The 14 Best Employee Rewards Programs (Q4 2023)

Awardco helps you appreciate your people in unique ways. We’ve not seen other platforms offer the same degree of gift customization and personalization as Awardco. For starters, you can create and give out Bonus Boxes, which are creative care packages filled with fun branded items suited to the recipient. Digital MemoryBooks are another way to honor employees' work anniversaries. These interactive books compile messages and photos from colleagues into a cherished keepsake.

The way Awardco automates the rewards process is a major time-saver. It sends automatic reminders about service anniversaries, birthdays, and other occasions, prompting participation from the team. The software also seamlessly integrates with communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, making it easy to give timely shoutouts.

Robust incentive programs are another thing we liked about Awardco. Employees can earn points for achieving goals, then redeem them from an extensive catalog including top brands like Apple and YETI. For sales teams, Awardco partners with Amazon Business to provide the ultimate flexibility - earners can choose their own rewards without any friction.

Overall, we think Awardco succeeds at modernizing traditional employee rewards through creativity, flexibility, integration, and automation. The focus on curating unique experiences sets it apart from generic reward platforms. For any organization seeking to boost engagement, appreciation, and motivation, Awardco is worth strong consideration.

Awardco has over 3 million users including known companies like Percepta, Paramount, Hertz, Pacific Life, and Aptive

Awardco has two plans for SMBs, Lite and Go.

• Lite provides automation for service awards, birthdays, tracking, reporting, and manager notifications to establish a solid foundation for $2,500/year.
• Go builds on Lite by adding automated onboarding, peer-to-peer recognition, manager-to-employee recognition, value-driven recognition, and budget management for $4,000/year.

As for enterprises, Awardco offers plans that are more custom. The pricing for the enterprise plans depends on the features needed. Contact Awardco’s Sales team for more information.

Bucketlist’s rewards and incentives platform has all the features you need to boost employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention. For starters, it features a comprehensive catalog of over 2,500 rewards employees can choose from, ranging from gift cards to merchandise to unique experiences. Reward fulfillment is fairly simple, with no markup on rewards.

The UI was easy to navigate in our testing. It was also simple to create different competitions which can be tied to sales goals, community service hours, or any important metric. The progress team members make can be tracked on a leaderboard, and winning members or teams receive the incentives you’ve previously defined. There are also detailed analytics and reports that give you plenty of insight into which incentives or awards resonate most with your employees.

On top of its robust features, Bucketlist also offers dedicated support to optimize your setup and training for all users. The implementation process is quick and easy with seamless integrations with platforms your team already uses like G-Suite and Office 365. Overall, we think Bucketlist is a fantastic platform to streamline and enhance your rewards initiatives while checking all the boxes: easy setup, impactful features, and excellent service.

The platform has over 470,000 users from 100+ countries. Some of them are First Bank, RBC, Interac, Chick-fil-A, 1-800-GOT-JUNK, Stamford Health, Danone, Majesco, and Applebee’s.

Bucketlist plans are priced on a tiered pricing model based on company size. Typically, the range is $2 - $4 dollars per employee per month.

WorkTango’s all-in-one employee rewards platform makes appreciating and incentivizing employees easy and meaningful. We’ve peeked through their rewards catalog and it is massive, packing over a million rewards from popular retail gift cards to charity donations.

We like how the rewards catalog covers different price ranges, meaning you can incentivize all behaviors and achievements no matter how big or small. Another thing we like is its built-in search and filtering capabilities. Despite how big the catalog is, employees can still search and accurately find rewards that fit their interests best. WorkTango also gives personalized suggestions based on each employee’s past activity and has wishlists, reward points trackers, and an option for group reward redemption to build camaraderie.

Aside from rewards, WorkTango helps you give timely shoutouts for employee birthdays, work anniversaries and more through its automated recognition feature. It also lets you create incentives, gamifying and making it more fun for employees to reach performance goals, demonstrate certain values or positive actions. It’s a win for everyone.

