How To Pick a Winner for a Giveaway (Fair, Random, and Transparent)

You just closed your giveaway, and now comes the part nobody warns you about: picking a winner without someone in the comments calling it rigged.

I’ve run enough contests to know that the winner selection process gets more scrutiny than any other part of the giveaway.

Use a random winner picker on a clean, verified entry pool, draw within 48 hours of the contest closing, and document everything before you announce. That’s how to pick a winner for a giveaway fairly.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the best ways to choose a giveaway winner, based on what’s worked for me (and what hasn’t).

Quick Ways to Pick a Giveaway Winner:

• 1. Random Winner Generator
• 2. Most Votes
• 3. Correct Answer
• 4. Verified Emails Only
• 5. Multiple Winners
• 6. Judging Panel
• 7. Exact Time Entry
• 8. Most Active Participant
• 9. Closest Guess

Shall we get started?

Legal Stuff to Know About Giveaways

1. Write Clear Rules: Always write down the rules for your giveaway. Say who can enter, how to enter, how you’ll choose winners, and what the prizes are. You can use this guide to write giveaway rules that cover the essentials.
2. Don’t Make People Buy Stuff: In most places, you can’t make people buy something to enter your giveaway. That’s why you often see “No purchase necessary” on contest rules.
3. Check Age Limits: Be clear about the age requirement to enter. Many contests are only for people 18 and older.
4. Decide Where Your Contest is Open: Laws can be different in different countries or even states. You might want to only allow entries from certain places.
5. Follow Social Media Rules: If you’re running your giveaway on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, each has its own rules. Make sure you know what they are.
6. Be Clear About Prizes: Tell people exactly what they can win. Sometimes, if prizes are worth a lot, winners might have to pay taxes on them.
7. Be Careful with Personal Information: If you ask for people’s details, follow privacy laws.
8. Random Drawing or Contest?: Giveaways where you pick a random winner sometimes have more rules than contests where people submit something like a photo.

Remember, these rules can be tricky. If you’re planning a big giveaway, it’s a good idea to talk to a lawyer who knows about these things.

How to Pick a Winner for a Giveaway

Below, we’ll outline how to choose a giveaway winner. If you’re in a hurry, you can start by watching the video below.

1. Use a Random Giveaway Winner Picker

In my years of running giveaways, I’ve found that sometimes the simplest method is the most effective. Random selection tools are my go-to for fairness and efficiency.

You can use:

• Giveaway winner picker tools
• Random number generators
• Random comment pickers

These tools are great for small-scale giveaways, but for larger contests, they can become cumbersome. That’s why I’ve come to rely on integrated solutions like RafflePress.

You need only enter the names of the people who entered, and they’ll pick a winner randomly.

RafflePress, which I’ve used extensively in my WordPress-focused campaigns, offers a built-in contest winner generator. This feature has saved me countless hours by eliminating the need for manual data entry and third-party tools.

Here’s a quick guide to using RafflePress for picking a giveaway winner:

When your giveaway has ended, head to RafflePress » Giveaways to see your list of contests.

Next, you’ll see a page listing everyone who entered your giveaway. Click the Pick Winner button to start choosing a winner.

You’ll be asked how many contest winners you’d like to pick, along with selecting winners with a verified or unverified email address.

When you’re done, click Choose Winners Now.

RafflePress’s random winner selector will choose a winner for you. Now click Email Winner to give them the good news.

This method works for any platform, whether it’s a Facebook contest, YouTube giveaway, or any other social media campaign. In my experience, it’s the most efficient way to ensure a fair, random selection while keeping everything organized within your WordPress site.

How Do You Make the Winner Selection Transparent?

Random selection is only as credible as your documentation. Before you announce the winner, take a screenshot of the selection screen showing the entry count and the selected winner’s name.

I also record the total number of entries before and after filtering out invalid ones, plus the method I used. That way, if anyone questions the result, I have a clear audit trail I can share publicly.

In RafflePress, your winner selection history is saved in the dashboard, so you can always go back to reference it. Post a brief “how we chose our winner” note when you announce, and most fairness concerns disappear before they start.

But what if your contest is a little more complicated and needs more input to draw a winner? Don’t fret. I’ve got more solutions coming up.

Let’s say you’re running a photo contest with an Instagram post, and you’d like to pick a winner from the best submissions. For that, you can choose the winner with the most votes.

