Online communities are growing at a surprising rate, thanks to the meteoric rise of social media, online forums, digital newsletters, personal blogs, streaming platforms, digital chat rooms, and more. In a world where we feel more physically disconnected, online communities bring us back together.
However, for content creators, simply building a community isn’t enough. Without engagement, an online community runs the risk of becoming irrelevant and ultimately losing its audience in the long run.
There are several ways that creators can create engaged online communities - one strategy is by hosting giveaways. This is a method that you often see when scrolling through TikTok and Instagram - big brands hosting giveaways in exchange for likes, comments, and shares.
But how do you host online giveaways? The answer is giveaway apps.
The best online giveaway apps
1. Whop Wheel
Now, the first one on our list of top giveaway apps is a little niche, as it can only be used on Whop. But it's such a great tool that we believe it deserves the top spot on our list - here's why.
Whop is home to thousands of online communities (known as whops) and the Whop Wheel app is an incredibly popular tool for hosting giveaways.
Creators who have whops can easily add the Whop Wheel to their whop in just a couple of clicks. Once the Whop Wheel is added, creators use it to up engagement in their community, but also to give back to their members.
The Whop Wheel is a roulette wheel with prizes. It's super easy and fun to use - all members have to do is click to 'spin the wheel' - which is much more exciting than liking or commenting on a social media post. The Whop Wheel can be spun by any paying members of a whop. So, if you have a a whop with a paid membership fee of at least $5, any your members can spin the wheel once a day.
The best thing about the Whop Wheel - the prizes are provided by Whop! That's right - as a creator you can give prizes to your community without having to supply those prizes yourself.
Who doesn't love a free prize? Having the Whop Wheel for your online community means your members get free prizes and you get increased engagement - and it doesn't cost you a thing. It's a win-win for you and your members.
Pricing
100% free. whops are free to create, and Whop takes a small percentage of your revenue (starting at 3%). The Whop Wheel app is free to use, and even the prizes are free. All you have to do is create your whop, grow your community, and add your Whop Wheel.
2. Woorise
If a large part of your community is centered on a social media platform like Instagram, then you should consider Woorise for your giveaways. It is arguably one of the best Instagram giveaway picker tools available on the market today. In fact, Woorise is a great pick for conducting and promoting any form of community contest on most social media platforms.
It is a highly versatile app that comes with a range of marketing features for creators and brands. Aside from a dedicated contest builder toolkit and the user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, Woorise offers highly efficient lead generation features that can help you gather valuable marketing data from your giveaways.
With Woorise, you get a variety of pre-built templates for different types of contests in addition to giveaways. Thanks to that, the app can be used for a wide range of interactive marketing campaigns, such as viral quizzes, skill-based community competitions, voting contests, surveys, and more.
The giveaway picker allows the organizer to track participant actions with ease. Once enabled, you can track the contest-relevant actions of users, such as liking, sharing, or interacting with posts.
Furthermore, you can set up your giveaway campaign to provide bonus entries to members with increased engagement levels. The convenient refer-a-friend features and viral sharing capabilities can improve the engagement rate and visibility of your giveaways.
Some other notable features of Woorise include a robust fraud protection system and a powerful geo-targeting toolkit that can be helpful for conducting regional giveaways. It also supports creating and managing multiple workspaces within a single account.
A major downside of the app is that users require paid subscriptions to access most of the advanced features.
Pricing
Woorise offers monthly and annual subscription options to its users. The most basic plan starts at $23 per month (billed annually). However, there is a free trial period of 14 days for each subscription plan, where users can try all the features of the app and then make the final decision.
3. ViralKit
ViralKit is one of the best free giveaway apps that you can use for your community. This particular app places heavy emphasis on speed and convenience, which is why it is one of the most used giveaway apps among creators.
One aspect that sets ViralKit apart from other giveaway tools is its AI-powered framework. To be more precise, it leverages a prompt-based generative AI algorithm that can generate a whole contest within seconds. All you need to do is specify the details of your giveaway via simple text prompts, and then the app will take care of the rest.
