New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Introducing RafflePress's new leave-a-review giveaway actions. Boost customer engagement and build trust effortlessly by incentivizing reviews in WordPress.
New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Stacey Corrin
Stacey Corrin
John Turner
John Turner
Like many website owners, I was looking for ways to boost my online presence. Growing my email list, increasing social media engagement, and attracting more website visitors were top priorities. And giveaways seemed like the perfect solution.
That’s when I found Rafflecopter, advertised as the easy giveaway platform. However, things didn’t work quite as smoothly as I’d hoped.
While Rafflecopter offered some helpful features, I soon faced roadblocks and realized it wasn’t the magic bullet I’d hoped for. So, if you’re considering Rafflecopter, let’s explore my experience and what you should consider to make sure your contests deliver the results you want.
In this Rafflecopter review:
Rafflecopter is a web-based giveaway tool that allows you to host giveaways and online contests. It comes with a giveaway widget that you can embed on your website and share on social media.
With RafflePress, you can ask users to do things to enter your giveaway. For example, you can ask them to follow you on X, visit a Facebook page, or sign up to your email list.
Each action they complete earns them entries into the giveaway. The more entries someone has, the better their chances of winning.
In the end, Rafflecopter lets you run giveaways that can help you get more social media followers, brand awareness, and email subscribers.
The features of Rafflecopter depend on which version of the tool you use. Initially, there are minimal features, yet you can have access to more as you move up the pricing tiers.
Here’s a quick comparison of Rafflecopter free vs paid plans:
| Feature Category | Free | Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Core Functionality | ✅ | ✅ |
| Social Entry Options | FB/Twitter | FB/Twitter/Pinterest |
| Extra Entry Options | ❌ | Polls/Surveys |
| Customization | Standard | Themes/Design Options/Prize Images |
| Marketing | ❌ | Email Integrations/T&C Template |
| Tracking Results | ❌ | Refer-a-Friend/Analytics |
Now that you know what Rafflecopter is and the features it offers, you probably want to know what it’s like to make an online giveaway with this tool. Below, we’ll walk through creating a giveaway with Rafflecopter so you know how it works.
Note: I’ll use the free version for this Rafflecopter review.
To create a giveaway with Rafflecopter, make an account, log into the Rafflecopter dashboard, and click New.
Doing that will open the widget builder to add the details for your giveaway. First, you can add a prize name and, if you’re a premium user, upload a prize image or slideshow.
You can add as many prizes to the widget as you want. After that, you can start adding giveaway entry options to the widget.
As I mentioned earlier, the entry options you get with Rafflecopter depend on the plan you’re using. Since I’m using the free version for this example, I can only include the following entry options:
Even if you use one of the paid plans, there are still fewer entry options than I’d like. For example, there isn’t an easy way for users to share contests on LinkedIn, and it lacks follow options for other social networks like Instagram.
Additionally, Rafflecopter doesn’t offer a way to host photo contests.
Photo contests are a super-effective way to collect user-generated content. Because they come from genuine users, they’re ideal to use in social promotions to demonstrate trust and credibility.
Without the ability to run photo contests, you could be missing a sweet opportunity to boost your customer base.
After adding your entry options, you can set the duration of your giveaway. You can add the start date and time and the time your giveaway ends.
You can also add terms and conditions for your giveaway by clicking the text field on the right.
With the free version of Rafflecopter, you’ll need to enter your terms manually. But if you have the paid version, Rafflecopter creates the rules for you with its template.
Rafflecopter offers a few ways to publish your online giveaway. You can:
Even though these are good ways to publish and promote your giveaway, I find them overly fussy. Who really wants to copy and paste third-party code?
It also lacks a WordPress plugin that would allow WordPress website owners to add giveaways directly to their site (without code).
Rafflecopter offers some email marketing integrations to paid users. You can run a giveaway to grow your email list with those integrations.
The integrations that Rafflecopter offers include:
The above integrations are only available to Grow and Premium users.
Now I’ll look at how much Rafflecopter costs. As I’ve already mentioned, you can use a limited free version to run simple giveaway contests.
Yet, to access more features, Rafflecopter pricing is as follows:
After exploring the features, functionality, and pricing, what are the pros and cons of Rafflecopter?
| Rafflecopter Pros ✅ | Rafflecopter Cons ❌ |
|---|---|
| Easy to use | Lacks entry options for LinkedIn and Instagram |
| Encourages social media sharing | Missing actions for Twitch, Podcasts, and RSS |
| Allows you to grow your email list (paid plans) | It doesn’t allow photo contests |
| Includes a free version | No WordPress plugin |
| Offers popular email marketing integrations (paid plans) | Limited customization options (free plan) |
| Can’t create custom giveaway landing pages |
By now, you may be wondering, is Rafflecopter worth it? Here’s what I think.
Rafflecopter is a great giveaway tool if you need an easy way to run simple giveaways online. It includes a couple of features to help grow your social media followers, email list, and website traffic with giveaway campaigns.
Yet, if you need a dedicated WordPress giveaway builder with more features, such as the option to run photo contests, boost podcast subscribers, and more, there are Rafflecopter alternatives that do a better job.
In my opinion, the best Rafflecopter alternative for WordPress is RafflePress.
RafflePress is a WordPress giveaway plugin that lets you grow your email list, website traffic, and social media followers with viral giveaways and contests. It offers an easy drag-and-drop giveaway builder that enables you to create any giveaway and see a live preview in real-time.
Unlike Rafflecopter, RafflePress offers lots of ways for people to enter for pretty much any marketing campaign.
RafflePress includes actions for:
That means you can run social media contests to raise brand awareness and grow your followers right inside WordPress.
Additionally, RafflePress includes image submissions for running photo contests, polls & surveys, podcast subscriptions, and RSS feed subscription actions. You can also generate giveaway rules automatically for free.
The premade giveaway templates let you get started quickly, and with the viral refer-a-friend action, you can grow your reach on social media platforms.
Even better, you can create eye-catching giveaway landing pages with a few clicks. As a result, you can instantly publish your giveaway on your WordPress site and share the link anywhere online.
To pick a winner, you can use RafflePress’s random winner picker and display the results live on your giveaway widget. You can also review stats that show which entry actions were most popular.
If you want to run an online giveaway contest on WordPress, RafflePress is a no-brainer. You can try RafflePress for free or jump into running viral giveaways right away with RafflePress Pro.
Ready to boost your leads, traffic, and followers with viral WordPress giveaways?
If you’re looking for other giveaway tools to grow your website, see my other review posts:
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