Article Overview: Small businesses often struggle with employee appreciation. This article highlights top recognition software tools that can improve morale, boost productivity, and create a positive work environment.
Are you looking for a specific type of recognition?👉 Nectar for interactive social recognition feeds👉 Motivosity for encouraging a healthy lifestyle👉 Bucketlist for offering bucket-list-worthy experiences👉 Cooleaf for promoting employee engagement and wellness👉 Stadium for simplifying employee gifting & swag👉 Leapsome for continuous feedback & performance management👉 Connecteam for managing and recognizing remote employees |
Armed with nothing but Wi-Fi and water bottles, our research team was challenged to find the best selection of employee rewards and recognition software for small companies. We’re talking about the ones that celebrate achievements, reward employee feedback, foster peer-to-peer appreciation, and help to build a positive company culture.
At SnackNation, we’re a people-first organization ourselves, and we wholeheartedly believe that employee recognition is a key driver in creating a healthy company culture and a thriving workplace experience. This means that we know what to look for in an effective employee recognition software so, rest assured, you’re in good hands.
If you already know what kind of perks your small business needs, this list will definitely make it easier for you to narrow down the employee recognition programs that fit your specifications. However, if you don’t know what gaps need to be filled, you’ll have every tool in the toolbox to get the job done right.
According to the 2024 Employee Engagement Trends Report:
“52.5% of employees want more recognition from their immediate manager and 41% want more from their peers. Separately or combined, those are some big numbers!”
Those ‘big numbers’ are exactly why it’s so important for a small company to pick the right employee recognition software platform.
It has to keep your team happy and engaged, while also making it easy to give shout-outs for their hard work. The goal is to boost motivation and create a connective vibe within your workforce where everyone feels appreciated regularly.
Don’t stop now – it’s just getting good! Keep going to find the best employee recognition platforms for small businesses and see how the right one can benefit your people and your pocket.
Best Employee Recognition Software for Small Business
1. Nectar
❤️ Why small businesses choose Nectar: Small businesses choose Nectar because it helps make employee recognition a breeze and it’s actually fun to use. It’s great for boosting team spirit and employee engagement and it integrates easily with the existing communication channels most organizations already use.
Top-down rewards are a thing of the past and peer-to-peer recognition is IN! Nectar is a 360° employee rewards and recognition platform that encourages every user to express appreciation for their coworkers at any and all levels.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Core value connection — Nectar’s 2.0 version turns your company’s core values into actionable engagement.
- Incentivizing — Since frequent recognition earns your employees points, they’re encouraged to give their colleagues a shout-out as often as possible.
- Challenges — Add a little healthy competition to the mix with employee challenges related to continuing education, training, health, and other topics, earning them even more points to spend on rewards.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Global limitations—If your team is international, some countries only allow gift cards instead of tangible gifts to be rewarded.
- Points dumping—Since employee’s points replenish each month, they can be traded with employees without meaningful recognition.
💰 Pricing: Nectar’s pricing structure starts out ar two levels:
- Standard: $2.75/user/month
- Plus: $4.00/user/month
🗣️ Customer Story:
“The built-in reminders are helpful to make sure you’re using all allocated points and my organization has hosted a few Nectar points challenges to boost engagement.” – Carolyn M., Assistant Vice President
2. Bonusly
❤️ Why small businesses choose Bonusly: Small businesses love Bonusly because it’s super easy to use and makes recognizing employees fun and engaging. It helps to unite the company culture, improves employee morale, and keeps everyone motivated with fun rewards they’ll want to earn – all without putting a kink in your bottom line.
Bonusly is a user-friendly employee recognition software that makes giving shout-outs to coworkers an embedded part of the daily culture. It’s perfect for small businesses because everyone can praise their colleagues’ hard work and positively affect their work environment.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Manager’s Toolkit — Eight Management modules to ensure your leadership team has all the tips, templates, and strategies they need to successfully guide their groups.
- Employee Analytics — Keep up with recognition trends and participation frequency to ensure your team is getting the maximum benefits from their employee recognition program.
