19 Best Employee Rewards Programs in 2025
The true standouts in a sea of self-claimed best employee reward systems.
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If you want to motivate staff, strengthen your workplace culture, and attract new talent without exhausting your human resources with piles of extra work, an employee rewards system is a great option.
After testing over 50 options and giving and receiving hundreds of kudos over the years, we’ve experienced firsthand how easily a powerful employee rewards platform can foster a culture of appreciation, especially when paired with its sibling employee recognition software.
How come this combo works so well? How much should it cost? What is the best option for my team? These are some of the questions we’ll tackle in this guide.
We’ve narrowed our specifications for a best-in-class employee rewards system to the following list of must-excel features: flexibility and customization, reporting and analytics, and peer-to-peer engagement.
1. Flexibility and customization
The strength of many workforces lies in their diversity, which means not everyone wants the same perks and rewards. To evaluate how customizable and flexible an employee rewards platform is, we investigated the system’s rewards catalog. We examined the number of available reward types, merchants, and covered countries, and the option for custom company-branded swag.
2. Reporting and analytics
After testing essential rewards features from both the employer's and employee's perspectives, we examined the system’s analytics dashboard. Let’s be honest: One of the best things about having technology by our side is its ability to diligently track data in real time and highlight critical points and trends that deserve our attention.
We pulled standard and custom reports (if any), considering how easy (or hard) it was to get a set of data from the system and whether it’s helpful, actionable, and easy to digest for most users.
3. Peer-to-peer engagement
Employee rewards shouldn't be doled out by bosses alone; the recipients should also have some input on the process.
Recent data supports this idea: Recognition from co-workers is 35.7% more likely to positively impact financial results than recognition only from managers. For that reason, we looked at features like milestone celebrations, kudos, shoutouts, and, really importantly, how easy they were to use.
During testing, we signed up for a demo with vendors, examined the tools ourselves from both employer and employee perspectives, and sought verified user feedback to get a more holistic view of what each option has to offer.
Additionally, we’ve interviewed HR leaders from companies using employee rewards platforms to understand what works in practice and what doesn’t. We’ve also consulted with industrial-organizational psychologists to better evaluate how rewards impact motivation and culture.
The people behind this guide bring decades of HR, technology, and editorial experience.
- Huda Idris leads our content and has over 12 years of experience in HR tech publishing.
- Our founder, Phil Strazzulla, holds an MBA from Harvard and has helped millions of HR pros evaluate software through SSR.
- Christina Moran, Ph.D., contributes with a background in organizational psychology and hands-on leadership experience in performance strategy.
We’re also supported by professionals like Alison Hunter, who has a decade of experience implementing HR programs in tech companies; Anh Nguyen, a former tech recruiter with a specialty in talent system analysis; and Tracie Marie, who has scaled talent programs across startups and Fortune 100 firms.
At SelectSoftware Reviews, we test and review products with complete editorial independence. Every insight you’ll find here is grounded in hands-on use, expert analysis, and what actually matters to HR teams trying to build a stronger culture of appreciation. Read more about our editorial standards.
Nectar
Nectar's catalog covers an extensive range of reward programs for employees, from company swag to Amazon goods, gift cards, and charity donations. If that’s not enough, you also have the option to add custom rewards that are tailored to the relevant recipient(s), and save 10% on pricing with your SHRM membership.
PROS
- Transparent pricing.
- Volume discounts are available for organizations with 500+ employees.
- You only pay for the used rewards – unused pointed allowances won’t cost a dime.
- Regularly releases user-driven features and product updates.
- New AI-powered internal communications tool with drag-and-drop editor and templates for quick announcements.
- SHRM members get 10% discount on Nectar subscription.
- Regularly introduces new features and enhancements to its products.
- Volume discounts available for organizations with 500+ employees.
- You pay for the rewards that are claimed. Points and allowances that remain unused won’t cost you a dime.
CONS
- No longer offers a free plan. No free trial available.
- The rewards selection could feel limited to some teams, especially those looking for more experiences.
- Requires a minimum annual commitment of $4,000.
- The priced plans are not available to start off as a self-service process. You’d have to book a demo and pay to access some of the premium features.
- The rewards selection could feel limited to some teams, especially those looking for more experiences in offer.
- No longer offer a free plan.
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 corporate rewards, you can create challenges aligned with goals or values, have employees self-report completion, and approve submissions. Plus, a new feature for internal communication has been added to the platform, which lets you create an announcement within minutes right within Nectar.
If we were to point out any drawbacks of this employee rewards platform, it was that it no longer offers a free edition while requiring a rather pricey minimum annual commitment of $4,000. Additionally, although the rewards catalog is generally versatile, we felt that the experiential rewards like events or travel are less emphasized compared to material gifts or gift cards.
Nectar is used by many known brands including Redfin, Golden State Warriors, Major League Baseball, and SHRM.
Nectar offers three plans with an annual agreement of $4,000.
- Plus plan: $5 per employee per month when billed annually.
- Premium plan: $6 per employee per month when billed annually.
- Custom plan: Quote-based pricing.
Best For
Nectar is best for organizations with 50–2,000 employees who value flexibility in corporate rewards program choices and frequent product updates. Those with SHRM membership may also want to give this platform a go for its special pricing.
We have managers give recognition at least once a week. Employees use it to get items with their points. They also like to have another way to communicate with each other.
We like the user-friendly platform. They have great customer service. Our employees are able to use their points towards stuff they enjoy.
We purchased it to engage employees and give recognition. We love the idea of employees giving positive feedback to each other. Our employees wanted to be able to give each other recognition as well. We used it for 2.5 years.
Nectar took a while to implement. Our employees would like to see additional / new options to purchase with points. Notifications to employees didn’t always work.
They are very similar to competitors. Their gift selection seems smaller then others.
Consider time of implementation. Make sure that your team uses it on a regular basis. Give incentives for employees to give each other recognition.
They are always making updates to improve. They have improved the overall design of the app.
Larger companies that aren’t able to recognize and acknowledge every employee all the time.
Small companies that interact every day.
Motivosity
Motivosity lets employees choose personalized, exciting rewards; automates service awards and birthdays; and leverages gamification to drive engagement in company initiatives.
PROS
- Motivosity is mobile-friendly. Users can access the platform via phones, desktops, and collaboration apps like Teams and Slack.
- The company offers free software (namely Connect) with fundamental features for employee engagement.
- The free trials are available for all paid subscriptions.
- In addition to rewards, it’s easy to give a shout-out or recognition to another colleague through the platform.
- The built-in reporting provides helpful insights around potential attrition, most recognized employees, and performance highlights.
- Employees can access this system from their phones, desktop, and apps they are in at work such as Teams/Slack
- One platform that combines rewards, recognition, employee engagement, and more
- Built in reporting with insights around potential attrition, most recognized employees, managers that need coaching, etc.
CONS
- Lack of rules to regulate the distribution of points. For example, a team member could give 100% of their monthly rewards to a friend.
- Performance management features, like 1:1s and coaching, are no longer available.
- Only has dollar (not points) based rewards. Their research shows dollars is more effective, but many companies want points.
- Some users claimed sometimes it can be a bit buggy connecting to Slack to notify people that an appreciation came through.
- It would have broadened the number of gift card options for users to choose from.
- There could have been an easier way to integrate the software with swag stores. For now, you have to transfer funds to a card and then link that card with the swag store, which slows down a bit the process to cash in funds.
Motivosity is easy to recommend given how this vendor reinvents employee rewards by letting companies move beyond cookie-cutter gift cards to create recognition programs that truly resonate with their teams. Testing the platform, the first thing that sticks out is the rewards store. It’s so customizable, covering both digital or physical gift cards, from national retailers or local merchandise.
Adding custom rewards was straightforward. We liked how flexible the platform is in letting administrators set up unique competitions—anything from wellness challenges to book clubs—complete with badges and awards for winners. Impressively, you can set up the platform so that participants can upload proof such as step counts or book reviews to foster integrity and fairness to the process.
For milestones, Motivosity automates service awards and birthday celebrations with personalized gifts and shoutouts. These moments appear in a social feed, where colleagues can leave public comments to amplify the celebration and build camaraderie.
However, we think you'd hesitate to make an investment in this platform if all-in-one solution with both recognition and performance management capabilities is what you’re eyeing. Motivosity has phased out its performance management tools, so features like one-on-ones and coaching are no longer available.
Another potential drawback is that the rewards platform lacks rules or limits on how employees distribute their points. This means someone could, in theory, send 100% of their monthly reward allocation to a close friend, which can hurt the fairness of the system if not monitored.
Health Catalyst, Cotopaxi, Health Equity, Instructure, Ivanti
Motivosity’s core product of Recognition and Rewards is $4 per employee per month. This includes all of their tools for internal communication, rewards, awards, milestones, social connection features, etc. For a comprehensive list of features included in each pricing option, refer to Motivosity's dedicated pricing page.
Best For
Motivosity is among the top social rewards platforms for organizations with 10 - 10,000 employees.
I use Motivosity on a daily basis, as it is a part of my routine and habit. Here are some key workflows I use it for:
Every morning, I check the social feed to see the recognitions that my colleagues and managers have sent and received. I like to read the comments and reactions, and join the conversation by adding my own.
Throughout the day, I send and receive recognitions, points, and badges for the work that I do and the work that others do. I try to align the recognitions with our core values and goals, and be specific and sincere in my messages.
Every week, I redeem my points for gift cards, perks, or donations. I like to treat myself or others with something that I or they enjoy, or support a cause that is cared about.
Every month, I review the analytics and reports that Motivosity provides. I like to see the impact of recognition on my performance, engagement, and retention. I also like to see the trends, patterns, and insights of the recognition and rewards activities.
Some of the main reasons why I like Motivosity are:
It helps me feel appreciated and valued by my colleagues and managers for my work and contributions.
It allows me to redeem my points for gift cards, perks, or donations that I enjoy or care about.
It integrates with my other tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and ADP making it easy to access and use.
My organization bought Motivosity because we wanted to improve our employee engagement and retention. We had a problem with low morale, high turnover, and lack of recognition among our staff. We needed a tool that could help us create a culture of appreciation and motivation in our workplace.
I have personally used Motivosity for about six months, and I have seen a positive change in our workplace culture. I feel more appreciated and valued by my colleagues and managers. I also enjoy recognizing and rewarding others for their work. I think Motivosity is a great employee engagement platform that helps us achieve our goals and grow as a team.
Some of the main ways that Motivosity can improve or I wish it were different are:
It could offer a free trial for the upper tiers, so that potential customers can evaluate the features and benefits of the platform before purchasing.
It could improve the Android app, so that it is more stable and reliable, and has the same functionality and user experience as the iOS app.