Naturally, this makes it incredibly convenient to use. Once you provide the details, it will generate a basic but customizable variant of the giveaway that can be tweaked further to meet your community's needs.
Furthermore, ViralKit supports integrations with over 60 different platforms, including social media sites, CMS frameworks, and more. Thanks to this aspect, you can easily sync it to any website or social media channel of your choosing.
Also, over 250 different entry methods are supported, which improves its overall flexibility. The only drawback, however, is that the tool does not offer a decent mobile app to manage your giveaways on the go, which can be a bit inconvenient for some users.
There is a decent referral system that members can use to promote your giveaways within their social circles. Similarly, you can make use of the analytics to track engagement and optimize your giveaways.
Pricing
ViralKit operates on a freemium pricing model, which means that you can use all of the app’s basic features to conduct a simple giveaway for no extra cost. However, there are paid subscriptions starting at $29 per month, which gives you access to the advanced features.
4. SweepWidget
SweepWidget is considered another top-notch contest app for social media platforms. With it, you can run giveaways on a wide range of social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Patreon, and more. In total, the app supports integration with over 30 websites, which makes it a highly versatile choice for your community giveaways.
The app has a relatively simple interface, which allows you to set up giveaways on this platform quite easily. Choose your entry method, then fill in the giveaway details like title, description, and rules to get started. After that, toggle all the required contest options, and then embed the giveaway on your community website or social media profile, and you'll be good to go.
On that note, SweepWidget supports more than 90 entry options. If you go for the paid version, you can get a lot of additional features like tiered rewards, a style editor for building custom widgets, and many more.
You can even add a leaderboard to your giveaways, which can help improve engagement and subsequently generate better leads and marketing data. The only thing holding this platform back from becoming an all-in-one is its widgets, which are not as customizable as those provided by some other apps.
Pricing
Unlike other contest apps, SweepWidget comes with a free basic plan, which makes it one of the best free giveaway apps for users. Apart from that, there are paid plans starting from $29 per month, which gives you access to advanced features. You can also pay yearly to save around 17% on the subscription costs.
5. ShortStack
If you are a veteran creator with a large community, then you will require an advanced contest tool for your giveaways. This is where ShortStack comes into the picture, for it is a flexible contest tool that comes with a wide range of premium features.
This particular giveaway app has been designed for established brands and experienced influencers looking to expand their enterprise. In fact, it can be considered an all-in-one media management tool that can help in generating high-quality leads and results-driven marketing campaigns.
The app offers a variety of gamification templates for online communities. Thanks to that, you can conduct giveaways and other types of social contests for your fans and members. The in-built style panel allows you to create comprehensive giveaways in a short time.
Apart from that, it comes with other premium services for creating and moderating contests. Using these services, creators can develop white-labeled giveaways for their communities that are specifically tailored to their brand. There are automated moderation systems for tracking entries for giveaways on different social communities.
On top of that, ShortStack offers advanced security and fraud protection features so that creators can conduct giveaways and other contests without any issues. Analytics tools can help collect and track participant data for future reference. The only limitation is its pricing model, which can seem slightly higher compared to other options available on the market.
Pricing
While Shortstack does offer a free trial, you will need to pay for its premium plans to use the advanced features.
There are several yearly and monthly subscription tiers to choose from, with the lowest plan starting at $49 per month (or $39 per month if billed annually) and the highest plan at $499 per month.
6. Outgrow
Outgrow is another great contest creation and content management platform that enables users to create not only giveaways but also other forms of social media content to drive engagement.
This includes things like polls, quizzes, surveys, chatbots, calculators, forms, and more.
All of the above content types can help increase the visibility and reach of your community while simultaneously generating high-quality leads for your brand’s marketing.
There are a ton of pre-built templates that can help in creating contests. A convenient drag-and-drop editor allows you to customize the giveaway templates with ease. On top of that, you get more control over your giveaways thanks to its advanced personalization and automation tools.
Additionally, there are analytics features for monitoring the success rates of your contests and marketing campaigns. This way, you can make significant improvements to what metrics are working for you and cut out or reduce your budget on approaches that aren’t bringing expected results. Unfortunately, this and other advanced contest options are exclusive to the higher tiers, which limits its scope.
