Updated November, 2018
Before launching your competition it is important you select a giveaway or contest app that can produce the most social engagement, traffic and ultimately entries. Brainstorming ideas for contests go hand in hand with selecting the perfect tool that suits your ideals. Everyone needs their giveaway, contest or sweepstakes to achieve different goals and would like to target all or some social networks. Your best bet of making it a huge success depends on your ability to make your contest go viral. Below we compared how the top giveaway and contest tools stack up socially and which app has the most potential.
Comparing Social Engagement: Rafflecopter vs Gleam vs Kingsumo vs SweepWidget vs Giveaway Tools vs GiveawayFrenzy vs ViralSweep vs Promosimple
The giveaway apps we compared in the table below are best suited for bloggers, online businesses, and people looking to grow their fan-base or brand. We spent hours testing each one to determine which app can help your giveaway achieve it’s goal. Before you submit and promote your giveaway you are going to want to make sure you review the results in the table below so you get the most out of it.
Note: Prices and features of these giveaway apps are always changing, if you represent a company not listed or would like to request a change feel free to contact us.
According to the chart Rafflecopter, Gleam, SweepWidget, Kingsumo, Promosimple, ViralSweep and GiveawayTools all have free versions that gives the option for people to visit your Facebook Fanpage, Tweet or Follow you on Twitter before entering. The rest of the data reveals just how diverse they are as far as which social networks their widgets support. All of them have a free Facebook app that allow you to host your contest directly on your Facebook page tab.
It is up to you to determine which one will help you achieve your goal. Many authors use Kingsumo because of it’s integration with WordPress and it’s ease-of-use. Your average blogger or business may like the others because of the design or features. These are what we believe to be the top 6 apps to create giveaways. None of them are perfect although Gleam and SweepWidget support the most social networks and features by far!
Tip: Social features may be the point of launching your giveaway in the first place but there are other thing you should know before making your decision. Some of these tools do not allow you to export data or have access to other features like newsletter subscription without upgrading. Most important look to see if the giveaway app is best suited for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or whatever social media you are trying to target with your competition.
Giveaway Apps We Like!
As of 2015 Gleam has become a favorite among many businesses hosting blog giveaways. It has a great look and feel and outperforms any other giveaway app in the market by far! Gleam also allows you to incentivize fans and users by downloading or engaging in your content. The free version includes data export, viral sharing features, newsletter subscription and email integration which most of their competitors do not offer without upgrading. This is one of the most sophisticated giveaway forms available today and is one to check out before you launch your next competition.
SweepWidget is one of the latest entries in the giveaway app market. It has an enormous amount of features and integrations which puts it up at the top with Gleam and Rafflecopter. They have a free version as well as paid versions with added features. We have used them for our most recent giveaways and are very pleased with this app.
Rafflecopter
Rafflecopter is the only other tool we have used in the past few years to launch giveaways. It is very simple and has many of the same features a Gleam and SweepWidget. As I have mentioned every giveaway is unique. Sometimes you just want to go with something quick, easy, and efficient. This is why Rafflecopter is still very popular and one of our favorites.
Comparing Contest Apps: Heyo vs Woobox vs Wishpond vs Shortstack vs Strutta vs Upviral
The contest apps we included in the table below are more popular among businesses and brands for running sweepstakes, competitions, offering coupons, group deals, instant win and other viral contests. These types of incentive marketing platforms are used by larger companies to create viral attention centered around their brand. We only included features we believe are most important, feel free to click on each website and compare for yourself.
Note: Prices and features of these contest apps are always changing, if you represent a company not listed or would like to request a change feel free to contact us.
According to the chart above Heyo, Woobox, Wishpond, Strutta, Upviral and Shortstack all allow you to run beautiful video and photo competitions on Facebook. All of these platforms are more focused on branding offering much better design and customization around your brand then the previous apps we’ve already shared. They are much better for brands looking to create a specific type of contest or sweepstakes. We did not include HelloWorld, the premier sweepstakes app formerly known as ePrize because they do not list their prices or features. If your budget is in the tens of thousands we suggest checking them out and they will build your competition from scratch and even promote it for you.
Tip: Compare what you get for your money because many in this niche have the same features. A lot of these contest marketing platforms limit how many people can enter. They can also be difficult setting up campaigns for new users so we suggest contacting each company and testing it out for yourself before purchasing.
Contest Apps We Like!
Another contest app I’d recommend is Heyo, because it is super easy to set up and create your campaign. Heyo is also fully mobile responsive. This is great because now there are more people entering contests from their phone than their computer. This platform has a lot of the same features as their competitors for a fraction of the cost. For that reason, we find it to be a good alternative to Woobox. Not only will you have a beautiful looking contest, but also all the features that will allow you to build your email list from social media followers and other fans!
You May not Have to Find a Rafflecopter Alternative After All!
Using our Social Fan Giveaway App with any of the top giveaway tools to run your giveaway can help you save money. It can be used to compensate for some of the social networks your giveaway widgets do not support. For best results we suggest using Rafflecopter along with our giveaway app. GiveawayFrenzy cannot select winners at this time so it is more of an add-on and you must use in conjunction with your preferred giveaway app. You also get a free-listing on GiveawayFrenzy!
Increasing Viral Potential Using our Giveaway App!
When you submit your giveaway to our site, you can upgrade your listing to include our Social Fan Feature. This will require people entering your giveaway to share it before they can enter. So you will receive even more promotion for your giveaway on top of whatever features your giveaway app already has. The chart below shows how certain giveaways using our Social Fan App have performed over a period of just 2 weeks from our site alone! As you can see the top result had over 176 total social interactions: 76 Fan Page Likes, 17 Facebook Shares, 28 Tweets, 23 Twitter Followers, and 32 Google+.