It could provide more direct support options, such as chat, phone, or email so that customers can get faster and better assistance for their questions, issues, or feedback.
Motivosity is different from its competitors in a couple of ways. Here are some of the main differences and how it stacks up:
Motivosity has a unique feature called MVTV, which is a live stream of recognition that can be displayed on TVs, monitors, or screensavers. This feature enhances the visibility and impact of recognition in the workplace. I have not seen this feature in any other platform, and I think it is a great way to celebrate and inspire employees.
Motivosity has a flat pricing model that charges per user per month regardless of the number of users. This makes it easy to budget and scale the platform as the organization grows. Most of the other platforms have tiered pricing models that charge different rates based on the number of users or features. I prefer Motivosity's pricing model because it is affordable, transparent, and easy to use.
Employee engagement software is a type of tool that helps organizations measure and improve the engagement and satisfaction of their employees. When buying this type of tool, people should think about the following criteria:
The tool should offer features and functionality that match the organization's goals and needs for employee engagement. The tool should also be easy to use, customize, and scale.
It should have a high user adoption and feedback rate which means that most of the employees who are invited to use the tool actually use it regularly and provide feedback on their experience. This indicates that the tool is engaging, fun, and valuable for the employee.
Lastly, the tool should have a transparent and affordable pricing model that fits the organization's budget and expectations. The tool should demonstrate a clear and positive return on investment (ROI), which means that the tool helps the organization achieve its desired outcomes, such as improved performance, retention, and culture.
I have noticed two ways in which Motivosity has changed or evolved over time to meet users needs:
It has introduced new features and functionality to enhance the user experience and provide more value to the customers. For example, some of the recent additions are MVTV, a live stream of recognitions that can be displayed a number of ways; ThanksMatters Card which is a Visa card that allows users to use their Motivosity Bucks anywhere Visa is accepted; and 1 on 1's, a tool that helps managers and employees have effective and meaningful conversations.
Motivosity has expanded the integrations and partnerships to make it easier for users to access and use the platform from different platforms and tools. For example, some of the recent integrations and partnerships are Microsoft Teams, a chat and collaboration tool that allows users to send and receive recognitions, points and badges from within the app; Covver, a swag provider that allows users to redeem their points for branded merchandise; and Sweeteners, a perk provider that allows users to redeem their points for discounts and deals.
Motivosity is suitable for teams of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises, across various industries and sectors. It is especially beneficial for remote or hybrid teams, as it helps them stay connected, engaged, and motivated.
Motivosity might not be a good fit for users or organizations that:
Prefer more customization and flexibility for the recognition and rewards features, such as creating their own badges, points, or gift cards.
Require more direct support or contact options from the Motivosity team, such as chat, phone, or email, for their questions, issues, or feedback.
Connecteam
Connecteam is an all-in-one workforce management hub for businesses, big and small with simple yet effective employee rewards program features. This vendor is also one the few rare in the space that provides a genuine free, functional option.
PROS
- Intuitive, mobile-friendly user interface.
- Customizable badges and recognition.
- Purchased tokens never expire and are refundable.
- A single platform for rewards and recognition, job scheduling, time management, team communication, and more.
- Free to use for teams with 10 users or fewer.
- One of the only fully-mobile HR tech tools for deskless workers
- Very adequately-priced for all it entails, SMB-friendly
- Quite open to feedback, having implemented user suggestions as features in the past.
CONS
- Fewer reward options than specialized rewards and recognition brands.
- Limited peer-to-peer features.
- Third-party integrations limited to 4 payroll software providers.
- API access is for Enterprise plan only.
- No phone support.
- In the communication hub, the app offers no confirmation that messages were sent and/or seen.
- Certain features that some teams consider essential, such as GPS-tracking, are only available in the higher-tier pricing plans.
Instead of taking the spotlight, Connecteam's rewards and recognition are designed to complement other features this workforce management software offers. And we must say, they totally nailed it.
Unlike Assembly, the tokens you buy from Connecteam never expire, and you can get a refund if you need to. There are fewer gift card options than with competitors like Bonusly or Motivosity, but popular brands like Amazon, Apple, and Best Buy are available.
Unsurprisingly, transaction fees are applied—10% for any purchased gift card in the U.S. and 15% for other countries. What we do appreciate here, though, is that the vendor has always been upfront about its prices. It always informs users about the cost of purchasing tokens and the price of the gift cards, so they know the difference before buying.
Connecteam gives you different ways to show appreciation for your employees. You can send recognition messages to individuals, select multiple users to send to everyone, or filter recipients based on specific criteria. Plus, you can create your own customized recognition badges to add a personal touch.
However, Connecteam doesn’t seem to give peer-to-peer recognition the attention it deserves. At the time of writing, there’s no way for employees to gift tokens to others. To give a colleague a shout-out, they either have to rely on the comment section on the admin’s recognition posts or use the chat feature.
Integration is another area in which this employee rewards software vendor falls short. It can connect natively with just 4 payroll solutions, while its API access is only available on the Enterprise plan.
36,000+ companies, including Siteline, EnviroCon, and Copernicus.
- Small Business Plan: Free for up to 10 users.
- Basic Plan: $29 per month for the first 30 users, $0.5 per additional user.
- Advanced Plan: $49 per month for the first 30 users, $1.5 per additional user.
- Expert Plan: $99 per month for the first 30 users, $3 per additional user.
- Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing with features like personal account managers, SSO, 2FA, biometric lock, and API access.
Best For
Connecteam’s employee rewards program works best for non-desk or distributed teams seeking to celebrate achievements and show employee appreciation.
I use the solution to connect and collaborate with the team remotely, to develop work libraries that help our new team understand how we operate, our ethics, and our code of conduct during the orientations at our workplace, I also use the tool to share documents online for the team to work and to provide feedback on through the chat channel
- I like the software pricing of the tool, it is cheap to use for business purposes and hence does not affect the ROI of the company.
- I like the chat feature which you can use to broadcast your messages amongst the team at no extra cost.
- Event notifications make sure that our users never miss our internal meetings and events
Connecteam is faster and easier to use, which has helped us solve the problem of team management, team collaborations, and group work, it is helping us to share documents, and work plans with the team remotely, and, also we use it as decision-making tool where we use the chat feature of the software to chat with our team remotely to make important decision makings to our tool. I have used the solution for three years and eight months as an administrator of the software
The software has a lot of video tutorials that play automatically hence creating inconvenience, one should only play the video when needed and with his or her consent.It does not have a calendar integration which makes it hard for one to integrate a calendar within the software to track personal events and business events to prevent event conflicts, the text editor in the tool is too slow when you are creating event descriptions, it is impossible to add the ALT text on images that you add in the tool.
They have kept the pricing relatively lower to help even smaller businesses use the solution, and they have a responsive customer support team through the live chat
Good for HR, team leaders, and marketing teams
May not be a good solution for support teams
Guusto
We are big fans of Guusto’s inclusive approach to coporate rewards, with features that enforce a culture of appreciation across all employees - from the frontline to the executive suite. The platform is also easy to set up, has a straightforward redemption process and a free plan for SMBs.
PROS
- Guusto is remote-friendly and planet-conscious: All gift cards are digital, so no plastic waste and no shipping.
- The gifts are real dollar value – no confusing points.
- You can use the platform on mobile devices thanks to its Android and iOS apps.
- The subscription fee is for reward givers only. You can add unlimited recipients for free.
- Guusto partners with One Drop Foundation: the platform donates one day of clean drinking water for every gift sent.
- 4,000+ reward options available worldwide.
- Free plan available.
- They partnered with the One Drop Foundation to donate 1 day of clean drinking water for every gift sent.
- All gift cards are actually digital, meaning there’s no plastic waste. This also makes it a very remote-friendly product.
- Guusto is not a points program. All the gifts within the platform are real dollar value.
- As of early 2023, their global rewards options have grown to the thousands.
- In the process of becoming more international, gift redemptions can now be done in almost any currency within the regions they operate in.
CONS
- Accounts can only be funded with USD or CAD, although gift redemptions can be made in a variety of currencies.
- The starting price for subscriptions has increased from $40/month to $125/month.
- Accounts can only be funded with USD or CAD
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.
Unfortunately, the recent price change for Guusto left us a little disappointed. It used to start at an affordable rate of $40 per month. Now, the latest figure has tripled to $125 per month. And given that Guusto accounts can currently only be funded using USD or CAD, those operating across different currencies may find this restrictive.
Staples, Compass One Healthcare, The Body Shop, Fairmont, Rexall Pharmacies
Guusto offers four pricing plans: a free plan for single users sending rewards, a Lite plan at $125 per month for single users who send and schedule bulk rewards, and Essential and Premium plans, priced per seat per month. Essential costs $2.50 per seat for Peer-to-Peer and $5 for Top-Down, while Premium is $3.50 per seat for Peer-to-Peer and $7 for Top-Down.
Best For
Guusto’s employee rewards program is best for companies with frontline employees, particularly in the Healthcare, Retail, Financial Services, and Hospitality industries.
We use Guusto all the time for different reasons. Most of the time it is used to reward employees for milestones and customer referrals. Another way we use it is to reward customers that refer their friends or family to a specific service provider. We use Guusto all the time for these types of reasons.
- It's very easy to use making rewards easy to redeem
- customer support is very responsive and supportive, they try to find solutions as easily as possible.
- They offer many different ways to redeem rewards and are always adding more as time passes.
My organization bought Guusto to reward employees and customers for referrals and milestones in our company. I have personally been using Guusto for a little while but it's always been a very easy and painless process to redeem those rewards. For things like payroll, it makes it very easy for my organization to process payments without having to worry about it during tax season. It's easy to get started and the pricing is very appealing to many different types of small businesses. Would recommend Guusto to anyone!
- Some different reward options don't give you the choice for specific dollar amounts.
- There is no way to automatically pay people on payroll who aren't in the company.
- It's hard to pay out bonuses and have everything integrated into tax filing programs.
Other types of payroll programs are very hard to use and take a long time to get new users setup, and also make you pay for one year of service upfront without letting you try out the service for a short period. With Guusto you can try it out and if you don't like it you can stop your service. Also the ease of use of Guusto makes it way more appealing to many different companies.
When purchasing this type of service you should consider whether it can accommodate international payroll. Thinking of this before you purchase the service can come in handy when you need to go to the US or other parts of the world and be able to pay contractors or other employees abroad. Also the price of the service can be low if a very small number of employees or more expensive if you need to accommodate more people.
At first Guusto didn't have any type of features for the organization's employees. But as time has passed they have introduced different features like benefits for employees and even a HR type environment for employee reviews ETC.
I believe any type of user that has a small to mid size company can benefit from Guusto services. They make things for payroll easy to use and hassle free.
