17 top employee recognition software for 2024
Employee recognition shouldn’t be about making a grandiose show of gratitude once a year and calling it a day. To establish a transparent, healthy, and scalable recognition culture, employee wins and actions must be recognized on a continual basis.
79% of US employees cite underappreciation as their main reason for quitting their jobs. And employee recognition software helps companies establish scalable recognition and compensation systems and invest in the growth of their workforce.
That’s why we’ll discuss the benefits of employee recognition software and introduce some of the top tools that can help you find the best solution for your needs.*
*The information below is based on our research from July to September 2022. All user feedback referenced in the text has been sourced from independent software review platforms such as G2 and Capterra in December 2022
Pricing starts at US$8/month per user. Free trial available.
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Paid plans start at US$2.80 per month.
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Pricing starts at US$3/month per user (billed monthly).
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Pricing starts at US$5/month per user.
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Paid plans start at US$2.25/month per user.
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Full suite pricing is US$8.80/month per user.
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Pricing starts at US$2.75/month per user.
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Pricing starts at US$3.50/month per user.
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Benefits of employee recognition platforms
The main goal of employee recognition software is to assist managers and leaders in celebrating employees, improving engagement, and making data-driven decisions to build scalable compensation and promotion processes.
Some other advantages of using employee recognition software include:
Higher employee retention
Keep talent at your company for the long haul by showing appreciation, celebrating wins, and supporting their development.
Enhanced performance
Ensuring your employees are heard and supported creates a sense of community and boosts overall performance.
Improved engagement
Putting employee recognition at the forefront of your company culture creates greater levels of trust and improves engagement.
Celebrate your employees with more than gift cards
Build a recognition culture that drives employee engagement, retention, and morale with Leapsome.
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1. Leapsome
Leapsome’s holistic, all-in-one people enablement solution bridges the gap between employee engagement, learning, goal setting, rewards, and performance management.
The software’s modular design makes it a solution that evolves with you as your business grows. Combining all these features allows people ops leaders to create a continuous and sustainable cycle of employee development and company growth — all while celebrating success in the workplace.
Notable features
- Public praise
- Private feedback
- Anonymous feedback conversations
- Actionable feedback analytics
- Sentiment analysis
- Personalized employee engagement action plans
- 1:1s and team meetings for continuous development
- Compensation and promotion tools
- Customizable compensation review templates
- Transparent promotion workflows
- Learning features
- Employee engagement surveys
- Competency frameworks
- SSO and encryption features
- ISO 27001 compliance
- Multilingual interface
Through the platform’s wide array of interconnected features, Leapsome works to increase employee engagement, facilitate continuous conversation and development, and give workers a sense of belonging and fulfillment, leading to better productivity and performance.
You can outline employee and peer wins through instant and continuous feedback and provide more in-depth evaluations based on predefined competencies and company values.
You can also celebrate your people’s strengths and wins with Leapsome’s Praise Wall. Our Praise Wall shows several pieces of praise at any given time, so each person gets the spotlight they deserve.
Leapsome’s integrations with communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams also allow you to share praise with your entire team immediately. This encourages employee visibility and motivates team members to praise one another even more (and a Praise Wall is also a great way to engage your remote employees!)
Another way to recognize your people is by collecting feedback and gauging their motivations, frustrations, and engagement levels with an employee engagement questionnaire. You can then use Leapsome’s advanced analytics and expert insights to create action plans that improve satisfaction and reduce turnover.
Finally, Leapsome enables managers to make informed, people-focused decisions based on relevant performance and engagement data. You can create flexible templates and custom rules for promotion reviews and easily track employee career development. Build automated workflows to identify your promotion-ready talent based on core performance and engagement data and streamline promotion processes.
And if you’re ever struggling with boosting employee engagement and are looking for employee engagement survey questions, Leapsome has many educational resources — like a Knowledge Hub, a blog, and a podcast that can provide useful tips and information for many different parts of your organization. Finally, our award-winning Customer Success team is there to ensure your success through a dedicated account manager, regular check-ins, and hosting recurrent webinars!
- Modular approach that supports the entire employee lifecycle
- Recognition tools that go beyond gift cards
- Consistently growing and adding new features and improvements
- Reportedly user-friendly and intuitive with high level of customization
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- Leapsome offers a range of functionality and might require some initial training
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“Before Leapsome, we were using three separate tools, lots of spreadsheets, and manually tracking data. Now, everything is in one place — in a readable, visually appealing, easy-to-use tool.
It helps us engage employees in our performance management and recognition cycles, gives managers more control over their 1:1s, and lets us create and monitor our company goals. It’s the complete package!”
Sebastian Ibarra
2. Assembly
Assembly is a workplace engagement and productivity tool that supports teams through workflows for employee engagement surveys, employee nominations, and weekly check-ins.
Notable features
- Reporting and analytics
- Workflow automation templates
- Helpful news feed
Another one of Assembly’s highlights is its engagement templates that help streamline employee and peer recognition. For example, HR managers can use the employee nominations template to prompt staff members to shout someone out for a job well done.