Kia Motors, HUB International, Rexall, Accruent

WorkTango’s pricing starts at $8,000 annually. Request a demo to learn more.

Mo makes rewarding employees incredibly simple, meaningful, and fun. We put it to the test and found the UI quite intuitive. It’s easy to grant credits to deserving employees, which they can redeem from Mo’s extensive rewards marketplace of major brands like Amazon, Nordstrom, and Tesco.

Colleagues can post public or private appreciative “Moments” and react with comments, emojis, and GIFs, nurturing a culture of appreciation from the bottom up. Managers can also use Mo’s unique “Boosts” to regularly prompt team members to recognize one another for day-to-day wins.

We like a lot of things about Mo but if we had to choose just one, it’d definitely be their automated Assistant. The Assistant automatically reminds managers to recognize employees on their special days like birthdays, work anniversaries, and other special occasions. It also nudges managers and employees to share appreciation if someone has not been recognized in a while, which is something we’ve not seen on other platforms.

Mo has more than 58,000 users. Some top customers are SGN, The O2, NHS, Aspen, William Hill, and SHL.

Mo has three plans, billed annually:

• Starter costs £3 per user per month
• Level Up costs £5 per user per month‍
• Custom has custom pricing – contact Mo for a quote.

Cooleaf offers a seamless and effective way to reward deserving employees. We’ve poked around the platform and found it easy to navigate through its different modules. It was particularly easy to set up rewards and shoutouts for defined goals and milestones. Rewards can range from digital badges to merchandise, gift cards, and swag, so there are options to fit any budget.

You can define a budget for managers to reward performance and incentivize stakeholders as they see fit. This autonomy helps managers surprise and delight their teams with experiences and gifts tailored to what would be most meaningful. From the employee POV, we really like how it’s easy for them to give shout-outs to one another. Beyond just a thank you, these thoughtful recognitions boost morale.

With Cooleaf's customized service awards, manager autonomy, frictionless peer recognition, and data-driven insights, you can successfully build a lasting culture of appreciation. For any organization looking to improve retention and performance, we believe Cooleaf is worth checking out.

Shipt, SalesLoft, Toyota, Synovus Bank, Kids2

Cooleaf offers custom pricing via a monthly subscription model based on the number of employees included in the program. Contact their Sales team for a quote.

Assembly makes rewarding and recognizing employees effortless. Its seamless integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams mean you never have to leave your workflow to show appreciation. These social apps are also where team members can publically nominate one another for recognition and rewards. The personalized points system enables employees to redeem rewards tailored to what makes them feel valued, whether that's gift cards, donations to charity, or experiences that enrich company culture.

With Assembly, you can align rewards to core values, ensuring they resonate with what truly matters to your team. Milestones like birthdays, work anniversaries, and achievements big or small are never missed. The software proactively surfaces these moments and prompts personalized messages of appreciation.

The wide variety of reward options ensures there’s something that’ll appeal to everyone, while the variety of built-in templates and automated reminders for milestones empower managers to turn recognition into a lasting habit, driving engagement and retention.

Over 2,400 use Assembly, including Casper, Keck School of Medicine, and Perforce.

• Starter is free for businesses with up to 10 employees.
• Paying customers are charged between $2.80 and $6.00 per employee per month, depending on the features and monthly vs. yearly pricing plan.
• ‍The premium plan requires a custom quote.

Guusto makes rewards and recognition seamless for dispersed workforces with its inclusive and automated software. We appreciate a simple approach to rewards and Guusto offers just that. Rather than point systems which can be confusing to understand, Guusto uses real dollar value rewards that can be sent to any employee, even if they aren't in the system yet. To make things even better, you only need to pay for users that send recognitions; recipients can be added for free, without any limit.

Another thing we love about Guusto is its focus on frontline and deskless workers, ensuring they’re not left out of any appreciation efforts. These employees are often on the move, and many of them don’t have corporate email access. Their rewards and shoutouts can be sent to them via SMS text messages and physical cards.