I feel like bigger companies like enterprises would not benefit as much as smaller companies would. With them needing more options for payroll they might find using bigger payroll services like ADP would be more effective.
Workstars
Workstarts gives you the choice to gift employees from its online rewards and prepaid cards or to create your own catalog of incentives and perks that meet your employees’ liking, redeemable at both a local and global scale.
PROS
- Pretty simple to launch and navigate.
- Pricing is transparent—no fees for setting up the system.
- Cost-effective when compared to similar platforms.
- Culturally aware, while based mainly in the UK and the US, the Workstars team has been known to go the extra mile to adapt to the customs, expectations, and cost of living adjustments of clients in other parts of the world.
- 30-day trial with a dedicated support agent.
- Custom rewards like service awards, top performer awards, nominations, voting, etc
- Cost-effective when compared to similar platforms.
- Culturally-aware; while based mostly in the UK and US, the Workstars team has been known to go the extra mile to adapt to the customs, expectations, and cost of living adjustments of clients in other parts of the world.
CONS
- No HRMS integrations. To upload employee data, the user must either make do with XML/CSV files or set up the API integrations.
- No free plan.
- The user interface appears less modern than some competitors.
- Support is limited to UK and US business hours, which could result in delayed responses for international users.
- Neither a free plan nor a free trial is offered.
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.
Still, we wish Workstars offered pre-built HRMS integrations just like most of its peers. In order to connect the employee rewards program with your existing HR tech stacks, you must have to resort to XML or CSV uploads, or invest engineering resources into building out API connections. Similar to Guusto and Nectar, this vendor also don’t offer a free trial.
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.
Best For
Workstars is ideal for companies with a workforce ranging from 50 to 10,000 employees.
Typically, I checked Workstars once a week unless I saw a shoutout that was directed at me. Rewards weren't sent out or given every single day, so once a week was sufficient. The budget feature was important to administrators to ensure that the budget was maintained.
The manager feature was interesting to see who ran the best ship. Lastly, the rewards and badges were great to incentivize employees.
Workstars was very user-friendly and felt almost like another form of social media, which made it fun! I also enjoyed the real time recognition, which made projects more interesting. Lastly, the support was always helpful from the Workstar team.
At one of my previous roles, I used Workstars for about a year, but I believe they had used it for longer. This tool was initially implemented to improve employee satisfaction. Shout-outs were encouraged and helped employees recognize others, which is a cost effective way to keep employees happy.
The rewards were also customizable, which made the company happy due to the flexibility of the rewards. Lastly, the reports were helpful in tracking who was going above and beyond.
Integration was a bit difficult, so the beginning setup was challenging at times. The SSO was also the cause of the main issues at first. The platform also ran a bit slow at times.
Workstars let you set company values and helped the recognition stay on track with the company's core competencies.
Team size is important and can affect whether Workstars is a good fit. I feel that if the team is 100% remote, it may be awkward at first. Once a team member knows others better, it becomes more natural, but it can feel a little unnatural at first. The good news is that Workstars is a global company and can support overseas team members. I am unsure if all of their competitors do this, but this is definitely a great selling point for Workstars.
Globalization is relatively new, and reporting features have certainly become more advanced throughout the course of my use of the platform.
Small - midsized companies with teams who are not in person every day.
Large companies where most people do not know each other. This would also become very costly.
C.A. Short Company
C.A. Short is a great option if you value high-touch support, deep customization, and a strong mix of digital and physical rewards and recognition programs for employees. Its peer-to-peer recognition features allow for both digital and physical forms of acknowledgment, while the dedicated support team makes sure the entire system is customized to your needs.
PROS
- The rewards and recognition programs are coded to fully match each customer’s needs.
- Combines digital (peer-to-peer eCards, social feed-style recognition) and physical recognition (on-the-spot recognition cards).
- Dedicated account managers, customer service reps, and an implementation team.
- The rewards and recognition programs are coded to fully match each customer’s needs.
- Combines digital (peer-to-peer eCards, social feed-style recognition) and physical recognition (on-the-spot recognition cards.)
- Dedicated account managers, customer service reps, and an implementation team.
CONS
- The UI is not as modern as some competitors.
- Changes to the system require communication with support rather than self-service configurations.
- Reporting relies on Power BI rather than being embedded within the platform.
- The UI is not as modern as some competitors.
- Changes to the system require communication with support rather than self-service configurations.
- Reporting relies on Power BI rather than being embedded within the platform.
C.A. Short is not the most modern-looking or feature-rich employee rewards platform we’ve reviewed, but its white-glove, concierge-style support is among the best, especially for businesses that want hands-on guidance in designing and implementing a corporate rewards program.
We evaluate dozens of new vendors every month, and it’s clear that most platforms are moving toward a fully digital approach. However, C.A. Short is one of the rare few who embrace a hybrid model of peer recognition, combining digital tools with tangible, in-person acknowledgment. This unique approach adds a personal touch that sets it apart.
During our assessment, as employee users, we could send eCards with or without monetary rewards, celebrate achievements with peers in the social feed-style "Rec Room," and even receive on-the-spot recognition cards—physical cards handed out by managers for a job well done. The point redemption process was smooth, too: we scanned a QR code on the card, and our recognition points were redeemed almost instantly.
When it comes to customization, C.A. Short takes a highly personalized approach. In our tests, simply communicating our needs to the customer success team resulted in a system coded to our specifications, complete with fully tailored corporate rewards program packages. This makes for a less flexible, self-service experience, but it also significantly reduces the administrative burden—something many companies may prefer over off-the-shelf tools.
On the reporting front, C.A. Short offers a robust tool called C.A. Insights, which provides strong visibility into recognition engagement, usage patterns, and program effectiveness. However, a notable drawback is that the analytics are not built directly into the platform. Instead, they rely on Power BI, requiring users to leave the system to access data. The good news is that the vendor has confirmed full in-app reporting integration is on their roadmap, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted once it’s available.
Another thing to keep in mind is that while the employee rewards software excels in customization, the user interface is not as intuitive or visually appealing as solutions like Motivosity or Connecteam.
Additionally, though C.A. Short does offer automated secure sFTP folders for data integration, eliminating manual data imports, some might prefer the familiar native integrations with big HRIS vendors like Workday and BambooHR.
Dollar General, Penske, Sysco, and Tractor Supply are some of C.A. Short Company’s customers.
C.A. Short Company doesn't have a free trial, and pricing is determined on a case-by-case basis.
Best For
C.A. Short Company is best suited for mid-sized to large organizations prioritizing hands-on support and a deeply tailored employee rewards program experience.
Terryberry
Terryberry offers a comprehensive rewards platform with one of the industry’s largest rewards selections, including merchandise, gift cards, travel experiences, and custom-crafted awards. The platform’s flexible workflows and pay-upon-redemption billing help manage budgets effectively, while its hybrid-friendly design ensures easy access for all employees.
PROS
- Pay-upon-redemption billing model with multi-center cost allocation for better budget control.
- Global fulfillment capabilities with extensive international reward options.
- Flexible reward programs that can be tailored to company values and engagement goals.
- Advanced analytics to measure the impact of rewards on employee engagement and sentiment.
- HRIS integrations to automate and simplify reward management.
- Mobile-friendly features for deskless and hybrid workforces.
- Personalized support from implementation to ongoing customer success.
- Amazon Business is available for rewards in the US.
- Customized physical goods as employee rewards
- Wide range of employee engagement features, including rewards, incentives, and a wellness tracker.
- Customer support and account management at Terryberry are quite good. Their reps stand out for being very responsive and attentive, which is evidenced by some of the client testimonials we read.
- The implementation process, while six weeks long, is quite comprehensive, and you get tons of help along the way. For instance, the last two weeks consist of internal and customer testing, as well as user training.
CONS
- The platform’s interface design could benefit from a more modern look.
- No open API yet, although this feature is on the development roadmap.
- No free trial is offered at this time.
- While Terryberry is easy to use, its design could look more modern and sleek.
- No open API available as of this writing.
- No free trial at the moment.
Terryberry’s rewards platform offers a robust solution for companies looking to engage employees through meaningful and customizable rewards. During our demo, we explored Terryberry’s expansive rewards catalog, which includes merchandise, gift cards, travel experiences, company swag, and custom-crafted awards. This variety ensures that companies can provide rewards that resonate with diverse employee preferences.
We found that the platform’s flexibility in configuring reward programs stood out. Organizations can design reward workflows that align with their mission, vision, and values. For example, during our conversation with the product team, they highlighted how value-tagged rewards reinforce company culture by directly linking rewards to specific achievements and behaviors.
Terryberry’s pay-upon-redemption billing model was another standout feature. This approach helps organizations manage budgets more effectively by only paying for rewards when redeemed. Multi-center cost allocation further simplifies financial management for larger organizations.
The platform’s global fulfillment capabilities support rewards delivery in over 150 countries, making it ideal for international organizations. Additionally, the hybrid-friendly design ensures that office-based and frontline employees can participate. We saw how features like QR codes and mobile options make it easy for deskless employees to access and redeem rewards.
Despite its strengths, we’re quite disappointed in the platform’s interface: it’s not exactly user friendly but rather look dated Additionally, the lack of an open API limits integration possibilities makes this option not the best bet for some enterprises.
Terryberry serves over 40,000 clients globally, including well-known organizations such as Tesco, Epsilon, General Motors, and Trilogy Health.
Terryberry's basic subscription plans start around $3 per rewarded employee. Pricing depends on subscription features and reward types, one-time setup fees, and annual administration fees based on employee count and reward redemptions.
Terryberry has made several notable updates to its rewards platform in the past year, enhancing its capabilities and user experience:
- Expanded global fulfillment: Rewards can now be delivered in over 150 countries, supporting diverse and international workforces.
- Advanced analytics: New tools to measure the impact of rewards on employee sentiment and engagement.
- Mobile enhancements: Improved mobile experience for easier reward access and redemption, especially for deskless employees.
- AI-powered features: AI-driven insights help refine reward strategies and personalize reward recommendations.
- Custom workflows: Enhanced options for configuring reward programs to align with company values and goals.
- Amazon Business was recently introduced to their rewards catalog, though it's currently available only to users in the U.S.
Best For
- Mid-sized companies seeking an all-in-one rewards system with expansive catalog options, including travel, swag, and custom-crafted awards.
- Hybrid or global teams, thanks to QR-enabled access and fulfillment in over 150 countries.
- Organizations seeking to tie rewards to core company values through customizable workflows and value-tagged recognitions.
We use Terryberry quite frequently, employees are encouraged to utilize it every day. For HR, we use it to recognize anniversaries monthly as well as employee recognition awards. Employees can interact with each other daily to congratulate each other on birthdays, anniversaries, and other wins. Analytics are easy to access, so we can easily pull the data for projects and analysis. Employees enjoy that they can purchase items through the website.