- Slack and Microsoft Teams integration
- straightforward UI
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- Reportedly the software can be quite slow
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3. Bonusly
Bonusly is an employee recognition tool that seeks to empower managers and improve employee engagement by encouraging teams to run award and incentive programs, including spot bonuses, wellness initiatives, and milestone celebrations.
The tool’s recognition feed brings visibility to employee successes and encourages internal communication by allowing team members to shout out each other’s wins and gift points that can be redeemed later for apparel, charitable donations, or custom company rewards.
Notable features
- Reporting and analytics
- Social feed
Employees can use specific hashtags aligned with their company values to make their recognition posts stand out.
- Easy-to-use, shallow learning curve
- Wide variety of cash-out options (Amazon,Uber, etc.)
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- Reportedly some features are not very intuitive
- User find that the allotted number of points they can give away is highly limited
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4. Cooleaf
Cooleaf is an employee engagement software specializing in higher education, tech, and healthcare industries. Its rewards tool allows employees to align recognition with their company’s core values and instantly recognize peers for going above and beyond.
Notable features
- Analytics
- Automatic work anniversary rewards
- Integrated social feed
- Customizable rewards and perks
With Cooleaf, organizations can create company stores from scratch. That means managers can reward new and existing employees with company merchandise without having to deal with inventory storage or shipping.
- User-friendly
- Gamification aspect make it an engaging product
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- Only allows points for one recognition a day
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5. Engagedly
Engagedly is primarily a performance management and employee engagement platform that serves industries from healthcare to financial services.
Notable features
- Gamification
- Badges
- Public praise
The Engage pillar gamifies employee recognition through point distribution and public praise.
- Straightforward UI
- Reportedly good customer support
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- Heavily focused on OKR management and surveys so might feel to light on the recognition capabilities
- Reportedly some issues with bugs
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6. Fond
Fond is an employee recognition platform that offers two key products: Fond Rewards and Fond Perks. Employees can share their rewards and perks with a limited number of family members or friends, as well as redeem and reward on the go.
Notable features
- Social feed
- Company-specific rewards and perks
- Corporate discounts
Employees and managers can take advantage of Fond’s corporate discount platform, Fond Perks, and access discounts for numerous popular products and services. Fond also takes care of negotiating with local vendors to get discounts for your employees.
- User-friendly design
- Variety of features
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- Reportedly users feel limited with the amount of points they can give out
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7. Guusto
Guusto is an employee recognition platform with two main pillars: Employee Recognition and Customer Rewards and Incentives. This platform differentiates itself by partnering with the One Drop Foundation and donating one day of clean drinking water for every Guusto gift sent.
Notable features
- Customer rewards program
- Social feed
- Peer-to-peer shoutouts
- Employee leaderboards
In addition to its employee recognition program, Guusto allows managers to retain clients and build loyalty through the software’s customer rewards program.
- Relatively customizable
- wide variety of merchants to choose from
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- Reportedly platform is complicated for non-tech-savvy employees
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8. Kudos
Kudos is an employee recognition platform that streamlines peer-to-peer recognition through a social intranet, a points and rewards system, and peer awards and nominations. The platform allows employees to recognize each other based on behaviors and qualities that align with their company culture, like “timely,” “attentive,” and “accountable.”
Notable features
- Culture and people analytics
- Spaces and galleries to showcase company moments and memories
- Employees can share memories, celebrate their peers’ hard work, and recognize each other’s wins.
- user-friendly and simple to navigate
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- relatively low value of points (one point = 10 cents) users need to acumulate a large number of points before they can redeem them for meaningful rewards
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9. Motivosity
Motivosity is a peer recognition software solution that’s broken down into four main modules: Connect, Recognize, Lead, and Listen. The Recognize module lets managers celebrate employees for successes and milestones through rewards and recognitions like gift cards and spot bonuses. Motivosity also enhances company culture by streamlining peer-to-peer recognition.
Notable features
- Social feed
- Peer-to-peer appreciation
- Spot bonuses
- Milestone tracker
- Customizable store
Managers can also align rewards with their company’s core values and recognize employees for contributing to their workplace culture.
- modular pricing
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- Reportedly steep learning curve
- Users report glitches especially when logging in
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10. Nectar
Nectar is a 360 rewards and recognition platform that offers four main products: Recognition, Rewards, Milestones, and Challenges.
The Rewards module provides employees with exclusive discounts and allows them to redeem their points by donating to charities, purchasing custom company merchandise, or buying gift cards to popular brands and stores.
Notable features
- Corporate discounts
- Peer-to-peer recognition points
- Automated milestone awards and reminders
Nectar’s Challenges module helps incentivize employees to take part in wellness activities and company initiatives. For example, employees can earn 50 points for completing a 10,000-step challenge.