The software empowers managers with custom budgets to consistently recognize achievements, reinforce values, and automate milestone rewards. Peer-to-peer shoutouts boost morale across locations, automated drawings help randomly issue rewards and incentives, and employees can redeem their recognitions for hundreds of digital gift cards from top brands worldwide, company swag, donations, and more.

Staples, Compass One Healthcare, The Body Shop, Fairmont, Rexall Pharmacies

Guusto has scalable pricing: 

• Free - $0/month (single user sending rewards)
• Lite - $40/month (single user sending/scheduling bulk rewards)
• Essential - $80/month (20 seats included, additional seats cost $4/month)
• Premium - $400/month (80 seats included, additional seats cost $5/month)

Worth noting: Volume discounts are available. Contact Guusto’s Sales team for more information.

Workstars can help you deliver an exceptional employee experience with its global flexibility, seamless integrations, actionable insights, and strong security. Through the platform, you can access an online catalog of rewards and prepaid cards to incentivize employees, locally or globally. In our testing, we were quite impressed by how the platform let us add and change languages, countries, currencies, and cost of living adjustments without extra fees. It’s got a level of flexibility we’ve not seen on other platforms.

We are also fans of Workstars’ analytics capabilities, giving users valuable insights into workforce engagement trends, undercover achievers, and corporate value effectiveness. It also provides the reports you need for finance, IT security audits, and more.

Workstars also integrates with popular tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce, and prioritizes security, with robust protocols around data storage, GDPR compliance, and penetration testing. To top it all off, the platform is fully responsive on mobile devices, ensuring employees can access Workstars anywhere.

TT Electronics, Trac, and AstraZeneca are some of the many companies that use Workstars.

Workstars offers three subscription plans, billed monthly: Entry, Pro, and Global. The pricing for these plans ranges from £1.50 - £4 per user depending on the number of user seats you need and whether you need to use the platform in multiple languages/currencies.

Vantage Circle offers a comprehensive and user-friendly employee rewards platform that makes it easy to appreciate and engage your workforce. 

The platform stands out for its massive rewards catalog, containing gift cards, merchandise, and curated experiences accessible in over 100 countries. What’s also great about it is that it takes the Standard of Living Index (SOLI) into account, adjusting reward points for international teams to redeem in a fair manner. 

There’s a host of features around peer-to-peer recognition. Employees are empowered to recognize one another's accomplishments via custom awards and badges. There’s also a social feed that showcases all the recognition passed around and a leaderboard that not only tracks but gamifies everyone’s efforts. 

Milestones like birthdays and work anniversaries are never forgotten with Vantage Circle’s automated messages. The platform also helps you create a digital yearbook and service catalog for long service awards. 

With its comprehensive feature set, focus on user experience and powerful administrative capabilities, Vantage Circle ticks all the boxes for an effective employee rewards solution. Companies looking to delight their global workforce should consider this well-thought-out platform.

Vantage Circle is used by over 700 companies including Bosch, Tata, and DHL.

Vantage Circle’s pricing depends on the number of employees you have. SMBs with up to 1000 employees can access the Grow plan at a starting price of $200 per month. The other two plans, i.e. Transform and Enterprise have custom pricing. Contact Vantage Circle’s Sales team for an estimate based on the size and needs of your company.

Nectar’s employee rewards platform is comprehensive, customizable, and easy to use. We were particularly impressed by its variety of employee reward options. Through a direct integration with Amazon Business, employees can choose from Amazon's vast product catalog for their rewards. For those who prefer gift cards, Nectar offers access to ones from hundreds of different brands all over the world. Employees can also opt to receive company-branded swag shipped directly to their door or donate their rewards to charity. For a more personal touch, you can add custom rewards to Nectar’s catalog like tickets to local events or lunch with the CEO. With this many options, there’s definitely something for everyone and the best part is, if we haven’t clarified this already, employees get to pick their own rewards!