The convenience for HR and the employees is a benefit. The engagement and ease of engagement improves employee satisfaction. The ROI on using Terryberry for our company will continue to grow.
We bought Terryberry to align our employee recognition program across locations and regions. We have used it since 2016. The benefits of using the platform is that people across locations and regions can recognize each other easily and effectively. You can showcase how locations work together. Terryberry provides a platform to display how aligning to the company values can get you rewarded. It has worked really well for our organizational structure and size.
Some dislike the options of rewards. I feel only a portion of the company uses it - the employees who work independently at a desk. I would like to see more features related to AI.
We like the one stop solution that Terryberry provides.
The number of employees they have. The number of employees who are computer-based and technology savvy. The budget for employee recognition and how the system takes from that cost.
It has improved the website design and features.
Remote teams mainly.
Manufacturing, hourly employees who do not use a computer independently.
Bonusly
Bonusly’s specialty lies in its corporate reward catalog: it packs an impressive number of gift cards that work in dozens of countries. Teams with 50-5000 employees, remote or in-office, can make great use of the tool. Bonusly’s discounts also make it a sound option for nonprofits.
PROS
- Bonusly has an intuitive user interface where both admin and employee users find it easy to navigate through.
- 1,200+ gift cards redeemable in 120+ countries.
- The platform is available in German, English, French, and Spanish.
- There are Android and iOS apps for on-the-go access.
- Nonprofits and educational organizations get discounted pricing from Bonusly.
- There is a 14-day, full-featured free trial that anyone can sign up for.
- Intuitive user interface.
- Available in German, English, French, and Spanish.
- Supports Android and iOS.
- Discounts for nonprofit and education organizations.
- 14-day, full-featured free trial.
CONS
- The Core plan which is marketed for small businesses is capped at 50 users.
- The analytics and reporting capabilities are relatively limited in functionality and customization.
- The reward options are centered around gift cards, cash, and donations rather than experiences.
- Features like requiring hashtags or showing top receivers were unnecessary according to a few users.
- Unused bonus money does not carry over; you use it or lose it.
- Analytics and reporting features are relatively underdeveloped.
- The reward catalog lacks in-person experiences and physical goods.
- All our plans are billed annually, and the vendor no longer discloses their pricing.
Bonusly’s full-featured and flexible employee rewards platform prioritizes choice, meaning, and connection. We’ve gone through their rewards catalog and liked what we saw: 1,200+ gift cards from popular vendors, redeemable in over 200 countries. Employees have abundant options to choose from across apparel, F&B, travel and more.
We find Bonusly’s approach to giving branded company swag quite unique. Through an integration with AXOMO, employees can browse and order company-branded items themselves. We also like how Bonusly gives employees the option to take their rewards in cash, with points redeemable for PayPal transfers, Visa gift cards, and prepaid Mastercards.
Customizable reward options are yet another advantage to Bonusly. You can get creative with experiential rewards like lunch with the CEO, local sports tickets, paid time off, and more. The platform is also connected to over 50 charitable causes, allowing employees to accept rewards in the form of donations to causes that matter to them.
Besides tangible rewards, Bonusly helps you set up automated awards for milestones like work anniversaries and birthdays to foster a culture of continuous appreciation. These public messages encourage social connections, praise, and gratitude between coworkers. You can also tie awards to business goals, driving performance and morale simultaneously.
One noticeable trade-off about Bonusly, though, is that its Core plan caps usage at 50 employees, which is definitely not ideal for fast-growing teams. Compared to some enterprise-oriented options, we found that Bonusly’s reporting and analytics are on the lighter side in terms of functionality and customization. The platform primarily focuses on gift cards, cash, and donations, so teams seeking travel or experience-heavy rewards may find the catalog less appealing.
We also should warn you that with Bonusly, unused bonus money doesn't roll over at the end of the period, so companies need to plan accordingly.
Bonusly is used by over 3,250 companies, including Cerebral, Baxter, Headspace, and InVision.
Bonusly has 3 plans. When billed annually, they cost as follows:
- Core: Designed for small businesses, this plan costs $2.70 per user per month for up to 50 users.
- Pro: For $4.50 per user per month, this plan can be used by teams looking for more flexibility with reporting, permissions, and integrations.
- Custom: This plan has custom pricing and is made for larger businesses needing premium SLA and implementation support.
Best For
Bonusly works well for companies ranging from 50 to 5,000 employees looking to build a culture of appreciation via employee points reward programs.
I use Bonusly as an end user to give and receive recognition from my coworkers. I try to provide on-the-spot feedback when someone has helped me with a task or project. Bonusly also recognizes employees on their birthdays and work anniversaries, allowing others to add recognition and points to those posts. Employees can save up their Bonusly points and redeem them for gift cards, donations to charity, or other rewards.
Additionally, I was involved in setting up the integration between our HRIS (Workday) and Bonusly to ensure seamless data synchronization.
- I like recognition platforms in general because they add an element of fun and reward beyond what employees receive from their managers, annual raises, or bonuses.
- Bonusly's interface is very intuitive. When starting a recognition post, it prompts you with "@" to tag a coworker, "$" to add points, and "#" to include a company value/hashtag.
- The Slack integration is particularly useful. Not only is the recognition feed available in Slack, but users receive direct Slack notifications when recognized and can also send recognition without leaving Slack.
I'm not sure when my company started using Bonusly, but I’ve been using it as an employee since joining about six months ago. Bonusly is our company's chosen recognition platform, allowing employees to acknowledge and reward each other for contributions.
It provides an easy way to give real-time recognition, fostering a culture of appreciation across teams. Employees can accumulate points through recognition and redeem them for rewards. Overall, it has helped encourage peer-to-peer engagement and recognition within the company.
- While I like that Bonusly offers GIFs to include in recognition posts, the selection is somewhat limited.
- The setup process was smooth, but Bonusly does not offer a non-production instance, which made testing the Workday integration a bit riskier since we had to connect directly to our production environment.
- Aside from that, it's difficult to find something I dislike, as even the integration instructions were clear, and the support team was responsive and helpful.
It's hard to say, as many recognition platforms function similarly. Bonusly is easy to use, like most competitors, and offers a variety of redemption options for points. One standout feature is its strong Slack integration, which enhances engagement for companies that rely on Slack. Otherwise, it operates similarly to other recognition platforms.
Consider how employees will interact with the platform. If your company relies heavily on Slack or Microsoft Teams, integration with those tools is important. It's also crucial to understand how the platform charges for points—some systems require companies to pay for all allocated points, whether they are used or not. (I don’t have visibility into Bonusly’s billing structure.)
Also, having a variety of redemption options is valuable, including gift cards, company swag, and charitable donations, to ensure broad employee engagement.
I can’t speak to long-term changes, as I’ve only used Bonusly for about six months. However, the fact that they offer a pre-built Workday integration template suggests they are keeping up with evolving HR technologies and ensuring compatibility with widely used systems.
Bonusly is a good fit for any organization looking to foster a culture of recognition. Because it is designed for peer-to-peer engagement, it benefits companies of all sizes by encouraging employees to acknowledge each other’s contributions.
A very small company may not see as much value in Bonusly since recognition is often more informal in smaller teams. The platform is more engaging when there are enough employees to distribute and receive points frequently. Otherwise, it seems like a solution that could benefit a wide range of organizations.
Matter
It's rare to find a vendor that can so effectively integrate employee rewards and recognition within tools we're already using daily. So seeing Matter automate global reward delivery, birthdays, work anniversaries, and employee surveys, all inside Slack or Teams—and it does so beautifully—is truly impressive.
PROS
- One app for rewards, recognition, and surveys working right inside your Slack or Teams.
- Gift cards, donations, and prepaid card rewards in 100+ countries.
- Visually appealing and user-friendly software design.
- Transparent, affordable plans with discounts for non-profits and educational institutions.
- Free plan offers unlimited users, customizable notifications, and kudos.
- 200+ HRIS integrations available.
- Option to reward survey completions with redeemable Matter coins.
- Pulse Survey delivered and responded to right in Slack or MS Teams.
- Pulse Surveys use real-time data from a library of 100 questions to provide insights on cultural categories.
- Survey recipients won't see the same question twice within 90 days.
- Real-time anonymous feedback with custom notifications.
- Affordable and transparent plans with discounts for non-profits and schools.
CONS
- You have to use either Slack or Microsoft Teams to be able to use Matter.
- Coin allowance resets weekly if not fully used. (Kudos coins don't expire though.)
- Free plan only support 30 days of analytics history.
- To use Matter, you must have either Slack or Teams installed.
- At this time, the vendor doesn't allow the Pulse Survey questions to be editable.
- Pulse surveys are only available on the highest-priced plan.
We love the fact that Matter automates the delivery of global corporate rewards programs, celebrates birthdays and work anniversaries, and even conducts employee surveys—all within the familiar interfaces of communication platforms Slack and MS Teams. As a remote team that uses Slack daily, it felt natural and incredibly efficient to incorporate the tool into our workflow.
Navigating the software, it became apparent to us that the vendor has paid close attention to their product’s user experience. Matter’s app not only possesses an elegant design but also a straightforward set of functionalities. It only took a few minutes to set everything up: we selected the rewards categories we wanted, used the built-in Rewards Calculator to figure out how many coins to allocate to each team member given our budget, and tweaked the default coin allocation accordingly. Then, all that was left was to approve or reject incoming rewards requests, either in bulk or one by one.
The pricing structure is another aspect we found quite reasonable. At $3 per month, it didn't feel like a significant investment, and the fact that there's a free trial and a free plan available made it an even easier decision for small teams like us to give Metter a go. When compared to Connecteam’s free offerings, Matter's free plan may not match up in terms of verticalization, as Connecteam provides several HR toolkits in its free version. However, it does offer a more robust set of features specifically for employee rewards.
Nevertheless, the requirement to use Slack or Microsoft Teams means Matter wouldn't be suitable for every organization. While we’re aware that Matter does have some very large teams in its customer base, its offerings seem to be most valued by small-to-medium-sized companies with less than a thousand employees.
A note for those looking to start with Matter’s free plan: there’s a 30-day limit on analytics history. It can be a bit of an inconvenience, but we know some budget-minded teams would be willing to work around.
4,700+ companies, including Petco, Shell, and JiffyLube.
Matter offers four pricing plans, ranging from free to $5 per month. All features are accessible during a 30-day free trial.
Best For
Matter is ideal for SMBs that are using communication platforms Teams or Slack and are open to incorporating their corporate rewards programs within these apps.
Kudos
Kudos’ employee rewards storefront is highly configurable, allowing you to tailor rewards that speak to your brand and employees’ needs. Extra support is also provided during and after the tool’s launching phase.
PROS
- Kudos possesses a set of unique, company culture-oriented features that are present all across the platform.