Outgrow also enables craters to embed their giveaways and other interactive content in any format and on any website. It’s super effective in terms of targeting a broader audience, getting increased exposure, and having a higher participation rate.
Pricing
Outgrow follows a fairly diverse pricing strategy to provide the most value to its users. The lowest subscription tier starts at $14 per month and is mainly aimed at freelancers. Likewise, veteran creators and enterprises can use the highest pricing tier, which requires $600 per month.
Aside from that, there are custom pricing tiers where businesses can get tailored plans to fit their needs.
7. Gleam
Gleam is a giveaway tool that is known for its user-friendliness. It is a multipurpose platform comprising four different tools (Competitions, Rewards, Galleries, and Captures) that allow influencers to create different types of content in addition to giveaways, thereby improving the overall flexibility. With it, you can create instant win campaigns, social media galleries, website popups, forms, and so on.
The Gleam Competitions tool allows the creator to develop comprehensive giveaways and other social contests with ease. This widget is integrated with most social media platforms, which helps with promoting your contests within your community.
Furthermore, the tool features automated systems for tracking and verifying entries. To ensure a fair giveaway, Gleam uses robust fraud protection measures. In this regard, the Rewards tool makes it easier for the creator to configure prize tiers, unlockable bonuses, and more.
The Capture tool enables you to generate leads and gather data from your contests. You can use this data later to send promotional emails or messages. Likewise, the Galleries tool is particularly useful if you are planning to conduct photo competitions or develop image galleries for your community members.
Using all of these features will require you to make a significant investment, which is the only drawback of Gleam. Fortunately, you can get good value from your investment and improve the success rates of your giveaway if you do decide to use all of its features.
Pricing
Gleam offers a free plan that comes with the Competitions tool. That being said, there are several paid subscription packages as well, where you can get access to all the tools.
The lowest subscription package costs $119 per month and is great for businesses and experienced creators. However, you can pay for the individual apps as well, which makes it quite flexible.
8. Vyper
Vyper is another premium giveaway app that is targeted mainly toward established brands. In addition to contest creation and management, it offers a ton of marketing features that make it a powerful tool for large enterprises and experienced influencers.
The app offers a versatile campaign builder where you can create highly customized events for your community. Users can choose three different display modes - landing pages, embed forms, and widgets, where each mode is separately editable.
The visual campaign editor and the simplified user interface make it easy to set up complex giveaway events from scratch. For instance, you can edit all the aspects of your landing pages according to your preferences.
Vyper is a particularly great platform for conducting giveaways, referral programs, milestone contests, and UGC (user-generated content) contests. On top of that, creators get complete control over their contests, which gives them the freedom to set up extensive branded campaigns within their community. What’s more, it comes with leaderboards, waitlists, and other advanced features.
The app has great lead-generation functionalities that can help with your brand’s marketing. There are templates for ambassador campaigns and loyalty programs as well, which can help improve member engagement and build loyalty. However, the cost of using this app can be quite high, especially for new creators or small businesses, which limits its flexibility.
Pricing
Vyper offers a free trial option, where you can try out its features within a very limited scope. However, if you want to create a proper campaign or giveaway contest, you must opt for a paid subscription, which has a pretty high price point.
For the lowest subscription tier - ENTERPRISE - you will need to pay a staggering $149 per month, which goes up to $249 for the second plan category - AGENCY. But, you can get 50% off if you pay annually.
9. Wishpond
Wishpond is a pretty good marketing app that provides comprehensive support for social media community events. With this app, you can conduct over 10 different types of social media contests and campaigns, including giveaways.
Some of the other available campaign types are leaderboard contests, popups, landing pages, bonus entry contests, photo and video contests, and more.
The user interface has been designed to be user-friendly, which is another advantage of this app. There is an intuitive drag-and-drop builder as well as an AI toolkit that makes it easy to not only create contests but also generate leads. On top of that, the app supports integrations with different other apps and websites, which enhances its overall utility.
