AwardKit vs ViralSweep

AwardKit manages award programs, recognition initiatives, and judged competitions, from collecting entries through judging and publishing results. Organizers can build forms with conditional questions, autosave, save-and-resume, and image, PDF, and video uploads. Judges score through personalized links without accounts, using configurable weighted criteria on any device. Programs can use judge-only scoring, audience voting, or both. AwardKit calculates scores and supports winner assignment, public results, and CSV exports with rankings and judge feedback. Entry fees use Stripe Connect, with funds paid directly to the organization’s Stripe account and no AwardKit commission. The web service states that traffic uses HTTPS/TLS, data is encrypted at rest, passwords are hashed, and two-factor authentication is available. Card entry happens through Stripe-hosted Checkout; AwardKit says it does not see or store full card numbers. A free plan and free trial are available. The paid AwardKit plan is $1,995 a year, billed annually, with unlimited programs, entries, judges, audience voters, and team members. Organizations with 500 or more entries are invited to contact AwardKit.

ViralSweep is a marketing platform for promotions intended to grow email and SMS lists, raise engagement, and generate sales. Campaign types include sweepstakes, contests, instant-win promotions, purchases, waitlists, milestones, hashtags, galleries, email forms, and comment promotions. The Sweepstakes App supports customizable entry forms, bonus entries for social actions, website embeds, hosted links, analytics in real time, and random winner selection. Paid plans include unlimited promotions and entries, but purchase order allowances vary by plan. Starter costs $41 a month with annual billing or $49 a month with monthly billing; both list 100 purchase orders. Each selected plan starts with a 7-day trial, after which billing begins unless ended earlier. Basic integrations include Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Shopify Email, and ActiveCampaign; premium integrations include HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, and Google Analytics. The API can add and retrieve account data, requires Premium or higher, and uses an API key. Promotions use spam filtering, CAPTCHA, cookie and IP tracking, and background protections to help identify suspicious or duplicate entries. Support includes live chat during business hours, email, scheduled calls, and documentation.