New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
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New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Stacey Corrin
Stacey Corrin
John Turner
John Turner
The best social media contest tools for 2025 are RafflePress, Woorise, and SweepWidget. These platforms help you run viral giveaways, grow your followers, and collect leads through contests on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social networks.
I’ve spent over a decade testing contest platforms and have run successful campaigns using each tool on this list. After comparing features, pricing, and results, I found that most businesses get the best value from tools that offer both free versions and affordable paid upgrades.
Below, you’ll find my detailed review of the top 10 social media contest tools, including pricing, standout features, and which type of business each one works best for.
Top 3 Picks for 2025:
Quick Comparison: All three tools support Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok contests. RafflePress integrates directly with WordPress, Woorise offers team collaboration features, and SweepWidget provides 90+ entry types for maximum flexibility.
If you’re in a hurry, take a look at this comparison of the tools I’ve included on my list:
| Tool | Best For | Free Option | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| RafflePress | WordPress | Free version | $39.50/y |
| Woorise | Teams | Free version | $23/m |
| Agorapulse | Free trial | €79/m | |
| Shortstack | Customization | Free trial | $49/m |
| Woobox | Cross-Platform | Free version | $37/m |
| Wishpond | Lead Generation | Free trial | $69/m |
| Gleam | Actions | Free version | $10/m |
| Rafflecopter | Simplicity | Free version | $13/m |
| SweepWidget | Versatility | Free version | $29/m |
| VYPER | Gamification | Free trial | $149/m |
Social media contest tools help you create giveaways and contests on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. I use them to automate the boring stuff like collecting entries and picking winners.
These tools make it easy to set up entry methods like “follow my account” or “tag 3 friends.” They also verify that people actually completed the actions, so you don’t have to check manually.
Running a social media contest is a powerful way to grow your online presence. Over 90% of social media users are more likely to engage with brands that host contests.
A well-executed contest can benefit your brand by:
For example, Smash Balloon grew its email list by 3,584 subscribers with a social media contest.
To help you decide which ones are the best, I picked the social media contest tools in this guide by focusing on platforms that offer essential features without forcing a paid upgrade.
Each tool needed to provide key features like sweepstakes creation, multiple entry methods, and basic customization. The interface had to be user-friendly, and the free plan had to offer enough functionality to run a successful giveaway.
These contest tools offer different kinds of “free” options. Some are free but have limits, some have free trials, and some have free basic features, but you pay for extra features. Check below for details on each tool’s free options and pricing.
| Pricing: Starts at $39.50/year |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free version available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 1-click entry and fraud protection 🔹 Viral sharing (refer-a-friend) 🔹 Goal-based giveaway templates 🔹 Drag-and-drop builder 🔹 Giveaway landing pages |
| Rating: A+ |
| Best For: WordPress users who want to run viral giveaways |
RafflePress is a WordPress giveaway plugin that helps you run viral contests and collect leads through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. It offers both free and paid versions, with the free version providing a solid set of features to create engaging social contests and giveaways.
With RafflePress, you can run sweepstakes, photo contests to collect user-generated content, hashtag contests, video contests, and many other types of online giveaways. Almost all entry methods are 1-click and offer the option to verify entries to avoid spam.
You can add your own branding, images, and descriptions to make the giveaway match your website’s style. The plugin also includes pre-built giveaway templates to get you started quickly.
These templates are goal-based, helping you run a giveaway to:
One of RafflePress’s best benefits is that it allows you to set up multiple entry methods for your giveaway. These include methods such as following you on social media, subscribing to your email list, leaving a comment, and more. You can choose which entry methods are mandatory and which are optional.
Another great feature is the ability to enable viral sharing. This means that entrants can share your giveaway with their friends, family, and followers to earn extra entries, helping to increase your reach and engagement.
In addition, this powerful tool comes with an easy-to-use dashboard where you can see how many people have entered, which entry methods are most popular, and more real-time analytics.
With the drag-and-drop builder and giveaway landing pages, it’s easy to design and optimize giveaways to boost your website’s performance.
Plus, its winner generator makes picking a winner randomly and displaying it in the contest widget a breeze. You can also use its built-in giveaway rules generator to keep your giveaway compliant, and Recaptcha for fraud protection.
I personally use RafflePress religiously for all of our online contests because it’s easy to use and flexible. It’s also a firm favorite for other brands.
Here’s an example of how OptinMonster used RafflePress for their birthday giveaway:
| Pricing: Starts at $23/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free version available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 Drag-and-drop contest builder 🔹 Surveys and quizzes 🔹 Bio link tool for Instagram 🔹 Workspace support for teams 🔹 Analytics and conversion tracking |
| Rating: A |
| Best For: Agencies and teams running multiple campaigns |
Woorise is a social media contest platform that helps agencies and teams create giveaway campaigns across Instagram, Facebook, and other social networks to generate leads and engage with your audience.
