Gleam Alternatives: Top 10 Optional Giveaway Platforms to Use

Gleam is a household name in viral marketing. In our ultimate list of best social media contest software, we ranked Gleam at the top of the list.

However, Gleam is not the only tool when it comes to growth hacking. In viral marketing, there are many different sub-categories:

1. Social media contests – Use to grow social media followers and increase engagement
2. Viral giveaways – Primarily used to grow an email list rapidly (e.g., Harris)
3. Referral marketing campaigns – Get referrals to existing businesses. (e.g, Dropbox)
4. Offline contests – Get customers to an offline business
5. Evergreen contests – Used to grow the email list consistently day and night

In reality, some Gleam competitors outperform Gleam in key areas that many people are unaware of.

That is why in this article on the best Gleam alternatives to try, we will rank the top options to Gleam.io.

Top Gleam Alternatives for 2025

Check as many services as possible and conduct your research to find an ideal replacement for Gleam.

UpViral

UpViral is one of the best giveaway apps, offering numerous features. In our experience, if you’re looking for a comprehensive and affordable viral giveaway tool for email list building, you should use UpViral over Gleam.

Key features:

You can check the UpViral review to find an in-depth analysis of the UpViral giveaway tool. Here are the key features and differentiations between UpViral and Gleam.

1. Unlimited campaigns, page visitors, winners, prizes: One of the great things about UpViral is that it does not limit your growth! Only pay extra when you need more features, such as API and leads.
2. Run giveaway and rewards campaign simultaneously: Why Upviral is a quality Gleam alternative is that you can combine random giveaway and rewards campaign aspects to engage every participant. In a rewards campaign, everybody can win something that you offer when they earn points. In a random giveaway campaign, participants can become winners based on the accumulation of points. When both aspects are combined, you can achieve the highest possible results.
3. A/B split test sign-up pages and share pages: A key indicator of why UpViral separates from Gleam is that only in UpViral can you split test landing pages to optimize the funnel. In many of our giveaways, we went from “broke” giveaways to “viral” ones by split-testing the signup page alone!
4. Custom fields: UpViral makes it easier to collect information, such as phone numbers, addresses, and more, with custom fields. You can also send those details to your email management tool instantly.
5. Drag-and-drop page builder: I also prefer UpViral over Gleam due to its visual page builder. You can add specific elements, such as videos, images, and a countdown timer, anywhere on the page and customize them as needed. Additionally, you can edit the source of a page and customize it as required, which is not possible in Gleam.
6. Geo-targeting: Control the accessibility or the availability of the campaign. Gleam also provides country targeting, but in higher plans.
7. Integration with your email autoresponder or CRM: Upviral directly integrates with the most popular email marketing services, including AWeber, and offers Zapier integration. Plus, you can use the HTML form integration to connect UpViral with any software.
8. Emphasize your brand identity: I think UpViral is the best Gleam alternative because you can map a custom domain name and use your email address for email notifications in UpViral.
9. Embeddable widget: Want to collect emails from your website or blog? Utilize the embeddable widget of UpViral to collect leads in multiple ways: 1) Pop-up, 2) Inline form, 3) Pop-over. You can also use the raw HTML form code of the UpViral campaign to connect with your form builders, such as ConvertBox or Convertful. However, Gleam’s embeddable widget lacks the same functionalities as UpViral.
10. Fraud detection: Use UpViral’s fraud detection or EmailListVerify, which UpViral integrates to maintain the quality of leads.
11. Blacklist and whitelist actors: One of the most significant issues of a giveaway is fraudulent leads. Block bad actors (through email ID, the domain name (e.g., temporary or disposable email domain addresses), or IP address) to make your giveaway fraud-free.
12. Post giveaway actions: Want to redirect giveaway traffic after it ends? UpViral makes it possible. But, Gleam sent traffic to an ugly “giveaway ended” page.

UpViral is a giveaway platform that enables you to create different types of contests. You can design a custom campaign featuring rewards (tiered incentives) and grand prizes.

Upload social share graphics using Photoshop or one of the online graphic editing tools like Canva, or create one using the built-in Canva editor. Additionally, you can customize the email message with a personalized curiosity-based subject line and persuasive body text.

Assign points for sharing on social networks and messenger services.

Pricing

UpViral offers a $1 trial on all plans. Additionally, there is an Upviral special offer where you can subscribe to the UpViral yearly plan at a considerable discount (50% off).

Learn more about UpViral pricing here.

We use Upviral on our giveaways and have collected over 12K leads.

Here are related guides on UpViral.

1. 7 Underused UpViral integrations to boost virality
2. How to use UpViral’s Embed Option

Click here to visit UpViral.

SweepWidget

SweepWidget’s giveaways resemble those of Gleam. If you’re looking for an equal and affordable alternative to Gleam, SweepWidget would be a great choice to consider.