- Users love how easy Kudos is to navigate.
- It has all the bells and whistles out-of-the-box, both on the web and mobile versions.
- Available in 11 languages.
- Unique, company culture-oriented features are present all across the platform, such as in the way they approach analytics, or on the actual Culture Accelerator module.
- Excellent relation of mobile / desktop functionality. You basically get all the bells and whistles on both versions.
CONS
- An insider's help is needed to get a good idea of the Kudos app from the website, so a demo is necessary.
- The UX/UI could be improved: some users reported issues with attaching images, .gifs, and emojis.
- No free version and no trial version.
- Unless you get a demo and start exploring the tool with the help of an insider, we’d say it’s somewhat hard to get a good idea of what features are like, how they work, and even what they do, just from their website alone.
- From our research, we could gather that the points system and how this works can get a bit confusing for some users.
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 that your people will love to be part of.
However, one of the pain points we noticed about this vendor is that the product’s website doesn’t provide a clear overview of the platform, which might slow down early evaluations.
We also found room for improvement in Kudos’ UI/UX. Some users have noted issues with attaching images, GIFs, or emojis when giving and/or interacting with shoutouts.
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.
Best For
Kudos is best for businesses with over 500 employees looking for a program that supports multiple languages and diverse forms of rewards and recognition, from shout-outs to gift cards, experiences, and charity.
We encouraged our team to use all their Kudos every month (starting with fresh points on the first of each month). I personally used Kudos weekly or when a big accomplishment presented itself.
A key workflow is the values-based recognition feature, where you can align your Kudos with the company’s core values to further embed the culture into daily operations. I liked the primary workflow of sending peer-to-peer recognition messages that are visible to the entire company in real time.
Everyone can see the contributions being made and the projects each team is working on, which helps with cross-functional collaboration.
- It is easy to integrate with Slack, encourages employee engagement, offers a wide variety of rewards, encourages communication, and simplifies the employee recognition process.
- Reporting and analytics help determine which employees use Kudos, which values are most commonly recognized, and to identify engagement trends.
- Automates work anniversaries, birthdays, surveys, award programs, and more.
We wanted to increase employee engagement and find a solution to inconsistent employee recognition across the company. Two of the biggest benefits are that Kudos offers a platform that enables peer-to-peer recognition, allowing employees to acknowledge contributions in real time, and the platform's rewards system provides tangible incentives to motivate employees to use Kudos.
Kudos syncs with Slack (our main communication tool), so implementation was easy. I have personally used Kudos for six months. Kudos is an effective tool for acknowledging the efforts of team members. It contributed to a more communicative culture.
- Kudos encourages employee engagement but does not guarantee it.
- The program itself is excellent, but it is not a cure for poor corporate culture, low morale, or collaboration issues.
- Some leadership teams, especially at startups, mistakenly believe Kudos alone will solve deep-rooted organizational problems.
- You must secure employee buy-in and maintain engagement both before and during active usage for Kudos to be effective.
- When strong leaders and solid companies use Kudos, it is extremely helpful for enhancing employee engagement and improving the overall employee experience.
- Kudos is much better than its competitors (such as Bonusly, Guusto, and some proprietary options).
- It has built-in analytics to track progress and highlight areas for improvement.
- Kudos provides a better catalog of rewards than its competitors.
- I have implemented Kudos (and other platforms) with Slack and Teams; the Teams integration is poor, but that seems to be a Microsoft issue rather than a flaw with Kudos or similar platforms.
- Slack integration is seamless and easy, with almost no glitches or issues.
Understand that Kudos is not a guaranteed solution for improving employee satisfaction. If you want to enhance employee engagement and communication, consider a tool like Kudos.
As a manager who implemented and used Kudos, I found the price to be reasonable, the Slack implementation to be easy, and the employee feedback to be positive.
You will need an engagement strategy to encourage non-engaged employees to use the platform, but Kudos helps with automation features like reminders and surveys.
Kudos incorporates user feedback and maintains the platform with consistent updates and upgrades, including improvements to the mobile app and Slack integration.
It has added culture and values alignment tools, allowing companies to tie recognition directly to organizational goals and values.
Kudos is well-suited for remote and hybrid work environments.
It is ideal for companies looking to strengthen their employee engagement and recognition programs.
It works well for companies of all sizes, from startups to large corporations.
Large corporations particularly benefit from recognition programs, where it can be easy for employees to feel overlooked.
Any user or organization would be a good fit for Kudos.
Assembly
Assembly makes rewarding employees easy and friendly towards SMBs with a flexible pricing structure, good integration options, and support for both peer and top-down rewards.
PROS
- Feature-rich for the price point.
- Customize rewards and set up a points system with automated incentives.
- Month-to-month plan or a long-term contract (12-month minimum agreement). A large team with a long-term contract can get a custom deal.
- Explore the platform for free, no need for a credit card or demo
- Great set of features for the price point
- Make your own rewards and even set up a points system with automated incentives
- You have the option to go with a month-to-month plan or a long-term contract. For the latter, you can reach out to their team for a custom deal if it’s a larger team. However, keep in mind that the minimum agreement is 12 months.
CONS
- Coins and points expire and do not roll over.
- SSO is not standard for all plans. In some cases, it must be purchased as an add-on.
- iOS and Android apps are available, but this information is hard to find on the site.
- Only supports English.
- Coins and points do expire, so sometimes they’ll expire by the end of the month before you can use them, although you get more the next period.
- SSO is only included with some plans. For others, it can be purchased as an add-on.
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 publicly 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.
However, please note that coins and points earned through the platform expire and do not roll over. Another limitation is that Assembly is currently only available in English.
Over 4,000 companies use Assembly, including Casper, Keck School of Medicine, and Perforce.
Assembly customers are charged between $2 and $4 per employee per month, depending on the features and monthly vs. yearly pricing plan. There’s also a Enterprise plan available at a custom quote.
Best For
Assembly’s scalable plans and good feature set make it a compelling choice for growing SMBs
Assembly is such a fantastic platform for sharing gratitude with your colleagues, across the organization as a whole, as well as internally and externally between departments. It is straightforward, easy, and fun to use! This tool is especially good for nurturing culture across a remote team. The integration with Slack makes it seamless for the team to use and engage with, and Assembly engages senior leadership with ease.
Simple, fast platform. Easy set-up and free trial version prior to transition to paid version. Easy implementation and great reporting options and support.
In the age of remote, work-from-home, and hybrid models, and all of the inherent challenges it presents, Assembly has allowed us to continue to celebrate business culture and monetize the value of success within our organization. We are able to easily recognize team members and their accomplishments so that those ambiguous moments can become tangible for the entire company to see. Acknowledgements of birthdays, anniversaries, work anniversaries etc. are seamlessly built in, never to be forgotten or overlooked. Coins can be exchanged for gifts, donated to charity, traded in for company-branded gifts, or cashed in for rewards. Our engagement rate is over 90% on the Assembly platform and we are very excited to see how they can continue to evolve its value proposition.
Coins expire if not used in time. UX could be more user-friendly. Larger tiered allotments would be a great improvement.
When considering any employee recognition platform, functionality and reporting should always be heavily weighted in the final decision. Recognition platforms go hand-in-hand with engagement surveys; some platforms do not offer this feature or offer. Limited version of this feature. Mobility and accessibility are primary concerns, especially where remote and global teams exist. Also, goal/challenge creation, tracking and attainment features are wonderful enhancements to include.
There have been consistent upgrades to the platform and Assembly is very open to feedback and suggestions.
Assembly is ideal for small and mid-market organizations.
Assembly would not be a good fit for large/enterprise organizations.
Reward Gateway
We love Reward Gateway's multiple offerings in a single platform. Keeping rewards, recognition and surveys within each other's reach is just plain smart.
PROS
- Excellent customer support thanks to their 24/7 help desk team and multiple communication channels
- Varied rewards, including products from Amazon, customizable ecards, and experiences.
- Employees will receive the reward budget's total value without processing or admin fees, as all rewards are provided at market pricing.
- A vast number of employee engagement modules can be purchased separately.
- Branded mobile apps are available for both Android and IOS users.
- Remarkably good customer support due to their 24/7 help desk team and multiple communication channels
- Varied rewards including products from Amazon, customizable ecards, and experiences
- You can purchase modules separately if you prefer it
CONS
- No free plan at this time.
- The reporting side of the platform could be enhanced to provide deeper insights.
- With mobile being so prevalent now, the lack of a mobile app to access Reward Gateway is a drawback. Having to log in separately on mobile is not ideal.
- At times, it can take a while for cashback earnings to be credited after a purchase.
- No free trial
- The “Reward Gateway for Small Business” version is only available for companies in the UK and Australia
Reward Gateway offers a generally flexible platform that stands out for its robust reward catalog, supportive customer service, and customizable engagement modules. It’s a compelling option for organizations that want a retailer-driven rewards experience backed by strong administrative tools.
Reward Gateway offers an impressive number of employee rewards: from Amazon products, unique experiences, or personalized ecards. What’s more, all of these can be delivered without hidden fees or markups.
The flexibility in moduling is another thing that caught our eyes. As a customer, you can purchase additional engagement modules, such as surveys, communications, or employee discounts when you need them. In another word, no paying for unused features.
Reward Gateway’s 24/7 help desk is equally notable. Throughout the tests, we reached out to the vendor via chat, email, and phone, and none of these methods took more than 24 hours to receive a response from the support team.
If you’re looking to make an investment in an employee rewards system with excellent mobile experience, however, this option doesn’t compete with Guusto or Connecteam. Despite having branded apps, some users we surveyed noted they’re forced to log in separately rather than being able to access rewards from existing tools. Additionally, the delays in cashback earnings credited after purchases is another thing to bear in mind, since this can be frustrating for employees relying on timely rewards.
We also found that the reporting and analytics leave room for growth, as in deeper insights into employee engagement trends would help managers measure program ROI more effectively.
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.
Best For
Reward Gateway’s rewards program works for in-office, hybrid, and remote teams. Yet mid-size companies (51-500 employees) are the ones that typically make the most out of the software.
While using Reward Gateway, I used it every day. The employee engagement platform was customized to our organization and enabled us to provide regular newsletters, formal and informal recognition in a public setting, and wellbeing initiatives for our staff. We customized an exit interview equivalent to understand why employees were leaving and how we could improve. The platform allowed us to engage and connect with our remote workers and included job vacancies and opportunities for staff. Management and executives appreciated the analytic function, which showed their return on investment and tracked team performance.
- The customization allows us to align the platform with our business needs and add various functions.
- It is very easy to navigate and integrate with our internal systems.
- The analytics provide transparency and the ability to drill down to see our return on investment and identify areas for improvement.
- The ability to communicate with the entire organization and engage with remote workers has been transformative.