- Suitable for hybrid and remote teams
- Easy to use
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- Limited number of allocated points hold user back
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11. Officevibe
Officevibe is an employee experience platform that combines employee recognition with products like Engagement, Alignment, and Team Leadership, adopting a young and aesthetically pleasing UI.
Notable features
- Good Vibes recognition tool
- Recognition reports
- Fun interface.
- Straightforward and easy to use
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- Only offers a simple recognition tool with corresponding analytics
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12. Plai
Plai is a people and performance management software that aims to increase employee recognition and engagement through OKR management, performance reviews, 1:1s, and praise.
Notable features
- Public praise aligned with company values
- Slack integration for improved employee engagement
- Leaderboard feature
Employees can share timely recognition and engage in healthy competition with a leaderboard that rates users based on top praise givers and receivers, as well as top performers.
- Straightforward, modern interface
- Reportedly good customer service
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- Relatively young product
- Very few user reviews
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13. Quantum Workplace
Quantum Workplace is a performance management software that’s divided into three pillars: Engagement, Performance, and Intelligence.
The Performance module motivates employees and managers through goal planning, 1:1s, talent reviews, and real-time employee recognition.
Notable features
- Social feed
- Recognition analytics
Users can visualize and report on recognition results in real-time with a simple dashboard that helps managers understand how frequently it happens and which core values are highlighted most often.
- Easy to understand and navigate
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- Praise categories aren't very customizable
- Analytics are reportedly quite basic
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14. Tap My Back
Tap My Back is an employee engagement platform that aims to enable HR managers and team leaders to build more engaged teams. Its recognition product is intended to motivate team members with rewards and recognition functions like peer-to-peer recognition and instant feedback.
Notable features
- Public praise and “Taps”
- News feed with a mood tracking feature
- A rewards system
- Recognition analytics
Employees can celebrate their colleagues by giving “Taps” based on organizationally aligned values — e.g., “creative,” “growth-minded,” or “radical candor.” They can also collect the monetary value associated with each ”Tap” and redeem it within the Tap My Back’s reward gateway.
- simple and fun peer-to-peer recognition
- mood tracking functionality
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- UI is not very user-friendly
- Some users might find that the tool lacks recognition features such as badges and customization
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15. Vantage Circle
Vantage Circle is an employee recognition platform that offers four main products: Vantage Rewards, Perks, Pulse, and Fit.
Vantage Rewards and Vantage Perks help managers create a culture of recognition in their company through instant rewards and praise, gamified engagement boards, and a streamlined redemption process.
Notable features
- Interactive social feed for optimizing peer-to-peer appreciation
- Gamified leaderboard ranking employees based on engagement scores
- Recognition program analytics
- Corporate discount platform
Employees can redeem their points at global online and retail stores for gift cards and merchandise. The reports and analytics dashboard also gives HR teams a broad overview of budgeting and allocation, as well as awards and badge configuration options.
- Clear and straightforward UI
- Fitness challenges encourage employees to stay healthy and active
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- Users encounter various issues when trying to redeem points including website crashes, voucher amount flexibility, and vendor restriction
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16. WorkTango
WorkTango (formerly Kazoo) is an employee experience platform that aims to improve employee engagement by combining surveys, employee feedback, goals and OKR management, and incentives. The employee recognition program encourages staff members to connect with their peers through WorkTango’s social feed and allows managers to create custom rewards and assign employee reward points.
Notable features
- The ability to create custom incentives for employee action
- Gamified user experience (UX)
This tool also supports employee development by allowing HR managers to tie rewards and recognition to learning and other training objectives. For example, managers can create a task called “attend a workshop” and reward their employees for completing it.
- Intuitive and modern UI
- Nice morale booster due to gamification
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- Reportedly incentives and user experience are still lacking
- Reported bugs and long waiting times
- Issues with points distribution and redemption
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17. Xoxoday Empuls
Empuls is an employee recognition and engagement platform focusing on corporate rewards, recognition, and continuous performance management. Users have access to different modules; the Remote and Hybrid Work module aims to provide a better experience for remote workers through engagement surveys and virtual celebrations.
Notable features
- A corporate perks and discounts program
- Pulse and feedback surveys
- Social intranet
- Peer-to-peer rewards
Empuls users can reward good performance, milestones, and even personal occasions with gamified points, which can be redeemed monthly. Empuls also strives to promote employee financial wellness and maximize employee savings with its exclusive perks and discounts program.
- Affordable solution
- Easy to use
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- Some issues with the platform UI
- Strong focus on employee rewards might make users lose focus and concentrate too much on points and reedemable rewards
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Why customers love us
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“We've been using Leapsome for over a year, and we love it”
Susie P.
HR manager
AI software (10-100 employees)
“I love how easy Leapsome is to set up and explore as a manager and user”
Sarah S.
Chief operational officer
B2B agency (10-100 emp.)
“Leapsome has provided more ways to keep our employees engaged”
Katy S.
Exec. Administrator & Comms. Manager
Research Services (500-1000 emp.)
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Frequently Asked Questions
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