During my testing, I found you can easily set up various social contests, including Instagram giveaways, Facebook giveaways, and Twitter contests. The platform also includes options for creating surveys and quizzes to collect audience data and improve conversion rates.
The built-in anding page builder works well for creating professional-looking contest pages. It uses a drag-and-drop editor that doesn’t require coding knowledge, making it easy for beginners. There’s also a bio-link tool included for Instagram marketing, though it’s fairly basic.
One standout feature I noticed is the workspace organization. Users can create separate areas to manage different accounts for brands and clients. This makes it easier to track campaigns and deliver results, especially if you’re managing multiple contests at once.
Check out our Woorise review for more details.
| Pricing: Starts at €79/month (billed yearly) |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free trial available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 Facebook contest apps 🔹 CRM and comment tracking 🔹 In-depth reporting tools 🔹 Quizzes and photo contests 🔹 Timeline contests |
| Rating: B+ |
| Best For: Facebook-focused brands that already use Agorapulse |
Agorapulse is a social media management platform that includes Facebook contest features alongside scheduling, analytics, and CRM capabilities for businesses. While testing the platform, I found it works best for businesses already using it for social media management who want to add contests to their strategy.
The reporting system stands out from other tools I’ve tested. It presents key metrics in a clearer format than Facebook’s native analytics, making it easier to track contest performance and engagement rates.
During my evaluation, I explored their Facebook apps collection, which includes quizzes, photo contests, and sweepstakes. The free Timeline contest option is a good starting point, letting you test basic features before committing to more advanced contest types for your Facebook page.
With Agorapulse’s Facebook contest app, you can:
While I found this tool’s features limited, it’s a good choice if you’re only creating Facebook contests.
| Pricing: Starts at $49/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free trial available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 90+ contest templates 🔹 Action-gated entry forms 🔹 Email marketing features 🔹 Advanced analytics 🔹 Hashtag contest support |
| Rating: A |
| Best For: Brands that want full customization and analytics |
Shortstack is a contest marketing platform that helps businesses create customizable giveaways and email campaigns across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. In my tests, I found it handles contests across multiple platforms, including hashtag contests for Instagram and Twitter, plus giveaways for Facebook and Pinterest.
The platform offers over 90 templates and 30 themes with drag-and-drop functionality. While the custom URL feature is useful for branding, I noticed some templates look dated compared to newer alternatives.
For lead generation, Shortstack includes several practical features. Users can earn extra entries by referring a friend or sharing contact information. The action-gate function proved particularly useful during testing, as it lets you require specific information from entrants before they can access discounts or enter contests.
The analytics section provides solid data on campaign performance, and features like verified voting help prevent contest manipulation. The landing page builder works well enough for promoting campaigns across different channels, though it’s not as robust as dedicated page builders.
While ShortStack offers a range of paid plans to cater to your social media goals, you can also try it for free to access all its features. The tool is an all-in-one solution for creating powerful social media campaigns that deliver results.
Pricing: ShortStack’s free trial allows you to accept up to 20 entries and 100 views per 30 days. Paid plans start at $49 per month.
| Pricing: Starts at $37/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free version available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 Facebook tab contests 🔹 Polls and quizzes 🔹 Drag-and-drop interface 🔹 Custom share messaging 🔹 Landing page builder |
| Rating: B+ |
| Best For: Cross-platform contests and personality quizzes |
Woobox is a social media contest platform that helps you create giveaways and promotional campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. It’s a great tool to use, especially if you plan to use Facebook. However, you can also use it for other platforms like Vine, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Woobox has pre-made campaigns, such as personality quizzes, polls, coupons, and sweepstakes, to help you get started. The drag-and-drop feature also made it easy to customize campaigns and add branding elements.
You can customize the message that’s shared on social media when someone enters your contest or giveaway. And, like with similar tools, you can use analytics to improve your campaign.
| Pricing: Starts at $69/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: 14-day free trial |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 12+ contest types 🔹 Email marketing automation 🔹 Landing and sales pages 🔹 Funnel builder 🔹 Analytics and reporting |
| Rating: A- |
| Best For: Businesses that want an all-in-one marketing suite |
Wishpond is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps businesses run social media contests, email campaigns, and landing pages to generate and nurture leads. This platform is affordable and includes all the tools you need to generate new leads, nurture existing ones, and ultimately turn them into paying customers.
One of the standout features of Wishpond is its ability to help you run social media contests, giveaways, and other promotions. You can create as many of these as you want and choose from a range of different contest types.
There are 12 options in total, including popular formats like photo contests and Instagram Hashtag contests. You can also create more unique contests like Pinterest contests, sweepstakes, and coupon giveaways.
Wishpond makes it easy for me to design professional-looking promotions using optimized templates. It also provides tools to track performance and analyze the results of our campaigns.
In addition to social promotions, Wishpond can also help you manage your lead-generation efforts and automate email marketing campaigns. It has a user-friendly landing page builder, a funnel builder, payment, popup, and form tools to improve your customer journey and boost conversions.