The organization I worked for purchased Reward Gateway to improve employee engagement, organizational culture, and staff retention. There was a noticeable issue with culture and engagement, which became evident as staff left the organization and cited these factors as reasons for leaving. The executives approved funding to implement Reward Gateway as a solution to enhance the employee experience and improve culture and retention. Reward Gateway has allowed the organization to streamline communications, provide rewards and recognition, and improve overall employee satisfaction. I used this tool for one year during my tenure at the organization.
- Removing a staff member is not user-friendly and could be improved.
- Some staff reported difficulties in settling canceled retail transactions.
- More local retailers for rewards would be preferred.
Reward Gateway stood out for its ease of integration with our internal systems and data transition. The platform's customization, user-friendliness, and robust reporting capabilities made it the best choice. Other platforms were clunkier, more difficult to transition to, and more expensive with less functionality.
Consider the price for the functionality provided; Reward Gateway offers a lot at a reasonable price. Evaluate the customization options to ensure it aligns with your organization’s values and user-friendliness. The tool's ease of integration and data transition, along with outstanding customer service, simplifies the implementation process.
Yes, the reporting was of concern. However, there has been improvement in this area, and in speaking to people who currently use the platform, they have also commended Reward Gateway on the improvement in their reporting.
Reward Gateway is excellent for medium-sized organizations looking to increase employee engagement and culture. It helps set the organization apart from competitors and contributes to staff retention.
Small businesses may find the costs outweigh the benefits. Additionally, dedicated employees are needed to manage and update the platform's content.
Cooleaf
We picked Cooleaf for its ability to automate, personalize, and globally fulfill rewards as part of a broader employee engagement strategy. Unlike tools that focus purely on points or catalogs, Cooleaf connects rewards to performance data, survey participation, and peer recognition—making the incentive system feel more intentional and aligned with company goals.
PROS
- Reward programs can be tied to actions like training completion, hitting milestones, or participating in surveys.
- Cooleaf fulfills both physical merchandise and digital gift cards globally, removing the need for third-party logistics.
- The Slack integration is practically seamless– posts and recognitions are gathered within the team’s Slack channel.
- The platform includes analytics to track redemption trends by team, location, and role.
- Implementation support includes onboarding sessions and a personalized rollout plan.
- Full platform for all things employee engagement, not just rewards and recognition.
- The Slack integration is very seamless. Challenges, posts, and recognitions can all be gathered within dedicated channels in your team’s Slack workplace, if you want to.
- Wide variety of rewards including a team store, donations, entertainment, travel experiences, merch, products, and restaurant coupons.
CONS
- The initial setup for custom reward workflows may require onboarding support.
- Smaller companies may find the platform’s enterprise-scale design more than they need.
- Undisclosed pricing, as well as no free plan or free trial.
- For some of the workplace culture-building features, like challenges and activities, you can’t create your own, so you rely on how often Cooleaf’s team makes them available.
- We found the support center’s documentation to be somewhat limited in comparison to similar tools. Also, it seems like support is only done through an online form, no other channels are available.
While many rewards platforms focus on gamification or catalog size, Cooleaf takes a more strategic approach. It allows global organizations to design rewards programs that reflect their culture, reinforce key behaviors, and scale across distributed teams. In our demos, we’ve been particularly impressed with how rewards could be tied to performance metrics, participation in surveys, and learning and development initiatives.
Cooleaf also supports a range of flexible program structures— from automated milestone incentives to nomination-based awards that include multi-layer approvals. This makes it suitable for both ongoing incentives and more formal recognition moments.
On the fulfillment side, Cooleaf handles physical and digital reward logistics internally, which is a major plus for global teams. Whether it’s branded swag, gift cards, or high-value rewards, the company ships worldwide without the need for third-party coordination. Employees chan choose from 700+ brands, which provide access to thousands of rewards in the US and across the world.
Another area where Cooleaf stands out is analytics. HR leaders can view reward redemption trends by team, geography, and department, helping them understand what's resonating with employees and where incentives may be falling flat.
The platform isn’t designed for small companies—Cooleaf’s reward strategy, admin controls, and depth of configuration are geared toward enterprises with at least 2,000 employees. And while it doesn’t offer a free trial, their implementation support includes guided rollout, custom configuration, and post-launch check-ins to ensure success.
However, in our time with the employee rewards program, we noticed that the enterprise-grade design, including advanced admin controls and extensive configuration options, can feel like overkill for smaller companies, especially those with fewer than 500 employees. According to some users we interviewed, initial setup of custom workflows seems to also require significant onboarding support, which is definitely not a cup of tea for smaller or less resourced HR teams.
Another aspect that strengthens our belief that Cooleaf won't be a good fit for lean teams is its pricing structure. Unlike Matter and Connecteam, the platform neither discloses pricing nor offers a free trial/plan.
Cooleaf is used by organizations like Acosta, Aprio, BlueLinx, Georgia’s Own Credit Union, Kids2, and Shipt.
Cooleaf offers custom pricing based on employee count and program needs.
- Subscription billed monthly
- Rewards budget is flexible and managed separately
- Implementation support and onboarding included
Since joining ITA Group, Cooleaf has expanded its reward capabilities while remaining a stand-alone platform. Recent updates like approval-based reward workflows, manager-facing usage insights, and robust analytics make it easier for large organizations to build scalable, values-aligned incentive programs. International reward fulfillment and new nomination-based award options have also strengthened its appeal to global teams.
Best For
Cooleaf is ideal for global enterprises with with at least 2,000 employees.
I use Cooleaf weekly to check on health and reporting within my clients' companies. It improves social and cultural collaboration. The platform is an easy to use employee management system. Cooleaf makes employee communication fun for the team. Recognizing employee accomplishments through Cooleaf has helped my clients understand employee performance and perspectives.
Cooleaf is very employee friendly. It can be difficult for larger teams to keep track of accomplishments, birthdays etc but this platform eliminates that concern. It has been instrumental in improving engagement for remote team members post-pandemic.
I have used Cooleaf to manage employees for clients since 2021. The service allows HR to track employee engagement and handle employee reporting. Cooleaf allows me to send surveys, improve peer recognition, and offer rewards for staff. It integrates with other software that we use easily. Cooleaf has a fun interface that enables the HR team to keep track of important changes on the go.
There are sometimes issues with the mobile app sending push notifications. Cooleaf’s voucher program can be tedious to track if the employee does not use their points. The voucher system could use an update with more exciting redeemable options.
Cooleaf is a fun platform. The service is affordable and user friendly. Other platforms like Guusto have slightly better features and redeemable options.
How many employees need Cooleaf access? Do you have a remote staff and will any rewards be applicable in their location?
I have used Cooleaf since 2021 and since that time, they have improved their customer service response and engagement surveys.
Cooleaf is good for small-medium sized organizations that focus on employee engagement. It is a customizable service that can get expensive if you have budgetary constraints.
I would not recommend Cooleaf to large companies because the cost can increase as you expand but it is a solid service.
Awardco
Awardco helps you give thoughtful and personal reward programs to employees. Besides Amazon rewards, it features Bonus Boxes, digital MemoryBooks, and extensive redemption options, letting you appreciate people in creative ways.
PROS
- The platform is easy to use and navigate.
- It’s available in 16 languages.
- Awardco’s integration with Amazon gives employees a wide range of reward options redeemable in many countries.
- It can integrate easily with many popular tools including Slack, Teams, and Hubspot.
- Amazon Business integration, huge reward catalog for a multitude of countries.
- The platform is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Simplified Chinese.
CONS
- No free trial.
- Some users said that the prices for certain rewards are higher than retail prices.
- There have been complaints that reward delivery at times takes longer than expected.
- Actual pricing is not publicly available, so getting started won’t be a quick and self-service process like with other companies in the space.
- With Awardco, digital and physical gift cards are ineligible for refunds.
- Only Amazon-delivered products are available from Awardco. Goods sold by third-party vendors on Amazon are not available.
- The Awardco mobile app is only available as a Progressive Web Application, not from the App Store or Google Play, which might be less intuitive for some users.
Awardco helps you appreciate your people in unique ways. We’ve not seen other corporate rewards program 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.
Compared to Nectar, Awardco’s annual entry price is slightly lower — $2,500 vs. $4,000. However, some users we surveyed noted that certain reward items cost more than standard retail pricing, which can reduce perceived value. Additionally, while most redemptions are seamless, there have been occasional reports of delays in reward delivery.
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.
Best For
Awardco is an excellent choice for growing teams and multinational businesses looking for a powerful and flexible rewards and recognition program for employees.
We use Awardco for recognizing our employees for anniversaries with the company, birthdays. And personal anniversaries. We also allow supervisors to go in a recognize high performers.
- It keeps track of and sends gift cards for employee birthdays.
- It lets us supervisors highlight high performers.
- It makes employees feel recognized and us to gift them a small gift of appreciation.
Our office subscribed to Awardco to help with our retention issue. Although we had a good culture, talent is still hard to retain in this market and we wanted our employees to feel appreciated and want to continue working here.
There really is not much we dislike. This is the only service we have seen that’s been able to boost morale the way it has.
I am not sure of any competitors in this market
If you’re looking to boost employee moral this is a great tool and we have seen a big trend upward in our retention. We were hesitant at first to spend money on an award system but we are glad we did.
I’m not sure of any changes since we have started using it.
This is great for any company that has more than 30 or 40 employees and would like to recognize employees
Small business that you could easily track what Awardco tracks, or a company not wanting to spend money on employee recognition.
Bucketlist
With its vast experiential rewards catalog, easy fulfillment, collaborative team challenges, and more, Bucketlist boosts employee satisfaction and retention. The platform also offers dedicated support to help you optimize your incentive programs.
PROS
- Numerous rewards are available. Some users have even mentioned that it’s hard to pick one.
- Known for adding customer suggestions to its product roadmap and delivering on them.
- Web and mobile versions are easy to use.
- A pilot program is available.
- Available in English, Spanish, and French.
- The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate on both desktop and mobile.
- The platform supports customizable rewards and peer recognition tied to company values.
- Dedicated onboarding and account managers are provided with every plan.
- Recognition can be automated for milestones like birthdays and work anniversaries.
- Leaderboards and competitions help gamify employee performance and engagement.
- Bucketlist supports English, Spanish, and French for multilingual teams.
- Integrations are available with 80+ tools, including Slack, Teams, Outlook, and BambooHR.
CONS
- Rewards in the form of experiences are quite limited compared to cash rewards.
- Some users found shoutouts, tokens, and goal setup features challenging to use.
- Points redemption time can be length at times.
- Though intuitive, the platform's interface is less attractive and modern than some competitors.
- The experiential rewards catalog is limited compared to cash and gift card options.