However, if you are not feeling too confident about creating the contest on your own, you can try out the professional services offered by Wishpond. In this case, Wishpond’s team of marketing experts will handle all the aspects of managing and moderating your giveaways, making it more convenient.
With that being said, the app lacks adequate transparency when it comes to its pricing and features. While the Wishpond team can assist you promptly regarding these things, the lack of upfront disclosures may be a dealbreaker for many creators.
Pricing
As we mentioned above, Wishpond does not make its pricing strategy publicly visible to users. However, you can book a brief, 30-minute demo call with the Wishpond team to discuss the pricing and other options.
On that note, several third-party review sites suggest that the platform offers subscription plans starting at an annual price of $49.
10. Rafflecopter
Rafflecopter is one of the simplest and fastest giveaway picker apps that you can use for your online communities. Users do not need to have any coding knowledge or other technical skills to conduct giveaways through this app.
Once a contest is created, Rafflecopter generates an embed code for the platform which can be copied and pasted on your site.
In this regard, Rafflecopter has been designed to be compatible with any website, which makes it a versatile giveaway app for most creators. You can create basic giveaways for your community in the blink of an eye, which saves a lot of time and thus allows you to focus on other things.
The app gives you access to the unique DesignLab feature, where you can create appealing widgets to embed on your site. You can also use the app's custom themes to personalize your contests. This approach is quite helpful as personalized giveaways help you generate leads better as they allow you to reach a more targeted audience by offering relevant prizes – making them feel heard and seen.
Another interesting aspect of Rafflecopter is that it supports unlimited entries and allows users to create unlimited giveaways, even on the free plan. This makes it one of the best free giveaway apps on the market.
The downside, however, is the lack of advanced contest features and analytics tools. So, you might not always have an idea about what’s helping your campaigns and giveaways, nor the necessary guidance to improve certain aspects that could potentially lead to better results.
Pricing
Rafflecopter has an excellent free plan where you can create several basic giveaways. Apart from that, there are paid plans starting from $13 per month, which allows you to access some additional features. The best part of this app is that you can give a free trial to all 3 of their paid plans for 7 days.
11. KingSumo
KingSumo is another simple giveaway picker tool that allows users to create quick giveaways. It has been designed to function as a WordPress plugin that integrates well with your WordPress site. However, if you don’t own a website on WordPress, you can use the KingSumo web app instead.
The editor that comes with this app has a simplified user interface so that creators can set up basic giveaways in a few clicks. You can also create interesting widgets that can be conveniently embedded on your sites. It even features straightforward entry methods so that your community members can enter your giveaways easily.
Furthermore, you can create convenient promotions and referral campaigns for your giveaways. After creating the contest, you can promote it in a number of ways, such as email marketing, embedding it on a website, sharing on social media, and more.
The referral system allows your community members and participants to share the contest links on several social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and more.
All in all, the KingSumo giveaway picker tool is great for both beginners and veterans looking to promote their brand or expand their mailing list. However, many of the advanced features are only available in the paid plan, which can be slightly inconvenient for smaller creators.
Pricing
Kingsumo offers a free plan that is pretty decent, for it allows users to create unlimited basic giveaways. However, if you want more utility, you can opt for the lifetime plan that costs $49.
Keep in mind that this is a one-time payment, which means that it is a very cost-effective option for new creators with limited budgets.
12. Woobox
Woobox is a pretty good marketing and contest creation app for websites and social media. With this app, you can create a simple giveaway for your community quickly and without paying any money. What’s more, this free giveaway app is compatible with CMS platforms like WordPress, making it quite versatile.
Speaking of versatility, you will notice that the Woobox app supports the creation of other types of interactive content in addition to giveaway contests. These include instant win competitions, photo and video contests, polls, forms, surveys, quizzes, and so on. All of these can help in boosting community engagement rates and generating high-quality leads.
On top of all that, Woobox provides features like a landing page builder, automated email integration, and pre-built contest templates, all of which can help with managing your campaigns.