Related: Best Wishpond Competitors: My Honest Reviews
| Pricing: Starts at $10/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free version available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 Verified entry actions 🔹 YouTube video embeds 🔹 Repeatable daily actions 🔹 Drag-and-drop entry methods 🔹 Email and social growth tools |
| Rating: A- |
| Best For: Bloggers and creators wanting flexible entry options |
Gleam is a viral marketing platform that helps bloggers and creators run social media contests with verified entry actions across Instagram, Facebook, and other social networks. One of these tools is their Competitions app, which allows you to create social media contests for your brand.
With Gleam, you can run contests that will help you grow your email list or social media following. You can add different ways for people to enter your contest, and you can easily rearrange them with drag and drop.
One unique feature of Gleam is that it verifies if users have completed all the actions required for your giveaway, which helps you get accurate data and saves you time. It’s also quicker for users to fill out Gleam forms since some entries only require one click. Additionally, you can allow some entry actions to be repeatable daily for more points.
I particularly liked how Gleam lets you embed a YouTube video to show visitors what they can win or how to enter your giveaway.
However, in a head-to-head comparison of Gleam vs RafflePress on the Elegant Themes blog, B.J Keeton states that “RafflePress is probably the more user-friendly option of the two and has a lower cost.”
Related: 10 Free Gleam Alternatives for WordPress Contests
| Pricing: Starts at $13/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free version available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 3-minute setup 🔹 Easy embed code 🔹 Weighted entry options 🔹 Facebook contest support 🔹 One-click social integrations |
| Rating: B |
| Best For: Bloggers and solo creators wanting a basic tool |
Rafflecopter is a social media contest tool that helps solo entrepreneurs and brands run giveaways quickly across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or a big brand, Rafflecopter is a popular choice for its user-friendliness and reliability.
You can set up a giveaway in less than three minutes and add it to your website by copying and pasting the code. You can also encourage contestants to enter your contest through various actions, like following you on social media or subscribing to your email list.
I found that Rafflecopter’s one-click integration with popular social media platforms helped make this process even easier. I could even give different weights to different actions, such as offering more entries for following on Twitter.
Rafflecopter is free and offers a free trial of their Basic, Grow, or Premium plan, so you can try it out and see if it’s a good fit for your business. Additionally, you can use Rafflecopter on your Facebook page for contests that are specific to your Facebook community.
| Pricing: Starts at $29/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free version available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 Over 90 entry types 🔹 Instant coupons 🔹 Email marketing integrations 🔹 Advanced fraud protection 🔹 Website, blog, or widget support |
| Rating: A |
| Best For: Marketers looking for flexibility and viral reach |
SweepWidget is a contest marketing platform that helps businesses create giveaways with over 90 entry types across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and websites. Whether you want to host a giveaway on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or even directly on your website, Sweepwidget has you covered.
Its user-friendly interface makes setting up contests a breeze. You can choose from various contest types, including sweepstakes, photo contests, video contests, and more. Sweepwidget also lets you customize the look and feel of your contest to align with your branding.
Sweepwidget integrates flawlessly with popular email marketing tools, making it easy to collect leads and grow your email list. Plus, it includes features like fraud prevention, viral sharing options, and detailed analytics to help measure your contest performance.
| Pricing: Starts at $149/month |
| Free Plan / Trial: Free trial available |
| Standout Features: |
| 🔹 Leaderboards and milestone rewards 🔹 Referral incentives 🔹 Gamified bonus entries 🔹 Landing page builder 🔹 CRM and analytics integrations |
| Rating: B+ |
| Best For: High-growth teams and creators using gamification |
VYPER is a viral marketing platform that helps high-growth teams create gamified giveaways, contests, and referral programs across social media to generate leads and boost engagement. It focuses on lead generation and gamified experiences to boost engagement and drive business growth.
With VYPER, you can create dynamic campaigns that include elements like leaderboards, milestone rewards, and bonus actions to incentivize participation and sharing. You can also offer rewards for referrals, encouraging participants to spread the word and expand your reach.
VYPER provides customizable landing pages, integrates with leading email marketing providers, and offers detailed analytics to track your campaign’s success. It also includes tools to prevent fraudulent entries and maintain the integrity of your contests.
Related:
After testing and comparing all the tools in this guide, I’d say RafflePress is the best all-around social media contest tool—especially if you’re using WordPress. It’s beginner-friendly, includes viral sharing, and works right out of the box with your site.
That said, here’s a quick breakdown of my top picks, depending on what you need:
Each one supports giveaways on Instagram, Facebook, and more. Plus, most offer free plans or trials to get you started.
If you want access to more advanced viral features, you can get started with RafflePress Pro here.
If you’re looking for more ways to grow your business on social media, take a look at these top social media guides and resources:
There you have it!
I hope this article helped you find the best social media contest tools for your business. If you like, you can check out the best WordPress plugins to grow your business.
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raffle press is not free. no trial, no free plan. This article is not accurate
Hi Greyson. RafflePress does indeed have a free version. You can download it here.