- The shoutout interface lacks a back button when browsing GIFs.
- Setup and per-employee fees may be too costly for small organizations.
Bucketlist’s rewards and incentives platform has an extensive list of features you’d need to boost employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention. For starters, it features a comprehensive catalog of over 2,500 rewards employees can choose from, many of which are 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.
Despite the platform’s promise of variety, we found the available rewards centered around experiences notably limited compared to the breadth of cash and gift card options. We also heard feedback that features like shoutouts, token distribution, and goal setup could feel clunky or unintuitive. Finally, while the platform generally handles redemptions well, we experienced some delays in redeeming bucket points.
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.
Best For
Bucketlist is among the best employee experiential rewards platform options for medium to enterprise-size businesses (200 to 5,000+ employees).
It's mainly used for peer-to-peer recognition. We have, in the past, built in birthday and anniversary awards. The birthday and anniversary awards were programmed to apply automatically based on the date in the employee's profile. We have also used it for larger awards, such as holiday awards.
Employees have a lot of fun with Bucketlist. There are many fun recognitions they post on the feed. We like the flexibility to use it for company awards. If we need to reward an employee for an achievement, it gives us a way to do that quickly. We also like how it integrates with Slack.
We have had Bucketlist for about three years. We purchased it to reward and recognize employees. We wanted a system that allowed peers to reward peers, managers to reward employees, and the company to provide larger rewards (for anniversaries, birthdays, etc.).
The only con I see with Bucketlist is not directly related to the tool itself but to the nature of the rewards. The rewards need to be included in employee income, so we must download the transactions and apply them as imputed income on employee paychecks.
Since it’s taxable, we occasionally get questions from employees. We could resolve this by grossing up, but that would be an additional expense.
We have not used other tools for comparison. We have looked into alternatives but did not see significant differences, so we cannot provide a definitive comparison.
First, determine the budget you will allow for employee spending. The platform has a base cost, but the employee reward budget must also be considered to understand the total cost. Account for headcount changes. Consider how the income will be integrated into employee paychecks.
Bucketlist has added the Slack feature, additional award options, and more fun ways for employees to recognize each other.
I think Bucketlist is good for any organization.
There are none that I can think of. It is a fun way for peer, manager, and company recognition.
WorkTango
Employees can enjoy the freedom of choosing merchandise, gift cards, donations, and other custom rewards from WorkTango’s massive rewards catalog. The platform also ensures timely shoutouts for employee birthdays, work anniversaries, and other milestones via its robust automation features. with your business’ culture and core values.
PROS
- The majority of users find WorkTango to be intuitive and easy to use.
- Points can be redeemed for a wide variety of gift cards, prizes, and other reward options.
- Coworkers can publicly or privately recognize one another in any direction, with or without reward points. Public recognition is viewable company-wide in a social media-like activity feed.
- The platform’s automated recognition ensures timely shoutouts for employee birthdays, work anniversaries, and other milestones.
- WorkTango is available in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, German, and French, making it accessible to diverse users.
- Create custom incentives to reinforce your company’s objectives, programs, core values, or any positive actions that help your employees and your business succeed.
- The reporting and analytics dashboard gives you near real-time insights on how your efforts are faring.
- Unlimited surveys available in English, Spanish, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Korean.
- You can add modules as you go and these will be charged on a prorated basis.
CONS
- Billing can only be done annually.
- All plans require a minimum commitment of 12 months.
- Support turnaround could be improved.
- Free trials aren't available at this time.
- Billing is only done annually and all plans require a minimum agreement for a 24-month subscription (see our FAQs for more and their pricing page for full details).
- Several users have complained about the rewards redeeming process being not very intuitive.
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.
What impressed us most during our evaluations, though, was WorkTango’s automation features which helped give timely shoutouts for employees much more efficiently. 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.
That said, we wouldn’t recommend this employee rewards system to budget-minded teams. One big reason is because of this tool’s billing, which is only offered on an annual basis. No short-term pilots, no monthly payment.
Finally, some users we talked to shared their experience with the customer suggest team suggested opportunities for improvement, as in some of their requests weren’t followed through completely or lacked clear next steps.
Kia Motors, HUB International, Rexall, Accruent
WorkTango has custom pricing. Request a demo to learn more.
Best For
WorkTango works best for businesses with an automation-first culure, particularly those in tech, FSI, healthcare, and business services.
We used it for all employees to recognize each other for a job well done, birthdays, and anniversaries. HR would send birthday and anniversary recognition and other employees would comment wishing them well.
I liked that employees can recognize each other for accomplishments and a job well done. I like that employees can be recognized for their birthdays. I like that employees can be recognized for their anniversary each year.
We purchased WorkTango to build employee morale and encourage team building and recognition amongst peers. This is another way to provide positive reinforcement to our employees and encourage them to work hard and love what they do! I used it for 2 years.
Some employees would complain about the shop and being hard to navigate. We would receive feedback that employees didn't think it was super user-friendly. We had technical issues occasionally that would take a little while to resolve.
WorkTango is very similar to other programs out there. Not a lot of difference between the different ones I've used.
This is a great way to build morale and recognize employees. Employees love to be able to use their points towards items in the shop.
They have added unique features that make the overall experience more enjoyable.
WorkTango is good for companies that are looking for ways to recognize employees and build morale.
I think WorkTango is good for all companies that are interested in building morale.
Mo
With Mo, you can design and automate your employee rewards program with its easy-to-manage peer-to-peer appreciation, budget controls, and reporting functionalities.
PROS
- User-friendly UI with a wide range of gift card options.
- Transparent and reasonable pricing, no rewards fees.
- Available in twelve languages and growing.
- Free software onboarding and implementation support for all plan users.
- Mobile apps are available for both Android and iOS users.
- UI is easy to navigate, and users seem to appreciate the varied choice of gift cards they can offer through the platform.
- Transparent pricing starting from $2.25/user/month with no rewards fees.
- Free onboarding and implementation support for all users.
- Robust and feature-rich mobile applications.
- Available in 12 languages and growing.
CONS
- Mo no longer discloses its pricing.
- There is no free plan (but a free trial is available upon request.)
- Customer support is limited to weekdays, 9 AM - 5 PM GMT.
- The system sometimes sends several notification emails to uninvolved users.
- HRIS integration absent in Base plan. Possible implementation fee for Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations.
- The customer support hours are limited to weekdays, 9 AM - 5 PM GMT.
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.
That said, Mo’s pricing is not friendly towards budget-conscious teams, with no pricing transparency and no free plan. The one consolation, though, is that you can request the vendor to provide you with a free trial.
Regarding customer support, the service is good, but do bear in mind that it is limited to weekdays during UK business hours (9 a.m. – 5 p.m. GMT), which can be inconvenient for global or U.S.-based teams needing timely assistance. Additionally, we found the platform’s notification settings lacking refinement. As reported by verified users, Mo tends to send too many emails, including to those not directly involved in a recognition moment.
Mo has more than 100,000 users. Some top customers are SGN, The O2, NHS, Aspen, William Hill, and SHL.
Mo 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.
Best For
Mo works exceptionally well for distributed teams who want to connect and motivate employees within established internal communications platforms like MS Teams and Slack.
Vantage Circle
Vantage Circle offers a wide range of peer and manager rewards to boost engagement, with the flexibility to support global teams through localized redemption options in over 100 countries and in 16 languages.
PROS
- Vantage Circle features an excellent user interface that’s modern, clean, simple, and easy to navigate.
- There’s a wide selection of gift cards and shopping discounts to redeem points.
- The process for redeeming points for gift cards and vouchers is quick and straightforward.
- Users praise Vantage Circle’s support team for being quick to respond and resolve issues.
CONS
- There’s a learning curve due to the platform’s feature breadth. The clean and easy-to-navigate interface does make up for it though.
- The conversion rate of points to monetary rewards is low according to users.
- The mobile app can sometimes be slow or buggy. Reports include occasional technical issues with logging in or displaying points accurately.
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.
However, we agree with most users that parts of the platform’s admin dashboard could be more intuitive, particularly when navigating advanced analytics or configuring complex workflows. Although we appreciate the broad catalog, we couldn’t help but found certain regions like APAC have significantly fewer localized options, which could limit choice for employees in those areas.
Lastly, Vantage Circle surprisingly doesn’t integrate natively with as many HRMS or communication tools as some competitors, meaning more manual work or custom integrations might be needed.
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.
Best For
Companies of all sizes can benefit from Vantage Circle’s employee rewards and recognition offering. Generally though, the more employees you have, the more value you derive out of platforms of its kind.
- Sharing brand gift cards during birthdays and anniversaries.
- Allocating Vantage points for receiving client appreciation.
- Facilitating peer-to-peer appreciation for support.
- Sending meal gift cards on work anniversaries.
- Providing a platform for sharing feedback for managers.
- All our local brands are available in the gift card section.
- The platform operates extremely fast; gift cards are generated within seconds.
- Customer support is excellent; any issues we have are addressed promptly and with priority.
We were looking for a solution to appreciate our talent and provide them with necessary benefits and perks during remote work mode. Vantage Circle offers a complete solution that helps us celebrate our employees in remote and hybrid environments. We have the option to send gift cards for birthdays and have also implemented a points system where employees can accumulate points through appreciation and strong performance.
- We are still waiting for some Indian brands that we requested some time ago.
- Currently, there are no dine-out related offerings.
- We are also waiting for a joint team-based appreciation mechanism to be implemented.
Vantage Circle is more affordable compared to similar tools. The solutions are regionally customized, allowing us to deal in INR and engage with locally present brands. Additionally, the customer support team is exceptionally responsive and helpful.
Consider the need for employee appreciation in remote or hybrid work environments. Evaluate the presence of relevant brands for gift card options. Look into subscription plans; for example, Vantage Circle creates customized plans based on the number of users.
Not sure about the changes they made.
This tool is very suitable for organizations operating in remote or hybrid modes with globally distributed teams.
It may not be a good fit for small organizations where everyone is working from the office and direct, in-person appreciation is feasible.
AdvantageClub.ai
We picked AdvantageClub.ai because it has everything one would need for employee rewards and recognition in one place, so you can ditch the multiple apps and streamline your process with this easy-to-use platform. Plus, if you want to create a rewards program that matches your company culture, you can customize it with the thousands of redemption options this vendor offers.
PROS
- AI-powered messaging feature streamlines the process of giving and receiving recognition.
- Extensive global rewards marketplace with 10,000+ brands across 100+ countries.
- Flex-Benefits program allows employees to customize how they use perks.
- AI-driven engagement assistant (ADVA) nudges employees to stay active in recognition programs.
- Seamless integrations with HRMS, Slack, Teams, and Outlook for workflow automation.
- AI-powered messaging feature streamlines the process of giving and receiving recognition.
