15 of 2024’s Best Employee Recognition Software Options

As companies seek ways to improve their workplace culture, creating and implementing a successful employee recognition program is at the top of their list. The backbone of a positive culture, employee recognition boosts employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention. In other words, when employees feel appreciated, they are more likely to create positive business outcomes. 

Much of a thriving company culture lies in how it recognizes employees. Therefore, it is imperative to use the best employee recognition software when creating your program. By selecting the right software, your organization can streamline acknowledging and rewarding your employees’ contributions. 

Because there are many different options available in the market, you might feel overwhelmed when selecting the right software for your company’s needs. Not to worry—we’ve compiled a list of 15 of the best employee recognition software options, highlighting their key features and pricing.

What is an Employee Recognition Platform?

An employee recognition platform is a powerful tool for fostering a culture of appreciation and acknowledgment within your organization. It’s the digital hub where managers and peers can publicly recognize and reward employees for their outstanding contributions and achievements.

These employee recognition platforms serve as a centralized system for recognizing and celebrating individual and team hard work, dedication, and accomplishments. It provides a structured framework for expressing gratitude, reinforcing positive behaviors, and boosting employee morale.

They typically offer a range of features, including peer-to-peer recognition, manager-led recognition, employee performance tracking, and employee reward systems. They may also include features for tracking employee milestones, work anniversaries, and other significant events.

Ultimately, an employee recognition platform creates a positive work environment where employees feel valued, motivated, and engaged. By investing in such a platform, organizations can strengthen employee retention, enhance productivity, and create a culture of appreciation.

Top 15 Employee Recognition Software Options

The goal of employee recognition software is to make implementing your program simpler. No program is one-size-fits-all because every company has a unique set of needs and budgets. Instead, as you look through this list, compare the company’s goals and needs with the features provided by each software. Doing so will help you identify which software will fit best.

Here are 15 of the best employee recognition software options in 2024:

1. Kudoboard

Kudoboard is an online platform that enables groups of people to recognize milestones and moments with digital greeting cards or messages. It offers a collaborative and interactive way to celebrate special occasions, express appreciation, or convey well-wishes to someone.

Kudoboard enhances your company culture by making employee recognition easy. Teams can give shouts outs, recognize work anniversaries, and engage with your brand—easily and simply. From team-level group cards to company-wide milestone celebrations, Kudobaord has you covered! 

Pricing: Single board pricing ranges from $5.99 to $19.99 per board. Plans specifically for businesses begin at $299 and can be customized to meet the unique needs of larger enterprises. 

Features: Kudoboard offers a unique approach to employee recognition through virtual “Kudoboards,” where team members collaborate to create authentic, personalized messages, photos, and videos to celebrate special occasions, milestones, or achievements. With features like customizable templates, content libraries, and advanced analytics, Kudoboard enhances team bonding and appreciation in a digital environment.

Additional features include:

• Custom branding
• Automation
• Integrations
• Engagement tools
• Crowd-funded gift cards
• Bulk Creation
• Book and Poster Prints
• Slideshow features

Read More: “12 Employee Recognition Boards to Boost Culture”

2. Bonusly

Bonusly builds culture and helps employees celebrate wins by delivering value through a point system. This software makes it easy and fun to celebrate colleagues when they go above and beyond by giving them rewards they can use in their lives.

Pricing: Starts at $3 per user per month.

Features: Bonusly helps employees to recognize their peers by giving points that they can redeem for rewards. It offers integrations with popular communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, making recognition seamless within existing workflows. Additionally, managers can use Bonusly to run quick surveys to measure employee recognition success in things like employee satisfaction.

3. Workhuman

Workhuman is a technology platform that looks to proves the value of recognition internally by helping teams celebrate work milestones, have conversations with HR, and gain rewards through points. Their employee engagement software is said to be backed by science and built by human connection.