However, the design tab may seem slightly complex, which makes it difficult to customize the contests. This is the only limitation of this app that can discourage beginners.
There is a unique Hashtag Gallery feature where you can pull in participant submissions automatically as long as they use the relevant branded hashtags. You can then display the curated collection of photos and videos from the participants on your social media pages or websites.
Pricing
As mentioned before, Woobox has a free plan for users with budget restrictions. But if you have the financial resources, you should definitely go for the paid subscription plans, which start from $37 per month and can go up to $249 per month. With these plans, you get more features and added flexibility for your giveaway contests.
13. Easypromos
Easypromos is a contest creation and promotions app that integrates well with most social media platforms. With this giveaway app, you can easily create complex giveaways for Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and other social platforms.
The app also comes with a WordPress widget that can be conveniently embedded on your website. Furthermore, this app supports collaborations with other creators and brands, which can help improve the overall reach and engagement of your contests.
Easypromos' interface is highly responsive, which makes it easy for everyone to use. There are several gamification systems available for creators besides giveaways, such as quizzes, instant prize contests, and multi-stage events. Such interactive content can be used to increase engagement and generate leads for marketing purposes.
However, the only problem with Easypromos is that it allows creators to set up just one free giveaway. After that, they will need to upgrade to a paid plan to use all of its features.
Pricing
Easypromos does not offer any free plans to its users. Instead, there are multiple paid subscription tiers, with the lowest one starting at $29 per month and the highest one starting at $399 per month. There is a customizable corporate plan as well, where the pricing is set based on the features and tools depending on the requirements of the business.
14. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is an app that allows you to run contests and other interactive content on social media to boost engagement. This social media management app offers a unique CRM (customer relationship management) solution that helps creators and businesses build their brands.
Furthermore, it supports integration with several social media apps so that creators can easily promote their contests. Because of this, it can be considered to be one of the best giveaway apps for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
In this regard, the app offers a reporting system that comes with a range of analytics tools. These tools can be used to collect and monitor user data from your contests. The reporting system has been designed to be more comprehensive than the default analytics framework of several social platforms.
This data can then be used to gather insights on key performance metrics so that you can manage your contests better in the future. Besides, you can use the information to increase engagement in your community and build loyalty among your members.
However, many users have reported that the website suffers from stability issues, especially when uploading files. This can be an inconvenience for most users, which makes it the site's biggest limitation.
Pricing
Agorapulse offers several subscription plans to its users, with the most basic plan starting from $79 per month, billed annually. There is a 30-day free trial period for each of these plans so that users can get a feel for the app.
Also, it offers a custom plan for businesses where the pricing isn’t disclosed publicly on the site, but you can request a quote based on the tools and features required for your business.
15. ViralSweep
ViralSweep is a versatile social media contest tool that is primarily known for its diverse integrations. To be more precise, the app integrates well with different kinds of platforms, such as social media websites, ecommerce websites, CMS platforms, and more.
There are several contest options available to users in the ViralSweep app. With it, you can conduct not only giveaways but also leaderboard contests, instant win competitions, and even platform-specific campaigns like Twitter hashtag contests and Facebook photo and video competitions.
In this regard, the app’s integration with ecommerce websites can be particularly advantageous for businesses. Because of that, they can organize promotional campaigns on sites like Shopify, WooCommerce, and more. Entrants can become eligible for coupons and giveaway rewards based on how much money they spend on these sites.
ViralSweep offers dedicated agents and experts who can manage giveaways and other social contests on your behalf. This can be great for beginners who have little experience with such events.
However, users need to pay a big chunk of money to use the advanced features of this app, which can deter some new creators or small startups from signing up for higher plans.
Pricing
ViralSweep does not offer any free plan for its users. Instead, it offers a range of subscription tiers, with the lowest plan costing $49 per month and the highest tier costing $999 per month. On top of that, there is a custom price tier for enterprises that can be tailored to specific business requirements.
One practically helpful feature of ViralSweep is that you can always go for a 7-day free trial before buying their paid subscriptions for all 4 plans except the Enterprise one.