- Extensive global rewards marketplace with 10,000+ brands across 100+ countries.
- Flex-Benefits program allows employees to customize how they use perks.
- AI-driven engagement assistant (ADVA) nudges employees to stay active in recognition programs.
- Seamless integrations with HRMS, Slack, Teams, and Outlook for workflow automation.
CONS
- No public pricing. No self-service free trial.
- Instead of self-configuration, users may require additional support to leverage the power of analytics and dashboard features fully.
- No public pricing. No self-service free trial.
- Instead of self-configuration, users may require additional support to leverage the power of analytics and dashboard features fully.
For those who are here for an employee rewards and recognition system that allows you to customize and use AI and has thousands of global redemption options, we highly recommend AdvantageClub.ai. This platform’s global rewards marketplace boasts more than 10,000 brands in over 100 countries and counting. And just as importantly, the redemption process is easy and smooth.
We gave the redemption process a test by selecting a Walmart gift card from the U.S. marketplace. Within seconds, we received our digital gift card, ready for use. From there, we could redeem the earned points through the system’s peer recognition program for shopping, dining, experiences, and even wellness benefits.
We tested AdvantageClub.ai’s redemption process by choosing a Walmart gift card from the US market
The Amazon Marketplace integration also came out really nice. We could convert points directly into purchases across various product categories without any issues.
If you like to give employees more control over how they use their perks, the in-app Flex-Benefits program has options for medical benefits, wellness plans, and fitness memberships— all configurable.
The flexibility is extended to the employer’s side, too. Instead of being a plug-and-play solution, AdvantageClub.ai allows companies to custom-brand their rewards program, from logos and colors to customized award categories.
Within its admin dashboard, we could set up custom award approval workflows, manage budgets, and configure different recognition programs per department or region. The system also worked well when we used bulk uploads for award distribution, which can be very handy for those looking to roll out incentives at scale.
And "ADVA," the AI-driven engagement assistant, impressed us with the gentle nudges to keep employees involved without being too pushy about it. For example, it reminded us that we hadn’t recognized a colleague in two weeks and suggested sending an appreciation message. Similarly, for wellness incentives, it notified us when we had points to use for a health check-up.
One downside of AdvantageClub.ai, however, is that this vendor isn’t upfront about their pricing. Costs can change depending on where your team is based and what features you need, so a talk with their sales is a must to get a quote for your business. Also, unlike some competitors such as Guusto and Workstar, the rewards platform doesn’t offer a free trial.
1,000+ companies, including EY, Concentrix, TARGET, Hexaware, BCG, and Turner.
AdvantageClub.ai has custom pricing.
Best For
AdvantageClub.ai is ideal for large enterprises and mid-sized organizations looking for a highly flexible employee rewards and recognition platform with AI-driven automation and a global marketplace for perks and benefits.
Benefits of Corporate Rewards Programs
An effective employee reward program strengthens workplace engagement, boosts morale and HR efficiency, and reinforces company core values, all while cultivating a positive culture.
Improved Employee Engagement and Retention
With 77% of employees performing their best when engaged and appreciated, rewarding worker contributions has a tangible impact. That does not just stop at better staff performance; it also helps reduce turnover rates. Gallup found that organizations that prioritize rewards at work see a 56% decrease in the likelihood of employees seeking new job opportunities
You would also want to consider a program fostering peer-to-peer recognition, as recent data suggests that employees who feel recognized by their peers are five times more likely to feel valued and to invest in their work.
Increased Productivity and Innovation
Employee recognition statistics demonstrate that employees perform better and feel more motivated when their contributions are recognized. According to Gartner, a well-designed recognition program can lead to an 11.1% increase in average employee performance.
Also, when employees receive regular recognition, they are more likely to offer creative solutions and strive for higher performance. For instance, those recognized monthly are 36% more likely to report feeling productive and engaged compared to those recognized quarterly.
Higher HR Efficiency
Too often, HR professionals wear many hats and have multiple aspects they need to attend to, so any opportunity to streamline the processes should be seized. The best solutions have all manner of automation options to ensure that rewards programs are implemented consistently and fairly. These tools can automate everything from milestone celebrations, work anniversaries, and birthdays to onboarding—all in one user-friendly interface.
Strengthened Company Culture and Employer Brand
Implementing a well-planned rewards strategy with the help of employee rewards software is a surefire way to build positivity around your company brand.
Rewards don’t have to be financial, either: Plenty of well-known companies have received positive press coverage for the non-monetary incentives they offer to reward staff.
Employee Reward Software Pricing
Employee reward platforms are typically priced per employee per month or follow a marketplace pricing model.
Per Employee Per Month Pricing Model
A flat per-employee-per-month model is best suited to companies that regularly use the employee rewards platform, typically larger companies for whom paying by usage would be prohibitively expensive.
A typical per-employee-per-month pricing model for an employee reward system might look like this:
- Small teams (50 employees): expect around $350 on the very low end (lightweight tools or flat-fee plans) up to $7.5K for more feature-rich platforms.
- Mid-size orgs (250 employees): costs scale quickly, ranging from $1.6K to $22K annually.
- Large enterprises (1,000 employees): most per-seat pricing models land between $7K - $90K, unless you use a flat-fee plan (which can be as low as $2,500 - $4,000 annually).
With the marketplace model, customers pay a variable amount based on their use of the tool rather than a flat rate.
If you don't use the rewards software extensively during any given period, your costs stay low. This model works best for smaller companies that may not use the platforms enough to justify the flat monthly fee.
Here’s an illustrative example of a marketplace model fee structure for employee reward programs:
- 100 Employees: $40,000 annual spend x 18% fee = $7,200 vendor fee
- 1,000 Employees: $400,000 annual spend x 10% fee = $40,000 vendor fee
- 10,000 Employees: $4,000,000 annual spend x 6% fee = $240,000 vendor fee.
Types of Corporate Rewards (with Examples)
There are several ways for rewarding employees in the workplace, but generally, they all fall into two types:
- Monetary rewards are directly linked to an employee's performance, achievements, or contribution to the organization. Examples of monetary rewards for employees include bonuses that comprise a percentage of their salary, a commission on a sale, and a bonus allocated to reaching a specific metric target.
- Non-monetary rewards don’t involve direct financial compensation but aim to motivate and recognize individuals by gifting a specific item or experience. Some ideas for non-monetary rewards include an employee award title, peer nominations, an employee wellbeing program, paid days off to rest after hard work to celebrate a big achievement, and company-sponsored training opportunities that an employee wants to pursue.
You can use either one or both. The center point here is to ensure that the rewards initiatives (as well as the employee recognition programs) are: 1) meaningful to the recipients (your employees) and 2) aligned with your company values.
How to Set Up a Staff Reward System
Best practices for implementing a successful employee reward system include ensuring smooth integration with your HRIS, monitoring outcomes closely, encouraging feedback from employees, and securing management and employee buy-in at all stages.
- Integration: Accessing employee data already stored in an HRIS, for example, makes tracking progress toward goals much smoother, while a team-up with team collaboration tools like Slack is a hugely effective way to encourage engagement.
- Monitoring: Rather than set-and-forget systems, reward programs require regular monitoring and optimization to ensure that rewards for staff are distributed as intended. The work does take time and effort, but the return will be worth it.
- Encourage feedback: The more engaged the employees are in your reward program, the more on-target it is likely to be. So, involve your people in sharing their thoughts about the tech. They’ll be able to tell you exactly which rewards motivate them (aka what to focus on) and which ones they don’t care for (aka what to cut).
- Management buy-in: The more that management knows about the upsides (actual and potential) of the software that they have signed off on, the easier it will be to obtain approval for scaling it up or improving it in other ways.
FAQs
What is an employee rewards system?
An employee points reward system is a software tool that specializes in providing structured method for companies to offer rewards, such as cash, gifts, or non-monetary incentives, to employees for their service and positive behaviors. When effectively implemented, this type of software can motivate, attract, and retain top talent, and enhance employee performance.
How do I know if my team needs an employee rewards program?
A staff rewards system should be in place if you experience one of these circumstances with your team:
- Team members' productivity decreases significantly.
- Complaints become more frequent among workers.
- High employee turnover rates.
- Most engagement surveys and performance review answers suggest a need for better employee experience and retention.
You may also want to check out our experts' advice on what to consider before buying an employee rewards system to ensure success when exploring recognition solutions.
What companies have the best employee rewards programs?
Depending on each business’s needs and priorities, but according to our experts’ testing and evaluations, Nectar’s rewards feature set has always enriched every time we re-visited their site, Guusto’s employee recognition platform works so well for frontline employees, Vantage Circle is ideal for global teams, while Workstars is best for U.K.-based businesses.
What are the main benefits of employee rewards software?
Key benefits of employee rewards software include improved employee engagement and productivity, reduced employee turnover, better teamwork, plus the ability to build your work culture and automate various tasks to save time.
How much does an employee rewards program cost?
Many employee rewards platforms offer free trials. A basic rewards program for small businesses can start at as little as $1 per employee per month, while more comprehensive options can cost thousands of dollars or more, often with annual subscriptions required.
What are some examples of employee rewards?
Amazon gift cards, e-cards, and charitable donations are a few examples of employee rewards. However, rewards don’t have to be financial. Plenty of well-known companies have received positive press coverage for the non-monetary incentives they offer to reward employees.
What type of reward is effective for employees?
Rewards from managers are most memorable, but peer recognition is also essential. Non-monetary rewards such as thank-yous or personalized notes are often more meaningful, with 65% of employees preferring them over cash incentives.
How do companies motivate and reward employees?
Rewarding employees can come in different shapes and forms, but effective programs all have three things in common:
- They recognize employee contributions both publicly and privately.
- They balance out tangible and intangible rewards, and perhaps, most importantly,
- They are tailored to individual preferences.
Learn more: Ultimate guide and actionable tips for effective employee reward systems
How to implement an employee reward system?
To set up an effective employee reward system, you should:
- Set clear goals that define the behaviors and results you want to encourage.
- Gather employee input to make rewards fair, meaningful, and aligned with your culture.
- Design the program details, including reward types, frequency, budget, and tools.
- Communicate the program clearly so everyone knows how to earn rewards.
- Ensure fairness by creating a transparent system with equal opportunities for all.
- Keep the link between actions and rewards simple and direct.
- Deliver rewards quickly to reinforce positive behavior effectively.
- Review and update the program regularly based on employee feedback.
Final Advice on the Best Employee Rewards Programs
Last but not least, don’t forget to integrate your employee rewards and recognition tools with the rest of your HR tech stack (i.e., HRIS/HCM, employee engagement platforms, and performance management systems). Let that happen, and you will gain a more comprehensive grasp of your employee experience, which you can use to supercharge your organization's employee appreciation levels.
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