- Automated Milestones — By automating all your employees’ milestones, you’ll never miss another work anniversary or birthday, no matter how much your small business grows.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Rewards expire — Your employees’ allocated rewards points expire each month, so they have to be encouraged to use them!
- Buy-in — It’s difficult to know how your more veteran employees will take to it, so working with Bonusly to encourage buy-in is crucial.
💰 Pricing: After the free trial period is up, you’ll pay $5 per user plus the cost of the rewards your employees choose.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“Bonusly has been a GAME CHANGER. It’s quickly become an essential part of our success in working as a distributed team and creating more visibility around small wins!” – Lindsey Kampmeier, VP of People & Culture
3. Motivosity
❤️ Why small businesses choose Motivosity: Employees are any business’s biggest asset, but in a small business, they’re its bread and butter. Motivosity provides a platform where employees can pump each other up with praise and pesos, creating a culture of appreciation even if there are only twenty team members.
Motivosity is virtual fist bumps for the digital age. It’s an employee recognition platform that lets users give each other mini-bonuses for a job well done, boosting morale and keeping everyone engaged and motivated.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Mobile app — Since your employees aren’t tethered to their desks, a mobile app is the answer to keeping up with recognition while on the go.
- ThanksMatters Card — Employees can use the ThanksMatters Card anywhere that credit cards are accepted to buy whatever they want with their rewards dollars.
- Scalability — Motivosity isn’t just rewards and recognition – it’s equipped to scale with your small business and offers advanced management tools, employee surveys, and more to help you keep a finger on the pulse of your growing organization.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Tech glitches — Our sources uncovered a few complaints of app commands not working, notes being a bit cumbersome to organize, etc., but Motivosity appears to be very responsive to these issues.
- No performance reviews — It would be great to merge employee recognition with performance evaluations since they’re so relevant to one another but, to date, there’s no way to track employee performance with Motivosity’s software.
💰 Pricing: Motivosity has a minimum annual spend of $3000, which allows you to onboard roughly 60 employees with no additional fees or expenses.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“If I had to go back and look at what Motivosity has done for us before vs. after… I think people are more engaged with each other – I think we’re all in a cohesive and connected team and I think Motivosity has expanded that.” – Shane London, CEO
4. Bucketlist
❤️ Why small businesses choose Bucketlist: Bucketlist is a culture-building juggernaut that focuses on the entire employee relationship. Recruiting the right people, rewarding them effectively, and retaining top talents are a small business owner’s dream come true!
Bucketlist is great for small businesses because it offers so many ways to send recognition, no one will get bored with the same ole thing. Customized rewards sweeten the deal even more since your employees can choose their own rewards.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Achievement Awards — From work anniversaries to sealing a big deal, Bucketlist allows your employees to celebrate all their achievements with a little extra pizazz (and points).
- Custom incentives — Incentivize participation and employee engagement in ways that work for your teams – your way.
- Global reach —With Bucketlist, your recognition and rewards aren’t landlocked – they can go global, just like your small business.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Point availability — Quite a few users complained that they didn’t have enough points each month to show adequate recognition to their colleagues. This is more of an organizational setting than a Bucketlist control, so be sure you’re allotting enough points to keep your employees stocked and happy.
- Options, options, options — Once again, not everyone finds thousands of reward options to be a positive feature so choice overwhelm can be challenging (or rewarding 🤷).
💰 Pricing: There’s no cost information available on Bucketlist’s website so you’ll need to book a demo and get customized pricing to fit your workforce.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“We wanted to take our existing culture of feedback and make it tangible. Bucketlist enabled us to do that.”
– Jennifer Howell, Director of People and Culture
5. Stadium
❤️ Why small businesses choose Stadium: It’s a high-five that comes with a gift! Stadium lets your small business ditch the boring awards certificates and paperweights and give employees rewards they’ll actually love, all on one easy-to-use employee recognition platform.
Stadium offers endless, no-contract opportunities for your employees to send kudos to their colleagues. Those kudos translate to points that can be used to purchase anything from Stadium’s massive bank of tangible gifts and gift cards, so the more they send, the bigger the rewards.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Swag Store — Set up your own virtual store, stocked with branded swag, snacks, and premium brands for your employees to shop from when spending their rewards.
