AwardKit vs Zealous

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.

Zealous is a web-based visual submissions management platform for open calls, awards, grants, residencies, fairs, and commissions. Organizers can set scoring criteria, use anonymous judging, manage multiple evaluation rounds, and track judge progress in real time. Entrants can submit images, video, 3D models, audio, documents, and embedded media, with individual files up to 4GB. Entry payments are processed through Stripe and go to the organizer’s account; Zealous charges commission on paid submissions but not free ones. Listed integrations include Stripe payments and embedded content from Vimeo, YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Sketchfab, and Slideshare. The Free plan costs nothing and allows 20 entries in one program without requiring a credit card. Paid submission allowances are counted across the year and reset on the subscription anniversary. Zealous says data is stored on Google Cloud in the UK with an EU twin data center, and describes encryption at rest and TLS 1.2 encryption in transit. It reports 99.98% uptime. All plans include unlimited support, with live chat during UK business hours.