Key features

1. Unlimited giveaways and unlimited participants: Some, you have to pay a lot to get into Gleam.
2. Drag and drop builder: Easily drag and drop elements to build your giveaway pages.
3. Create custom form fields: Collect more data and enrich your marketing campaigns.
4. 90+ ways for users to join: From following you on Twitter and subscribing to your YouTube channel to sharing your message on social media, there are numerous ways people can connect.
5. Track and manage entries: Find which sources performed better.
6. Daily entries and mandatory actions: Similar to Gleam giveaways, participants can complete daily actions and earn points, an effective way to engage people.
7. Age verification: Restrict giveaways based on demography
8. Anti-cheating tools – Prevent abuses in online competitions
9. Export entries to CSV
10. Upload entries into your contest with CSV
11. Restrict users by country
12. Real-time analytics: Get to know the overall performance of giveaways and make data-driven decisions.
13. Giveaway booster emails and customization: Email notifications let you send periodic messages to boost engagement. (eg, Last 24 hours email)
14. Integrations with popular social media platforms, email marketing tools, Google Analytics, and Zapier, and provides API access.

SweepWidget utilizes email code verification to prevent fraudulent activities, particularly those involving fake emails used to enter giveaways.

Pricing

SweepWidget does not have a free plan and its paid subscription plans start from $29 per month.

Click here to try SweepWidget.

RafflePress

RafflePress is a WordPress giveaway plugin that enables you to create giveaways and contests directly within your WordPress dashboard. If your business is based on the WordPress ecosystem and you’re looking for a better replacement for Gleam to use on a WordPress site, RafflePress is an excellent choice.

Key features

1. Run unlimited giveaways on WordPress with your branding: Unlike Gleam, RafflePress lets you use your domain name for tracking links and use on any page, and set custom periods for contests.
2. Drag & Drop giveaway builder: RafflePress is also one of the top UpViral alternatives for WordPress. RafflePress’s page builder is easy to use, and no coding skills are needed.
3. Viral giveaway templates: Select one from dozens of available premade templates.
4. Responsive mobile-friendly designs
5. Multiple prizes: Assign different prizes for placements
6. Time Control: Set Custom Giveaway End Periods.
7. 1-Click entry + Fraud protection: Like Gleam, in Rafflepress, you can enable 1-Click entry.
8. Social media integrations: Allow users to log in and set up social share messages through their social media accounts.
9. Marketing & CRM integrations: Transfer participants’ details to your marketing tools and automate marketing through emails and SMS.
10. Tracking and retargeting: Add custom tracking pixels and display retargeting ads on your preferred ad networks, including Facebook, AdRoll, and PropellerAds.
11. Zapier and Webhooks: Integrate with over 5,000 services on Zapier.

Additionally, RafflePress offers several excellent features, including mandatory actions, repeat actions, and redirecting users after they complete entries. However, RafflePress does not have transaction tracking, a custom action builder, etc.

Pricing

RafflePress is one of the best value alternatives for Gleam. Currently, it is available on a limited-time offer.

Click here to visit RafflePress.

GiveLab

GiveLab is a free giveaway platform with unlimited campaigns and entries. Since its templates resemble those of Gleam, we have listed it as one of the best Gleam.io alternatives.

Key features

1. Unlimited giveaways and participants
2. Restrict entries by location
3. Customize the giveaway campaign with drag-and-drop steps
4. Integrations with major social networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, Pinterest, and email marketing platforms
5. Install giveaway through website widget, WordPress Embed, Facebook tab, or run giveaway on a unique dedicated page
6. GiveLab Messenger to communicate with a winner
7. Advanced Analytics

In addition to the above features, GiveLab lets you showcase winners on the post-giveaway page, offers daily bonus entries and completion bonuses (points offered after completing all actions), and allows users to earn credits through unique secret codes you can set.

Also, GiveLab is one of the few giveaway platforms that support Cryptocurrencies.

Pricing

GiveLab’s free plan is generous enough to offer a wide range of features. Its paid plans are not that expensive, especially compared with Gleam. The Premium plan costs $9.99 per month when paid monthly and includes features such as Giveaway Live Stream and additional entry steps.

Click here to try GiveLab.

KingSumo

KingSumo was once offered only as a WordPress plugin. However, now they have focused more on the cloud platform. KingSumo is a part of the AppSumo family. It is currently offered for a one-time fee on the Appsumo marketplace.

Key features

1. Host giveaways on KingSumo dedicated pages or your website
2. Export your giveaway entrants into a CSV
3. Bonus giveaway entries for taking specific actions
4. Integrations with SendFox, MailChimp, and Zapier
5. Create a newsletter referral program with SendFox
6. Built-in advanced spam and fraud prevention methods

Since its beta launch to the public, the KingSumo team has been gradually releasing features. However, if you’re not looking for all the features in Gleam, KingSumo might be the tool you’re looking for.