- Free money — When you preload your rewards bank with $10k or more, Stadium gives you a 5% cash bonus to add to the balance for even more gifting power.
- Plentiful rewards — With over 4000 products to choose from, your employees will have no problem finding rewards they love and appreciate.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Cost of rewards — Some users have reported that some of the rewards are a bit pricey so their employees’ points didn’t go as far as they’d hoped.
- Option overwhelm —Having over 4000 items to choose from can be both a blessing and a curse and some users feel this many options make it difficult to choose.
💰 Pricing: Stadium is free to set up and offers four onboarding packages that vary in price to meet the unique needs of your small business. The rewards are simply pay-as-you-go and there are no contracts or term obligations to lock into.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“I love the fact that I can easily choose an option to send out to not only stateside employees but to my overseas contractors. No one feels left out and everyone can order based on their preferences and dietary restrictions.” – Michelle Y., Administrative Assistant
6. Guusto
❤️ Why small businesses choose Guusto: Guusto is a full-service, people-focused software that helps managers and team leaders build a culture they love.
Guusto was designed with small businesses in mind. You can test out the FREE version during your building-out phase while you get their program ingrained into your company.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Easy rewards — Streamline rewards, automate milestones, empower managers with budgets they can use
- Versatility — Guusto was built to include employees at desks, on the floor, out in the field, or wherever your employees work
- Extensive Gift Card Options — With a wide variety of gift cards to choose from, Guusto enhances the reward experience for employees. Offering more options for gift cards ensures that there’s something for everyone, making rewards more personalized and appreciated.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Limited Retail Vendor Selection — While Guusto is expanding, there is room for growth in their selection of retail vendors. Currently, there are plenty of restaurant options, which is excellent, but some users would appreciate a broader range of retail shopping choices to better suit diverse preferences.
- Monitoring system — This needs to be implemented to track the status of the awards sent.
💰 Pricing: Guusto’s tiered pricing starts with a FREE trial account and also includes:
- Lite: $40 per month
- Essential: $120 per month starting with 30 seats
🗣️ Customer Story:
“As a not-for-profit organization, we love recognizing our employees while knowing that purchasing from Guusto supports other good and needed work. Plus, by using Guusto, we can ensure that our employees like the recognition gifts they are given.”
7. Cooleaf
❤️ Why small businesses choose Cooleaf: Smaller companies choose Cooleaf because it’s so much more than just an employee recognition platform – it’s a cultural shake-up. Employee incentives, DEI initiatives, and pulse surveys are just a few of the other tools Cooleaf offers that encourage engagement and support a healthy company culture.
Cooleaf is committed to creating healthy company cultures that perform more like communities. It’s all about recognizing the “everyday heroes” in the workplace and its platform makes this an engaging and empowering company-wide effort.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Content library — When you need an icebreaker or discussion prompt, Cooleaf’s got a library chocked full of suggestions to keep your meetings fresh and engaging.
- Engagement strategies — Cooleaf offers programs to get (and keep) your employees engaged while addressing important topics like cultural changes and employee wellness.
- Instant gratification — Whether it’s recognition or feedback, Cooleaf ensures your employees get it in real-time – no lags, no delays.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- More than enough — Depending on the size of your organization, Cooleaf may offer far more than what your small business actually needs at this time.
- No freebies — Since you’re not able to check out an impromptu demo or a free trial, it’s tough to see how Cooleaf operates without speaking to a representative.
💰 Pricing: You’ll need to answer a few simple questions and book a demo to get your personalized pricing.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“Cooleaf has transformed the way we recognize and engage our employees. We love how [Cooleaf] helps us create tailored programming that aligns with our unique goals.” – Abby Mack, HR Generalist
8. Leapsome
❤️ Why small businesses choose Leapsome: Leapsome’s survey module can help small businesses measure employee engagement, which is necessary for creating a motivated and high-performing team. Its ability to collect anonymous feedback can help leaders identify hidden issues and create a more engaged and inclusive workplace.
Leapsome combines feedback, goal-setting, and learning tools all in one centralized place. It helps keep teams engaged and aligned with the company’s goals without complicating the recognition process.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Impressive analytics — With Leapsome’s data deep-dives, you’ll be able to clearly see the whole picture when it comes to employee engagement, performance, recognition, retention, and so much more.