Nectar also automates service awards and birthdays, eliminating the need to manually send gifts for employee milestones. We were able to quickly set up automated birthday and anniversary point awards and social feed shoutouts. Another way to see upcoming events is through Nectar’s calendar, which we’ve found quite straightforward and tells you what’s happening on a given day if you hover over it.

Beyond rewards, you can create challenges aligned with goals or values, have employees self-report completion, and approve submissions. We appreciate software that gamifies reaching desired goals and it's been our experience that that gets more user buy-in. If you’re looking for a platform to boost engagement and show appreciation to your employees, we think Nectar is worth considering.

Nectar is used by many known brands including Redfin, Golden State Warriors, Major League Baseball, and SHRM.

Nectar has two plans that cost as follows:

• Standard costs $2.75 per user per month, billed annually. To use this plan, you need to commit to a minimum spend of $99 a month.
• ‍Plus costs $4 per user per month, billed annually. To use this plan, you need to commit to a minimum of $165 per month.

Kudos offers an engaging employee rewards platform that amplifies recognition and supports stronger company culture. One of the features that stood out for us is its customizable online storefront where employees can redeem their points. We’ve gone through the catalog, which includes popular rewards like gift cards, merchandise, charitable donations, travel experiences, and company swag. It’s also easy to add custom rewards to the storefront and tailor it to what your employees like.

As an employee using the system, it’s easy to rack up points through peer-to-peer shoutouts, manager recognitions, completing learning modules, hitting key milestones, and more. From the employee interface, it’s also easy to track points balance and redeem them for rewards.

Kudos also provides dedicated program management support to ensure seamless execution. Their team helps handle reward sourcing, point tracking, reporting, and communication to drive program success. With their help, you are guaranteed to run effective employee recognition and rewards programs your people will love to be part of.

ATCO, Bulgari, Arch Insurance, KidsPeace

Kudos offers a starting price of $3.25 per user per month, catering to organizations with a minimum of 500 employees. The actual pricing is flexible and determined by factors such as the number of users and the duration of the contract.

Reward Gateway is an excellent tool for organizations that determine to have their rewards program centered around retailer gift cards.

As we look into user feedback, the software provides on-the-spot tools for managers to give in-person or digital rewards, tracking benchmarks and making it possible to reward employees once they achieve the set goals.

Reward Gateway is used by over 4000 companies, including McDonald’s, Comcast, and Pepsi.

• Reward Gateway employee reward and recognition solutions can be purchased separately and have custom pricing.
• The pricing of Reward Gateway’s “for Small Business” version starts at £6 per employee per month with no minimum price commitment.

Terryberry offers a robust and feature-rich rewards platform. We’ve tested their platform and a key component of it is the point-based reward system. Through it, you can set up customized point rewards that align with company values and initiatives. Employees can then redeem these points in Terryberry's extensive online storefront featuring thousands of brand-name merchandise catering to diverse lifestyles and interests.

We really appreciate Terryberry’s breadth of reward options. In addition to points, it provides customized service awards and branded company swag. Service awards like customized jewelry, desktop items, and presentation kits help you celebrate career milestones and show appreciation for loyalty and achievements, while branded company swag enables you to reinforce culture and unity.

Finally, Terryberry's Be Celebrated feature provides solutions to highlight service anniversaries and milestones in a more personalized way. Through it, employees can send meaningful e-cards, group messages, and more to one another, which is a great way to celebrate shared accomplishments in our opinion, particularly for remote teams.

Terryberry is used by over 40,000 customers, including Wyndham Destinations, Epsilon, General Motors, and Trilogy Health.

Terryberry’s pricing is scalable and varies according to your choice of subscription package. The good news is that you can opt for only certain parts of the platform and grow as you go. Their basic subscriptions start at $3 per award recipient, but to get a proper estimate, the way forward is to contact them.

Also worth mentioning is that they charge set-up fees and an annual admin fee that’s based on employee headcount and the number of redemptions made on the reward platform.