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Features: Workhuman offers a global recognition platform that helps organizations connect employees through appreciation. They use social recognition, continuous feedback, and performance management, promoting a culture of gratitude and belonging. Additional features include:

• Actionable insights
• Innovative technology
• Integrations

4. Terryberry

Like others in the employee recognition space, Terryberry offers an all-in-one solution for engagement and wellbeing. Terryberry uses merchandise and custom rewards to help with employee engagement while also using wellness solutions and metrics to track impact. 

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Features: Based on the three principles of “engage,” “reward,” and “succeed,” Terryberry’s employee recognition software offers customizable recognition programs tailored to each organization’s unique culture and goals. It provides tools for peer-to-peer recognition, service awards, and performance recognition, fostering a culture of appreciation and engagement. 

5. Thrive Sparrow

Thrive Sparrow is an automated reward system that helps employees give points and peer-to-peer recognition. Their shout out and points systems create an org-wide leaderboard for top performers.

Pricing: The platform provides customizable programs, so contact for pricing

Features: Thrive Sparrow provides features such as peer rewards, recognition badges, and employee recognition walls. In addition, it includes analytics tools to track recognition trends, measure employee satisfaction, and identify areas for improvement. 

6. Achievers

According to their website, Achievers is a mobile and desktop engagement platform to recognize, engage, and get feedback from employees. It also creates a sense of connection by creating water cooler moments for employees.

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Features: Achievers is a robust employee recognition and rewards platform that helps organizations align employees with company values and goals. Its social recognition feed, pulse surveys, and performance analytics helps leaders create a culture of recognition and appreciation. In addition, the software can be used to pair employees together for “online coffee chats” to build connections.

7. WorkTango

WorkTango’s interface helps organizations engage and inspire employees with recognition tools and surveys. The platform looks to create an all-in-one employee experience package that both appreciates employees and offers insights.

Pricing: Request a Demo

Features: The platform offers various tools for employee recognition, including peer-to-peer recognition, manager-led recognition, and company-wide recognition programs. Their software allows you to run nominations and awards, automate anniversary and milestone celebrations, and create employee recognition walls. Work Tango’s robust analytics dashboard offers valuable insights into recognition trends, employee sentiment, and overall performance, helping leaders make data-driven decisions to enhance workplace culture and productivity. 

8. Guusto

A one-stop shop for all your recognition needs, Guusto is a recognition tool built with flexible rewards—from gift cards to company swag. It is designed for companies with both office and desk-less workers. 

Pricing: Plans are based upon who can send recognition and range from $0-$400

Features: Guusto provides similar features as other software programs but is unique in that rewards can be send to anyone, not just employe employees. Additionally, it provides flexibility to reach deskless workers with various delivery options. 

9. Reward Gateway

Reward Gateway is a system that focuses on the wellbeing of the employee. They offer standard employee recognition solutions, as well as discounts on everyday items and a communications platform. 

Pricing: Contact for pricing

Features: Reward Gateway’s employee engagement platform combines recognition, rewards, communications, and surveys to create a cohesive employee experience. Features like peer-to-peer recognition, social walls, and customizable rewards drive employee motivation and loyalty. In addition, the software can provide employee surveys, engagement indexes, and various employee discounts. 

10. Motivosity

Motivosity takes a more social approach to recognition by compiling shoutouts into a feed for team members to like and comment. They also offer surveys and insights to help you better understand your team.

Pricing: Recognition and rewards plans start at $4. However, to get accurate pricing, request a demo.

Features: Motivosity’s social recognition platform encourages peer-to-peer recognition, feedback, and collaboration. It offers features like recognition badges, team challenges, and analytics to drive engagement and enhance company culture. Some specific features include: 

• Social profiles
• Virtual Stores
• External giving
• Employee Appreciation feed
• Interest groups

11. Cooleaf

Cooleaf is designed to help companies recognize employees and build community with rewards programs and incentives. It also offers pulse surveys and integrations.