How to run highly-engaged giveaways
So now you know which tools to use, let's take a look at how to run effective giveaways.
Step 1: Select a reward
First, you need to select the reward for your giveaway. Make that the prize is relevant to the campaign and fits your brand image well - for example, if you're a eco-friendly skincare brand, don't make your prize a plastic disposable makeup brush.
Pro tip: Personalized rewards are another great way to increase giveaway participation, lead conversion, form an emotional connection, and eventually increase client loyalty.
Step 2: Pick an entry method
The next step is to decide what tasks the members need to complete to enter the giveaway. Usually, this involves doing some interactive activity, such as liking and commenting on social media posts, subscribing to a channel, and so on.
Make sure that the chosen entry method is relatively simple because complicated procedures often tend to drive users off and make them not willing to participate. If there's too many steps your users will abandon the task.
Step 3: Outline the terms and conditions
This is a very important step for conducting giveaways or any community-based event. Before launching the giveaway, you need to specify all the rules and regulations of the contest. When you outline the conditions and terms, you can maintain transparency, execute the giveaway smoothly, and prevent any issues from cropping up later on.
While setting the terms and conditions, you need to mention the eligibility, entry methods, winner selection process, duration, and prize details. Try to use simple language so that everyone can understand the rules. Also, make sure to highlight the unique rules and regulations in your community so that everyone is aware of them before the giveaway begins.
Step 4: Set up the giveaway
Now, you can finally start setting up your giveaway. In this step, you need to configure the different aspects of your giveaway via the app or tool that you have chosen. This includes creating landing pages, developing widgets, customizing the contest page, selecting a suitable reward, and so on.
Once you have set up the giveaway according to your preferences, you will need to make it accessible to your community. For this, you can embed the giveaway on your website or social media handles. If you choose a decent giveaway app, the embed code of your contest will be generated automatically. Try to keep it easily navigable for the users to participate without any complication.
Step 5: Promote the giveaway
After creating the giveaway, you will need to promote it as much as possible so that people get to know about your contest. The best strategy for promoting your giveaway is to use your social media channels. Since social media platforms have the best reach and cost no money (for unsponsored posts), they can be used to promote your contest efficiently.
Apart from that, you can opt for paid advertisements, provided you have the funds to spare. Most social media platforms offer targeted ad services that you can use for this purpose. In addition, paid ad services can promote your giveaway on third-party websites, too.
However, if paid advertisements are not a feasible option, you can collaborate with other creators and influencers to promote your giveaway. Although this also involves additional payment, if you choose to collaborate with an influencer who has a large following, you can increase the reach of your giveaway (and your community) significantly.
Step 6: Select a winner
Choosing a winner from your community is the final step of running a giveaway. If you are using a giveaway picker that comes with an automatic winner selection feature, then this step can be completed easily. However, if you are not using such an app, you may need to select the winner manually – which is quite tedious.
For that purpose, you can pick a winner randomly, provided they are eligible. Alternatively, you can choose a winner based on specific criteria like engagement levels, early bird qualification, or time spent as a member.
Once the winner is selected, make sure to acknowledge their win. You can do this by either congratulating them personally or making a community post declaring their win. After that, let them know about the procedure to claim the prize. Check up on them a couple of days later to ensure that they have received the prize.
At the same time, make sure to appreciate and thank all the members who participated in the giveaway, even if they didn’t win anything. This can help build loyalty and strengthen your community in the long run.
As you can see, there are a lot of steps to running an online giveaway - but not with Whop. Whop takes care of everything for you, from creating the tool, to selecting the winner, and even providing the prizes. All you have to do is add the Whop Wheel to your whop.
Give back to your community with the Whop Wheel
There are plenty of great giveaway apps and strategies available to creators for conducting community giveaways. But, considering their drawbacks in terms of pricing, integrations, and manual work, the Whop Wheel is the best giveaway app there is.
With Whop you can sell anything digital, like online courses, ebooks, digital files, software, web apps, and online community access. Naturally, this makes it a great place for building your community.
So, why wait? Create your own whop today and get all the benefits of the Whop Wheel for no extra cost!