Pricing

Get lifetime access to KingSumo Pro for $49.

Click here to try KingSumo.

Woorise

Woorise is another Gleam alternative with similar-looking templates. It is an all-in-one marketing suite featuring tools such as landing pages, forms, quizzes, contests, giveaways, and sweepstakes.

Key features

1. Create unlimited giveaway campaigns: Even Woorise’s free plan allows you to create an unlimited number of campaigns.
2. Templates to get started
3. Logics: Use “Conditional Logic” to conditionally show/hide form fields, social actions, confirmation messages, or conditionally send email notifications.
4. Drag & Drop Interface
5. Reward users for taking actions
6. Instant redeem rewards
7. 1-Click pick winners
8. Validate promotional codes (i.e., secret entry codes)
9. Collect online payments
10. Geo-targeting
11. Fraud detection
12. Integrations with popular email marketing services, Zapier, and WebHooks
13. Bitly, PayPal, and Google Analytics integration

Since Woorise is more than just a giveaway creator, it offers additional tools, including a bio links creator, a landing page builder, and a quiz creator.

Pricing

The free plan is limited to 500 entries per month, and many features are restricted. Paid plans start at $29 per month, and the highest plan costs $99 per month (for 20,000 monthly entries).

Click here to check out Woorise.

ViralSweep

ViralSweep is a viral marketing platform that enables you to grow your business through sweepstakes, contests, instant wins, waitlists, milestones, comments, hashtags, and social media gallery competitions. Like Gleam, ViralSweep is an established platform with fewer bugs and more features.

Key features

1. Unlimited promotional campaigns and entries
2. 100+ integrations with email autoresponders and services like Google Analytics, Facebook lead ads, and Zapier
3. Run different types of contests like Instant Win, Hashtag, and Comments
4. Sales tracking via Shopify app integration
5. Geo-targeting campaigns
6. Spam filter
7. Custom tracking links
8. Audience segmentation
9. Entry frequency
10. Embed the ViralSweep giveaway widget on a website, blog, or Facebook
11. Social actions
12. Entry codes (Gives people a chance to collect points by entering custom entry codes you provide. People can get those codes after completing tasks, for instance.)
13. Official rules generator
14. Analytics
15. Live Draw

ViralSweep is one of the closest alternatives to Gleam, offering numerous features.

Pricing

Unlike Gleam, ViralSweep does not offer a free plan. Its paid plans start at $49, and the highest publicly listed plan costs $999 monthly.

Click here to check out ViralSweep.

Growsurf

If you are looking for a quality Gleam competitor for referring marketing projects for SaaS businesses, Growsurf would be an excellent choice. It’s specially designed to build referral programs for tech companies, which Gleam was not primarily created for.

Key features

1. Customize reward type(s) for campaigns: Single-sided, Double-sided, Milestone, and Leaderboard rewards.
2. Set custom referral credit window: Specify the cookie expiration date
3. Configure campaign emails: Customize with user data and use your email sending address.
4. Import participants
5. Manual/offline referral trigger
6. Advanced integrations with popular services and WebHooks, Rest API, and JavaScript API
7. Automatic fraud prevention
8. Review and approve rewards
9. Blacklist IPs, emails, and countries
10. Two performing action types of counting as a referral: Sign up and Sign up + Qualifying action
11. Conversion tracking
12. Intercom-style sitewide referral share floating widget

One of the key aspects of Growsurf is the ability to white-label the platform entirely with your domain and embeddable forms. Furthermore, you can customize the user interface with CSS, which is impossible in Gleam.

Pricing

Growsurf’s plans are expensive. Startup plan is $179 per month for 2,500 participants.

Click here to check out Growsurf.

ShortStack

ShortStack is an all-in-one platform for creating giveaways, contests, social media competitions, forms, landing pages, and mini web pages. You can make a wide range of contests in ShortStack.

• Instant win contests
• Refer-a-Friend contests
• Branded photo frames
• Point-of-action contests
• Voting contests
• Invite-only contests
• Hashtag Contests
• Comment-to-enter contests
• and more

Key features

1. Unlimited giveaway campaigns and unlimited emails
2. Online contests, giveaways, sweepstakes, and social media hashtag contests (Twitter, Instagram), photo & video voting contests, and essay contests
3. Social media voting contests (accept Instagram, TikTok)
4. Landing pages
5. Drag and drop builder with live preview
6. Customizable templates
7. Mini websites
8. Calendar giveaways
9. Personality and knowledge quizzes
10. Use custom domain names
11. Analytics for pages and emails
12. Send drip campaigns
13. Export entries
14. Autoresponder integrations & WebHooks

ShortStack offers additional features, including private, invite-only pages for running secret giveaways, various contest types such as scratch-offs, puzzles, spin-the-reels, multiple-round vote contests, and user management.