2. Choose the Entry With the Most Votes

A smart way to get your community involved is to let them vote for their favorite submission. When the contest ends, the photo with the most votes can be chosen as the winner.

There are many ways to run a giveaway based on image submissions, but it’s important to remember certain things you should avoid when collecting votes for the winning submission.

For example, if you’re running a Facebook or Instagram giveaway, you cannot require your followers to like, share, or tag a post in exchange for entries.

One way to avoid this is to host your giveaway on your own website or blog and then have your community comment with their favorite submission.

Alternatively, you could insert an interactive poll in your giveaway post so visitors can instantly vote for their winner.

This removes the need to manually draw a winner from random comments or an Instagram comment picker. It can also increase the amount of time people spend on your site and reduce your bounce rate.

To go a step further, you can use the RafflePress Polls & Surveys action to build a poll right into your giveaway.

Go to Actions » Polls & Surveys and click to add it to your RafflePress widget. You can add as many poll choices as you’d like, perfect for voting contests with many submissions.

Here’s what it would look like to your visitors.

What if your giveaway has a question people must correctly answer to enter your prize draw? I’ll cover that next.

3. Filter Entries by Correct Answer

Many contests ask that people answer a question correctly, for instance, in their Instagram comments, to have a chance of winning a prize.

I’ve refined a simple approach for this contest winner selection process: filter all entries by the correct answer first. This eliminates entries with wrong answers, leaving you with a pool of qualified participants.

In RafflePress, you can easily filter entries with the wrong answer using the random winner generator. Let’s take a quick look at how to do this.

Head to RafflePress » Giveaways to see your giveaways overview. Then, hover your mouse cursor over the giveaway you want to see the entrants for and click Users.

Next, you’ll see a list of people who have entered your contest. Under each user, hover your cursor until you can see additional options.

Click Show Entries to view their entry details.

Now you can see the answer they gave to your giveaway question. If the answer is wrong, you can mark the entry as invalid, and if it’s correct, you can mark it as valid, as shown below.

RafflePress will only choose randomly from entries with valid answers when you use the random generator to pick a random winner.

4. Pick a Winner From Verified Emails Only

Running any giveaway can attract spam and people who are only interested in a quick freebie. This reduces genuine users’ chances of winning.

That’s why it’s a good idea to ask users to verify their email when entering your giveaway. If you know their email address is real and in use, you know they’re real people and not spambots.

Then, when it comes to choosing a winner, you can filter the entries by those with verified emails.

Luckily, RafflePress makes this easy.

When setting up your giveaway, click the Settings tab and the Email Verification heading.

Then, you can switch the toggle to the on position, so users must verify their email to confirm their identity and secure a valid entry.

When you’re ready to choose a winner for your giveaway, you need to select the checkbox that says Only Verified emails can win. Then click the Choose Winners Now button.

5. Select Multiple Giveaway Winners

What if you have more than one prize to give away? The logical answer to that question is to pick more than one giveaway winner.

As I highlighted earlier, doing this with RafflePress’s random generator is as simple as drawing a random winner.

When randomly choosing a winner, enter the number of winners you’d like. Then click Choose Winners Now.

Now you can email each winner to give them the good news. That’s it!

6. Let a Panel of Judges Decide the Winner

Not every contest is straightforward. Larger giveaways with creative or skill-based entries, like artwork, performances, or niche website designs, need more than one set of criteria to choose a winner fairly.

Having a group of people decide for you removes the guesswork. Plus, it ensures that the person chosen is a worthy winner in the end.

Photography contests like the Unsplash Awards use expert panels to evaluate thousands of creative submissions.

With so many great photos, we don’t envy making those decisions! Why not try something similar for your next YouTube giveaway?

For more inspiration, check out these YouTube giveaway examples.

7. Choose the Contest Winner by Exact Entry Time

Want to create a sense of urgency? Set a specific time during your giveaway period and declare the person who enters at that exact moment the winner.

This method can drive a surge in engagement, but I’ve found it works best as one of several ways to win rather than the only selection criteria. Participants in different time zones or with conflicting schedules may feel unfairly excluded.

8. Pick the Most Active Giveaway Participant

Looking to reward your most dedicated participants? Consider selecting a winner based on their level of activity within your giveaway.