Pricing: Request a demo for pricing

Features: Cooleaf provides performance monitoring, analytics, appreciation programs, reward options, and surveys. It also offers multiple options to help remote teams succeed in their employee recognition programs. 

12. Recognize

The Recognize platform uses automated peer recognition, company surveys, and rewards to appreciate employees and reward them with gift cards. Recognize focuses on utilizing 150 business tools to appreciate employees. 

Pricing: Plans start at $3,999/year

Features: Recognize offers a flexible employee recognition platform that integrates with popular communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. It enables peer-to-peer recognition, rewards, and analytics, promoting a culture of recognition and engagement. eNPS are free to use with recognize. Additionally, it employs gamification features with or without monetary rewards to enhance social recognition.

13. Lattice

Lattice focuses on building a culture of feedback through public praise and celebrating each other’s wins. The platform also seeks to rally team praise around organizational goals.

Pricing: Request a demo for pricing

Features: Lattice software features individual and business goals, one-on-one tools, employee survey tools, performance reviews, analytics, feedback, and HRIS integrations. By consolidating performance features with employee recognition, praise can be directly tied to company values and goals. 

14. Awardco

Awardco’s purpose is to recognize hard work, celebrate service anniversaries, and offer easy rewards and incentives. Its software seeks to centralize your programs in one place while accessing an extensive global network for rewards. 

Pricing: Contact for Pricing

Features: The software allows you to build custom programs and catalogs for any occasion, from peer recognition to lifestyle spending accounts. It also gives you access to a reward network that includes hotels, events, and experiences while letting you automate each milestone celebration. 

15. Nectar

Nectar is an all-in-one recognition and reward platform that creates both peer-to-peer and top-down recognition. It aims to create a user-friendly interface that makes the experience seamless while integrating with other apps and platforms.

Pricing: Plans start at $2.75 per user per month with the option to create a custom plan.

Features: Nectar’s employee recognition platform empowers organizations to celebrate achievements, milestones, and behaviors aligned with company values by using features like employee recognition walls, shout-out boards, reward catalogs, and challenges. Additionally, it offers analytics and integration with other apps and tools. 

Benefits of Using an Employee Recognition Software

Planning out how to praise, appreciate, and celebrate your employees can seem overwhelming. Not only will you need to create the program, but you will also need to manage and maintain it. This is where recognition software comes in. By using employee recognition software, you make workplace appreciation easier. 

The right software provides a place for employees to learn about and participate in the programs and initiatives you start. In other words, it outlines different ways to recognize each other, making the process easier for both employees and the organization. 

Other benefits include:

• Accessible Analytics: Without dedicated software, tracking and analyzing the program’s success becomes time-consuming and difficult. The software allows for that process to be automated. 
• Better for Remote and Hybrid Workplaces: When software is used, your workplace can participate regardless of its location. This will make the workplace recognition experience uniform across locations.  
• Rewards Are Immediate: Not only can they help facilitate timely appreciation, but many of the software options listed above provide a point-based reward option or gift card system that employees can use immediately to purchase something for themselves. The instantaneous nature of this gives a more significant impact to the recognition than waiting for a period of time to be acknowledged. 
• Less Time Commitment: Instead of spending hours brainstorming and creating reward programs, recognition software allows for human resource members and managers to use established and proven programs without the additional maintenance hours. In addition, most of these programs provide customization options for when leaders have unique recognition ideas. 

Read more: “13 Benefits of Employee Recognition”

Investing in Employee Recognition Software Leads to Success

Investing in employee recognition software is essential for organizations looking to enhance employee engagement, boost morale, and drive performance. Choosing the right software that aligns with your company culture and goals can create a positive work environment where employees feel valued and motivated to excel. 

Whether you prioritize peer-to-peer recognition, rewards, or performance analytics, the above options offer a range of features to meet your organization’s needs. Explore these top employee recognition software solutions to take the first step toward building a culture of appreciation and recognition.