Pricing

ShortStack offers five plans, with pricing starting at $49 per month (2,000 entry storage limit).

Click here to check out ShortStack.

Vyper

Vyper is another viral giveaway software that features a visual builder and numerous additional benefits. It is one of the best Gleam alternatives, particularly for agencies and marketing firms that host contests on behalf of their clients.

Key features

• Unlimited giveaway campaigns, page visitors, and custom actions
• Run both leaderboard and reward competition types in a single campaign
• Four types of rewards: Point milestone, Redeem, Tier, Other
• Revenue tracking
• Use a custom domain/subdomain
• Track Shopify shop purchases and rewards based on dollar expenditures
• Email notifications
• Pixel tracking and Google Analytics code integration
• Bonus actions builder
• Use the contest widget (Intercom-style) on websites. Perfect for sitewide giveaways
• Fraud prevention settings
• API

When comparing Gleam and Vyper in terms of features, Gleam is the more advanced option. However, Vyper provides a visual builder that allows you to create full-page sweepstakes pages and run evergreen campaigns on your site with an intercom-style contest widget.

Pricing

Vyper only has two plans:

1. Enterprise – $149/mo – 15K leads (30K if used own SMTP), track up to $30K revenue
2. Agency – $299/mo – 60K leads (120K if used own SMTP), track up to $120K revenue

In terms of price, Gleam is cheaper than Vyper. However, there are many use cases where Vyper has to perform better in terms of total leads and social followers acquired after the contest ended. Additionally, the Agency plan of Vyper is more cost-effective compared to Gleam, as it allows you to create up to 10 sub-accounts for clients, enabling them to log in and monitor their performance.

Click here to check out Vyper.

5-step process to choose a suitable Gleam alternative

In this article, you found ten giveaway sites like Gleam. Now, you might be wondering which one to select, considering there are many unique and standard features among the Gleam alternatives. Here are my five tips:

#1: Find out why you want to replace Gleam

Is it for testing a new platform to see how it performs?

In internet marketing, nothing is static. Results will vary when you split-test. Same for the giveaway software. Whether it’s a social media contest, lead generation contest, or a simple Twitch stream giveaway, you should test your giveaway platform to gauge its impact.

Does your Gleam account limit its features?

Gleam is a gigantic giveaway platform. However, it still lacks some features, such as A/B testing, landing pages, and a drag-and-drop page builder.

Is your Gleam subscription becoming unaffordable?

Gleam’s pricing plans can be confusing. It has pricing for each application and a pricing structure for all apps.

For instance, some integrations are only available in upper plans, and subscribing to those plans could not be the best value for your money, depending on your financial situation and business action plan.

#2: What was your objective in using Gleam in the first place?

Is it for growing your email list? Or messenger subscribers or social followers?

Or did you want to get referrals to your tech business, motor-and-brick business, or any other offline business?

Or did you want to get sales in the eCom shop by incentivizing existing customers through targeted coupons?

For instance, UpViral is best when it comes to running a giveaway for growing an email list. SweepWidget is great for social media contests such as comment competitions. GrowSurf is an excellent referral software for tech companies.

#3: Check out all websites

The idea of this article is not to make the decision for you but to help you decide it.

Visit all the websites listed in this article and check the features, prices, and case studies. Case studies are valuable in understanding which kind of contests performed well with each tool. It will take some time, but it will be worth it.

#4: List top Gleam replacements based on priority

After reading this article and visiting the websites of each tool, you will get a list of the best Gleam competitors according to your criteria. List them according to priority.

Do you want a WordPress-specific giveaway platform? Then, RafflePress should take the top position. You get the idea.

#5: Try them out

Most Gleam alternatives listed here provide a trial period. Some offer it for free, while others charge a small fee (eg, UpViral trial charges $1 and is available for 14 days).

When trying out each tool, sign up for a plan with the most valuable features. For example, A/B testing and brand removal are available in UpViral’s middle plan.

Can online lucky draw tools replace Gleam?

There are several sites, such as Wheelofnames.com, that allow users to select winners.

Essentially, these tools randomly select winners based on the number of entries. On the other hand, Gleam is a service that helps you collect entries and choose winners.

If you already have a list of entries (i.e., participant identities), you can use a random name picker like WheelOfNames to choose winners. If not, online lucky draw tools cannot replace Gleam.

Related: Best comment pickers for social media (hold contests to boost engagement)

Final Thoughts on Best Gleam Alternatives

Although Gleam is a popular giveaway platform used by many, there are circumstances in which you may need to replace it. Perhaps when you replace it, you will achieve better results, as nothing is permanent.

First, you have to set the objective of replacing Gleam and then select a preferred one. I hope this article helped you find a suitable Gleam alternative.

In the comment section below, let us know if you have used another online giveaway tool that outperformed Gleam.