The short answer is “absolutely.”
Brace yourself for a list of questions:
How many times did you provide valuable recognition, let’s say, 2 months ago?
How many employees did you recognize?
How many employees recognize one another on a regular basis?
Does this recognition impact your mission or revenue?
Employee recognition software can help you answer these questions. We know you’re wonderful at making employees feel valued, but expertly designed software can help make your feedback more strategic, consistent, and measurable.
What is employee recognition software?
Employee recognition software programs are the technology that helps you manage abstract human concepts—like employee satisfaction and relationships—with as much purpose and efficiency as you use to manage project deadlines and sales goals.
In the hands of thoughtful peers and managers, employee recognition software can enhance your company culture .
Luckily, there are plenty of employee recognition software options out there. We made this roundup of reward programs to help you find one appropriate for your team, your goals, and your budget. Keep browsing our list of employee recognition apps to take the first step in optimizing your workplace culture.
Best Employee Reward Programs And Recognition Software In 2023
1) Nectar
Best for: Teams of 50 – 2,000
Nectar helps organizations celebrate great work – anytime, anywhere. Its top-rated 360 recognition & rewards platform for companies enables every team member (peer to peer & manager to employees alike) to send meaningful recognition rooted in core values. Streamline your incentives and maintain a connected culture regardless of whether your workforce is centralized or distributed.
Schedule Your Nectar Demo
Why we love it: It’s very intuitive and is known for having the most extensive rewards selection including Amazon products, company swag, gift cards, and donation options. Best suited for teams of 50 to 2,000 .
Standout features:
Connect Slack, Microsoft Teams, and your other software to increase engagement and make recognition easier than ever! Also integrates with your HRIS/HCM and SSO provider
Create a custom swag storefront as a reward option. Swag is “on-demand” and shipped directly to the end-user once ordered with zero admin overhead
Recently partnered with Amazon Business to offer millions of rewards with quick shipping.
Incorporate wellness initiatives or challenges that reward employees for participating
Notable companies using Nectar:
SHRM
MLB
Heineken
Teachable
Redfin
Pricing options:
Standard: $2.75 per user/month
Plus: $4.00 per user/month
No contracts or implementation fees
Visit here for more details
One happy user wrote the following review on G2.com :
“Not only does Nectar encourage employees to do better, but it also encourages employees to show their gratitude, creating a team-based culture where hard work is noticed. It also is a way to get some insight into who is working together and what hard work is being done throughout departments that I didn’t much about before.”
2) Assembly
Best for: Teams of 10 – 2,000
Assembly is a peer-to-peer employee recognition, rewards, and engagement software that’s designed to boost internal culture and retention. Assembly has helped thousands of companies achieve 95% employee engagement through fun and seamless workflows. Assembly works great for teams of all sizes and is FREE for up to 10 users.
Why we love it: It “closes the recognition loop,” making something everyone wants to do into something everyone can easily do.
Standout features:
An extensive catalog of rewards with gift cards, custom swag, culture rewards, and charity donations
Powerful additional engagement features such as 1:1’s, surveys, games and icebreakers, employee nominations, and more (all of which are included in the cost of the platform)
Automated birthday and anniversary celebrations
Seamless integration into Slack (with its own Slack recognition app ) and Microsoft teams as well as 40+ Hris integrations (ADP, BambooHR, Ceridian, Workday, Zenefits, Rippling, UKG, and many more)
Notable companies using Assembly:
FTD
Coca-Cola
Pods
Stubhub
Harry & David
Pricing options:
Free forever until 10 employees
Team: $2.80/mo/seat
Business: $4.50/mo/seat
Talk to Assembly for additional details
One pleased participant loves creating unique awards and animated gifs. Here’s the full review from G2.com :
“This program is so much fun for the team. I searched for an affordable way to build team morale through awards and peer/manager recognition, with rewards the team would want. It’s fun to watch the team interact with each other and give kudos to their teammates. It’s really made a huge impact on the the relationship building with our employees.”
3) Bonusly
Best for: Teams of 50 – 10,000
Bonusly is an online platform for rewarding, recognizing, and generally celebrating awesome employees. It enables everyone to recognize anyone. Peers can recognize each other, managers can recognize direct reports, and so on and so forth. (The good vibes are basically endless.)