Some brands do this by creating a leaderboard for the most activity:

This could involve tracking the number of entries, referrals, comments, shares, or other interactions they’ve made. By doing so, you incentivize continued engagement and foster a sense of loyalty among your audience.

9. Award the Closest Guess to the Right Answer

For a fun and interactive twist, challenge your participants to guess the answer to a specific question, such as “how many mini eggs are in this jar?”

The individual who comes closest to the correct answer wins the giveaway. This method not only tests their knowledge or estimation skills but also adds an element of gamification to your contest.

RafflePress allows you to create a “Survey or Poll” action to ask participants your guess-the-answer question.

You can then manually review the entries and select the winner based on the proximity of their response to the correct answer.

What If Your Giveaway Winner Doesn’t Respond?

Once you’ve selected your winner, there’s one more situation to prepare for: the winner who never writes back.

From what I’ve seen, this happens more often than most organizers expect. Someone enters, wins, and then goes quiet. It leaves you in an awkward spot, especially if you’ve already announced the winner publicly.

The standard practice is a 5-7 day response window. I include this timeline in my giveaway rules before the contest even starts, so there’s no ambiguity about what happens if the winner doesn’t claim their prize.

Before you announce your winner, pick 2-3 runner-ups from the same eligible entry pool. Keep their details private until you need them. If the original winner doesn’t respond within your window, move to the first runner-up and send the same winner notification email.

Document the forfeiture. Note the date you first contacted the winner, the number of follow-up attempts (two is standard), and the date you moved on to the runner-up. If anyone later disputes the result, you have a clear record to reference.

Once you’ve confirmed a winner, use RafflePress’s built-in email feature to notify them, then announce your giveaway winner to your audience with a post that includes a brief note on how the selection was made.

Which Giveaway Winner Method Should You Use?

In my experience, using a random winner picker like the one built into RafflePress is the fastest and fairest option for most WordPress users. But if your contest is based on creativity or votes, you might want to use a judging panel or poll instead.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you pick a winner for a giveaway fairly?

The fairest way to pick a giveaway winner is to use a random winner picker on a verified, filtered entry pool. Remove invalid entries first, such as duplicate accounts, unverified emails, or entries that didn’t follow the rules. Then run the random draw and take a screenshot of the result.

Draw within 48 hours of the contest closing and post a brief note explaining how you chose the winner when you announce. Transparency is what turns a fair process into a believable one.

What should you do if a giveaway winner doesn’t respond?

Give the winner a 5-7 day response window, stated in your giveaway rules before the contest starts. Send a follow-up email after 2-3 days if you haven’t heard back. If they still don’t respond by the deadline, move to your first runner-up.

Always select 2-3 runner-ups from the same eligible entry pool before announcing the winner. Document who you contacted, when, and how many attempts you made before moving on.

How do you pick a winner from Instagram comments?

To pick a random winner from Instagram comments, use a dedicated comment picker tool or host the giveaway through RafflePress and ask participants to verify their Instagram comment as an entry. This pulls all valid entries into one place so you can use RafflePress’s random winner generator.

Avoid manually scrolling through comments to pick a winner. It’s time-consuming and easy to dispute. A tool-generated selection with a visible entry count is far more defensible.

Can you disqualify a giveaway winner after they’ve been selected?

Yes, you can disqualify a winner after selection if they violated the entry rules, such as using fake accounts, entering multiple times against the rules, or not meeting eligibility requirements. Your giveaway rules should explicitly state the grounds for disqualification before the contest starts.

Document your reason clearly and move to your first runner-up. Announcing the disqualification publicly is optional, but a brief, factual note helps maintain audience trust.

How many runner-ups should you pick for a giveaway?

Pick 2-3 runner-ups for most giveaways. That’s enough to cover the common scenarios: a non-responding winner, a disqualified winner, or an eligibility issue that surfaces after the draw.

Select runner-ups from the same eligible entry pool immediately after your main draw, before you announce. Keep their details private until you need them.

That’s it!

We’ve covered the many ways you can learn how to choose a winner fairly for your giveaway. In our opinion, RafflePress’s random winner picker is the easiest solution for WordPress. All that’s left is to set up your contest and enjoy the community buzz it creates.

Before you get too far ahead with the planning, you might want to consider what prize you’ll offer. Here are some great giveaway prize ideas your audience will love.

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