’s pricing is made up of your total rewards budget. There are 8 reward levels, starting at $150/reward. Getting started with Blueboard could range from $19,500 to $37,500, depending on your office location(s). This budget does not expire. Exact and personalized figures are provided by the vendor.
Best for:
Companies that want their rewards and recognition program to be about meaningful experiences without organizing them themselves.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
They simplify the recognition process thanks to their Amazon Business integration which gives them access to a huge number of potential employee rewards.
AwardCo has teamed up with Amazon in this space, meaning that your employees have access to redeeming their rewards for any product listed on Amazon. We also like that they do a lot to communicate the value to your managers to ensure a successful launch.
AwardCo
Customers:
Hertz, Zillow, Texas Roadhouse
AwardCo
Stats:
Best for:
Companies that want to streamline their recognition process with the power of Amazon Business.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
At its core, Preciate is a virtual enterprise social platform that brings distributed businesses closer through technology.
Preciate's recognition platform gives employees an outlet to recognize and appreciate one another for doing great work, plus tie that recognition back to the core values of the organization. Employees can add badges, stickers, photos, and of course, do this all from their phone or integrations like Slack, Teams, etc. Over 1,000 companies use their platform to drive their culture forward.
Preciate also enables customers to showcase their culture through employer-branding "Portraits" that highlight the recognition happening in a company.
Preciate
Customers:
ADT Security Services, Tanium, Cal Poly, AAA Insurance
Preciate
Stats:
Preciate
Pricing:
Preciate has a free version that does include the recognition features, plus a wide array of virtual socializing tools. After that, the plus version with more badges, a leaderboard, and other administrative features is $1 per user per month. The Premium version is $1.50 per user per month.
Best for:
Teams that want novel ways of socializing virtually that go beyond Zoom calls, while having employee recognition features within that same platform.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Motivosity combines 4 products (Connect, Recognize, Lead, and Listen) into a single platform that helps teams stay happy, connected, and motivated.
Motivosity combines employee engagement and performance management with employee rewards to deliver a compelling platform used by companies like Instructure and WorkFront. After launch, the system spreads virally throughout the organization as employees start to recognize one another. In fact, 95% of employees engage with Motivosity’s platform on a monthly basis, that is huge!
Motivosity
Customers:
Health Catalyst, Cotopaxi, Health Equity, Instructure, Ivanti.
Motivosity
Stats:
95% of employees engage with Motivosity’s platform on a monthly basis.
Motivosity
Pricing:
Motivosity’s pricing works per module. “Connect” is included with every license of the other three. They do offer a free trial for each of them and the pricing is as follows:
Best for:
Motivosity is particularly popular among companies with a large base of IT and knowledge workers.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Workvivo is an employee engagement platform that lets you harness the power of your enterprise social network to make recognition and rewards more visible.
Workvivo's enterprise social network is a great forum for employee recognition across a company. Colleagues can give each other shoutouts for doing a great job, stay up to date on what's happening in the company, and link everything back to goals and values all through their app.
On average, 80% of employees log into WorkVivo each week to recognize co-workers, take pulse surveys, or simply get a sense for what's going on in the company. This type of engagement is a strong proof point that they are adding value to the employee experience.
Workvivo
Customers:
Cubic Telecom, A+E Networks, RCSI, Seneca Resorts & Casinos.
Workvivo
Stats:
Best for:
Organizations that want employee recognition to happen in the same place where most communication occurs.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
They’ve been quick to adopt a remote-first approach to team recognition, helping you send gifts to employees, customers, or prospects to their home, for instance.
Snappy believes in giving gifts to engage employees, versus points or dollars which they view as impersonal. And, they’ve got lots of notes from employees to prove their approach has merit. One nice part of their offering is that their team will spend time at the beginning of the implementation to make sure there are automated touch points built into your employee rewards and recognition program (birthdays, anniversaries, etc).
They have a 99% customer retention rate, which we find very impressive.
Snappy
Customers:
Deloitte, Sony Music, Zynga, Uber, Zoom, Taco Bell
Snappy
Stats:
Best for:
HR, Marketing, Sales, and Support managers that want a novel way of motivating and engaging their employees.
Worth Checking Out:
Snappy raised $10 million in Fall of 2018 and is growing fast!
Why we love it
:
Aside from the fact that they snatched one of the best possible names for an employee recognition platform, they have paired their software with a consulting offering for companies that need extra help.
Kudos’s platform is specifically designed to engage employees through peer to peer recognition, that can also lead to employee rewards. Recognition sent within Kudos is tied to company values and qualities, reinforcing your culture and enabling deep data insights into the health of your workplace culture. In addition to software, they offer consulting services.
Kudos
Customers:
ATCO, Bulgari, Arch Insurance, KidsPeace
Kudos
Stats:
Used in over 23 industries in 80 countries
Best for:
Clients with teams that span 250 to thousands of users in practically any country and industry. Great for those that want complete communication and feedback tools in their recognition software.
Worth Checking Out:
Many Kudos clients run their recognition programs successfully without needing to spend anything on rewards.
Why we love it
:
Not only is Guusto a top-rated (and free) recognition & rewards SaaS provider, they actually donate 1 day of clean drinking water for every gift sent.
Companies that are looking to boost retention and build a stronger culture should check out Guusto. Guusto is a simple to setup employee rewards and recognition tool that helps engage your people and inspire great performance. The key differentiator for their solution (besides easy setup) is that it is free to use. This means that all of your rewards budget is spent on your employees, not software fees. They can do this as they've spent a lot of time negotiating deals with thousands of merchants you can choose from when sending your employees recognition.
Guusto
Customers:
Harvard University, The Body Shop, Fairmont, The Edmonton Oilers.
Guusto
Stats:
Guusto
Pricing:
You pay for the rewards you send and so your HR team's budget will be linked to how much per employee per year you want to spend.
Best for:
Good solution for small and large companies alike. Any company looking to highlight achievers and recognize employee performance could use Guusto.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Gifted is completely free, easy to set up, lets people choose their gifts, and features automated & timed gifting.
Over 4,000 companies use Gifted to power their rewards and recognition program. We always think customers vote with their dollars and so it’s worth noting they are profitable, with over 90% client retention.
Gifted
Customers:
Zenefits, Wix, Monday.com, Deviant Art, OkCupid.
Gifted
Stats:
Best for:
Businesses that want to show their appreciation through gifts through a free platform.
Worth Checking Out:
Buying HR Tech is really hard, here's some tactical advice to help you save money and buy the right solution:
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Chances are, implementing an employee rewards and recognition program isn’t the only thing going on in your job. It’s easy to stumble into the various pitfalls when buying and starting one of these programs. Here are the best practices we’ve collected from talking to a few dozen HR professionals about their employee rewards initiatives.
Don’t Overthink: We’ve all been there. There’s a new project we want to run with, but we’re not sure how to get started, what to measure, etc (hopefully this page will help you with that!). So many “strategy meetings” are spent trying to solve these issues… but the best advice is to simply follow the playbook your chosen vendor lays out for you. They have all the best practices and want you to succeed in a pilot. You can spend a lot of time and effort worrying about which perks to offer, for whom, etc. Our advice? Just do it!
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