Why we love it: It makes recognition fast and legitimately fun for everyone.
Standout features:
Social features make recognition visual and interesting
Analytics point out team members’ strengths
Monthly allowance features ensure everyone can give recognition
Automate birthday and work anniversary celebrations
Let employees choose their own rewards
Notable companies using Bonusly:
Chobani
Headspace
ZipRecruiter
Gilt
TripIt
Pricing options:
Request a demo to get custom pricing and a free trial
One happy user wrote the following review on G2.com :
“The opportunities that employees have to recognize their peers for various ways that they have gone above and beyond has been invaluable to the morale of the company! Morale and camaraderie have increased significantly.”
4) Kazoo
Best for: Teams of 100 – 250
Kazoo is the all-in-one employee experience platform that connects employee recognition and rewards with continuous performance management to create an amazing employee experience. By bringing Recognition, Rewards, Incentives, Goals & OKRs, Conversations, and Feedback into one place, Kazoo motivates employees to grow and develop — and love doing it.
Why we love it: It makes appreciation, continuous feedback, and growth part of day-to-day work — not something restricted to annual performance reviews.
Standout features:
Real-time employee recognition feed drives morale and connection
Global Rewards catalog offers meaningful rewards for everyone
Trackable, stackable goals keep teams aligned and productive
Insights help managers make data-driven decisions
Notable companies using Kazoo:
Habitat for Humanity
Hitachi
Kia
Kaiser Permanente
Meredith
Pricing options:
Growth (100-250 employees): Starting at $5.00 monthly per employee
Standard (250-1,000 employees): Starting at $4.25 monthly per employee
Enterprise (1,000+ employees): Customizable solution that scales to your company’s needs
Visit the Kazoo pricing page for details on different plan options and volume discounts
In a review posted on G2.com , one customer says peer-to-peer recognition can even lead to supervisor recognition:
“I enjoy the conversations that are started by recognizing fellow employees. It’s nice to be able to bring to light that you appreciate them, but also to show to their Supervisors, as well!”
5) Motivosity
Best for: Teams of 10 – 500
Motivosity aims to maximize the net benefit of recognition by linking it to specific goals and performance. Teams of all sizes have found this goal-centric approach to boost productivity, engagement, and retention .
Why we love it: It keeps morale and engagement high as employees receive peer recognition that’s meaningful to their priority goals.
Standout features:
Personal culture coach
Remote team training
Customized dashboards for tracking success
Feedback requests empower employees to seek input on key issues
Notable companies using Motivosity:
Chick-fil-A
Cotopaxi
Fujifilm
University of Michigan
Adobe
Pricing options: Request more information on Motivosity’s page for employee recognition
What users say about Motivosity:
“Motivosity allows the people in my department to give and receive thanks/recognition for individual and group contributions. It’s a versatile tool. I like how my organization has been able to tweak the user interface so that we can offer kudos according to our six company values (Service, Professionalism, Leadership, Innovation, Community, and Excellence). I like the Badges capability, although we don’t use it as much as we could. The Interests and Personality widgets add a even more usefulness. I also appreciate the option to send the recognition in a public or private message.”
6) Bucketlist
Best for: Teams of 100 – 1000
Bucketlist is a reward program for businesses looking to craft their company culture around rewards that employees will connect with. Rather than offering just one type of reward via gifts, redeemable points, or experiences — Bucketlist is committed to offering a variety of awards to help employees feel great about their contribution to the company.
Why we love it: Their commitment to strengthening the connection between recognition and employee retention. In today’s work landscape, employee retention tools need to offer rewards that employees actually want. Not just cookie-cutter options that don’t have much value.
Standout features:
Customizable rewards make it easy to add unique options for employees. Create and share these rewards with employees with ideas like “take a Friday off” and “Lunch on the company.”
They also operate a productivity tool that can help to motivate using team and individual rewards
Setting team goals is easy and can help boost company morale when teams set and reach goals together
Notable companies using Bucketlist:
Orlando Magic
Chick-fil-A
Royal Bank of Canada
BuildDirect
Pricing options:
Offers a free trial
Request a demo to find more accurate pricing
One happy user wrote the following review :
“Its amazing for getting to know the people within our organization and providing us with opportunities to reward them with what matter to them. We’ve been able to support our team members with stuff thats meaningful to them. Everything from travel, singing lessons, whale watching, volunteering and many things in-between. I find it much more fulfilling that giving someone a coffee card or something like that (although we still do those).”