- Private Slack group — As a user, you’ll gain access to a private Slack community of HR pros and people experts, where you can bounce questions off one another and share valuable insights with like-minded professionals.
- Employee surveys — There’s no better way to find out what your workforce needs than an effective employee survey and Leapsome’s loaded with ready-made templates.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Site struggles — Users have reported a bit of a learning curve when navigating the website so it may not be a simple plug-and-play program.
- Desktop only — Leapsome does not offer a mobile app for Android or IOS.
💰 Pricing: There are a few variables to determine before pricing is quoted so you’ll want to speak with a Leapsome rep to build the best package and get the most accurate pricing.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“Leapsome was the right fit because it solved our initial need to listen to employee sentiment, but it also offered the customizability we were looking for.” – Jessie Martin, Sr. Manager
9. Connecteam
❤️ Why small businesses choose Connecteam: On the surface, Connecteam is user-friendly and customizable, but it’s also fully scalable and designed for a remote-friendly workforce. So, when a small business outgrows the term “small,” it doesn’t outgrow its employee recognition software.
With a range of tools for improving day-to-day activities, Connecteam’s name says it all. It keeps teams connected through a variety of features like scheduling and communication tools, employee rewards, and training opportunities, giving everyone an equal voice in the engagement game.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Time clock — Employees can easily use the app to clock in and out.
- Podcast — Forward. by Connecteam is available on Spotify and offers inspiring “ideas to take our business, teams & self. Forward.”
- Instant recognition — Your employees can instantly send each other personal kudos or make their praises public, along with badges and a customized message saying why they’re getting the high-five.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- GPS limitations — The live GPS tracking feature is only available in the mid-to-upper level packages (aka not in the free plan)
- Perplexing pricing — While we don’t have access to Connecteam’s plan options to confirm, some users have complained that its pricing was confusing when it came time to lock in their plan.
💰 Pricing: There’s a free 14-day trial and then small businesses with less than 10 employees can continue to use Connecteam for free – forever! The other tiers range from $29-$99 per month for the first 30 employees with a per/user fee over 30.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“Connecteam really supports small business with their free plan. It has helped my organization so much in supporting the staff we have.” – Tasha, Small Business Owner
10. Awardco
❤️ Why small businesses choose Awardco: Awardco offers small businesses opportunities to recognize employees on the spot, automate milestones, incentivize their teams, and build custom reward catalogs. Awardco also has partnerships with vendors like Amazon Business so employees have the flexibility to spend their reward points on whatever they want.
Awardco helps small businesses resolve common issues like underwhelming reward options and recognition processes that are just too cumbersome for employees to buy into. Since Awardco offers a wide range of reward options on an easy-to-use platform, it’s ideal for small businesses looking to improve their engagement numbers.
✅ Pros & Key Features:
- Dollar for dollar — There are no processing or service fees when employees give rewards dollars.
- Company swag store — You can set up your own virtual company store, stocked with branded swag that’s printed on demand when your employees order.
- AwardCodes — Not all employees work at a desk so AwardCodes are the QR-coded connection between their offline role and their well-deserved rewards.
❗️ Cons & Challenges:
- Limited search functions — Once inside the rewards catalog, there are limited sorting and filtering options, so searching for rewards can be time-consuming.
- No ADP Connection – ADP has over 800,000 small business clients so, if you’re one of them, this could be a hiccup.
💰 Pricing: While Awardco’s plans are listed on its website, its pricing is not – you’ll need to answer a few questions to get your customized quote.
🗣️ Customer Story:
“Awardco has helped us build and maintain the culture of appreciation that we know is imperative to great work. We’ve seen first-hand that when employees feel appreciated, they are more productive.” – Deanna Tindell, People Operations Specialist
Conclusion
In a nutshell, finding the right employee recognition software can make a huge impact on your small business. Whichever one you choose, each offers its own unique benefits to keep your employees motivated and engaged without stressing your monthly budget.
With the right tool, you can create a positive work environment, boost morale, improve employee performance and engagement, and increase employee retention for your small business.