7) Awardco
Best for: Teams of 100+
Awardco offers a huge selection of employee rewards designed to make recognition, appreciation, and celebration a staple of your company culture. They also created a seamless integration with Amazon Business which means the potential employee rewards will make your head spin. Perfect for finding that right gift or experience based on your individual employees’ interests.
Why we love it: Their reward network is vast and they make it easy to customize your reward program based on your budget, your company culture, and what matters most to your employees.
Standout features:
Incentivizes employees by letting them earn points by contributing to your organization in new ways
Employees choose their own awards from the world’s largest reward platform
Automates birthdays, service awards, and other milestones with rewards
Notable companies using Awardco:
Zillow
JP Morgan Chase
Pricing options: Contact Awardco for details
One user was particularly impressed with Awardco’s variety and ease of use:
“Awardco is the perfect platform for our employee recognition program. It supports our unique employee culture and community.”
8) Mo
Best for: Teams of 50 – 2,500
Mo has created an online platform that promotes a recognition-rich culture through the development of team habits, encouraging people to celebrate successes, and appreciate coworkers. With tons of customizable features, you can build the recognition program that bests fits your organization.
Instead of tying recognition directly to extrinsic perks, points, or vouchers — Mo encourages employees to recognize one another in social posts called ‘Moments.’ You can use Mo with or without their rewards option, which enables culture leaders to elevate recognition Moments with personalized gifts, experiences, and opportunities for peer-to-peer engagement.
Why we love it: It’s designed for easy adoption so that employees can jump in on their first day and see all of the positivity being shared – whether it’s thank yous, results, or even pictures of pets. Plus, on the back end of the platform — the reporting can help identify areas of strength and weakness at your company.
Standout features:
“Boosts” is a new functionality that nudges teams to share and celebrate recognition opportunities that align with your goals, forming game-changing new habits over time. Use one of their Boost templates (like ‘Weekly wins’ or ‘Team appreciation’), or create your own.
Everyone has a vibrant personal profile on Mo, where they can share working preferences, hobbies, and interests. Pin your favorite Moments to your personal highlights reel.
Mo encourages HR and culture leaders to gather ideas directly from colleagues to improve company culture, make company-wide decisions, and work better together.
Notable companies using Mo Work:
SHL
OVO Energy
William Hill
Interstate Hotels
Pricing options:
Starter plan starts at $4 per user per month
Level Up starts at $5 per user per month
Book a demo to learn more about custom pricing
One satisfied customer wrote the following review on Capterra :
“It has become the pivotal tool in driving and developing the culture we’re trying to build. It has allowed me to deliver so much more than I could before and offer a much greater employee experience because of its functionality. It was able to absorb all previous schemes we had in place whilst offering a wealth of new ones at the same time and it’s made my life so much easier.”
9) Guusto
Best for: Teams of 200+
As a top-rated employee recognition software on G2 and Capterra, Guusto helps leaders to recognize great work and shape amazing culture through modern service awards and real-time recognition programs. Companies can assign budgets, send gift cards, and track all gifting initiatives from a helpful command center to support frontline and office staff. Guusto also partners with the One Drop Foundation to donate one day of clean drinking water for every gift sent!
Why we love it: It’s a gift-based recognition program that offers global reward options in 160+ countries that you know will align with employee interests. That means Guusto is not a points program. All the gifts within the platform are real dollar value with no minimums, markups, shipping, or hidden fees.
Standout features:
Send rewards with the pay-forward feature empowers recipients to pass a gift to someone else
Claim periods allow companies to recoup expenses for unused gifts
Recipients choose a gift they truly value from over 60,000 merchant locations
Notable companies using Guusto:
Harvard University
Marriot
Toronto Raptors
Pricing options:
Free: Single users just pay for rewards!
Essential: Starts from $2.25 USD per member/month
Premium: Starts from $3.50 USD per member/month
Visit the Guusto pricing page for details
Customers posting on G2.com love how easy Guusto is. Check out this glowing review:
“How easy it is to use !
