Huggg vs Awardco: which suits UK employee rewards and long service awards?

Awardco is mentioned in nearly every single conversation about recognition platforms, and that's for a very fair reason: it's one of the highest-rated tools in the category. We wouldn't pretend otherwise. However, it's designed for a different kind of company than Huggg's platform is. This is a real-talk comparison so you can tell which one might be a better fit for your organisation.

Quick answer: Awardco is a full recognition, rewards and engagement suite: points, automated service awards, nominations, surveys and a huge global catalogue, sold on annual plans after a demo. Huggg is a UK employee gifting platform: managers send a real gift by link in seconds, recipients choose from a range you've set, and the platform itself is free. If you need one global system to run every recognition programme, look at Awardco. If you want UK managers to send meaningful gifts quickly without a platform contract, Huggg is the simpler fit.

Huggg and Awardco side by side

What it is

• Awardco: a US-based recognition and rewards platform that describes itself as a "culture engine". It covers spot recognition, automated milestones, award nominations, incentives, external recognition and engagement surveys.
• Huggg: a UK employee gifting platform. It covers thank-you gifts, recognition budgets for managers, gift with choice, gift cards, branded gifts and bulk sends.

How rewards work

• Awardco: employees receive points and redeem them through a catalogue that includes Amazon Business products, gift cards, experiences, charity and company swag, plus an optional payment card.
• Huggg: recipients receive a gift, not points. You set the budget and curate the selection, and they pick what they want from it.

Pricing

• Awardco: Standard, Scale and Enterprise plans, priced on enquiry after a demo. Its pricing page says packages for businesses with 100 employees or fewer start at $3,000.
• Huggg: the core platform is free, with no platform fee, set-up cost or minimum order. You only pay for the gifts you send, and the price shown includes VAT.

Reach

• Awardco: 135 countries and 163 currencies, according to its UK site.
• Huggg: built for UK teams. Physical gifts ship to 16 countries including the UK (and always growing!), and digital gift cards cover 15.

Reviews

• Awardco: rated 4.9 from more than 5,000 reviews on G2, which is a genuinely strong track record.
• Huggg: used by more than 2,000 companies, with customer stories including Starbucks, Octopus Energy, Wingstop and Newsprinters - 4.8 on Trustpilot

Points vs gifts: the real difference

This is the decision that really matters.

Awardco is a points platform, and - to be fair - a very good one. Points give you a hell of a lot of flexibility: you can top up budgets, set exchange rules by country, and let people save up for something bigger. Its Amazon Business partnership means the catalogue is pretty much limitless, and Awardco says those rewards carry zero markups. Its pricing page also lists gift cards "with fees (customizable by country)" alongside fee-free ones, so check which apply to you.

Huggg doesn't use points. It's just not our thing. Our view is that points put an exchange rate between the saying "thanks" and how that's felt. Someone gets "500 points" today, works out what that buys next month, and the moment the manager actually meant to mark is long gone. A gift says "thanks" immediately. We've written more about why nobody wants your points.

There's no single right answer here. If your people value saving up and you want one currency across 20 countries, points make sense. If you want the recognition and the reward to arrive in the same moment, a gift does that better.

Long service awards

Long service is where Awardco is often recommended as an alternative to TerryBerry, and it's strong here. Its service awards product automates anniversaries from employee data, supports different award values at each milestone, and offers plaques, trophies, certificates and pins alongside points. If you need anniversaries to trigger themselves from your HR system across thousands of people in several countries, with plaques and pins alongside the reward, that's Awardco's home ground.

Huggg does milestones too, with a lighter touch. Automated gifting connects to your HRIS, so birthday and work anniversary gifts go out on the right day without anyone having to remember, each with a personal message. The recipient then chooses what they want from the range you've set, rather than redeeming points or unwrapping a plaque. Automation is a paid upgrade, and for one-off milestones you can still send a gift yourself, in bulk, or scheduled in advance. Our guide to setting up automated milestone gifting walks through how to do it well.

For UK employers, the bigger question is often tax: long service awards have their own HMRC exemption, separate from trivial benefits. It covers non-cash awards for 20 or more years of service, worth up to £50 for each year, provided there's been no similar award in the previous 10 years. Our guide to long service awards covers what to give at each milestone and how the exemption works.

Frontline staff without a work email

Both platforms take this seriously, in different ways.

Awardco offers mobile access, kiosks and AwardCodes: physical cards carrying points that an employee scans to redeem. Its offline recognition page is clear that the exact set-up depends on how each organisation provisions employees, so it's worth asking how it would work for your sites.

Huggg was built link-first, so no login is ever needed. Gifts go by SMS, by email, as a group link that up to 10,000 people can claim, or as a printed card with a QR code. Newsprinters used exactly that for 650 on-site employees: a Christmas card with a Huggg QR code inside, which each person scanned to claim a gift from the retailer of their choice. Richard Johnstone, Newsprinters' Chief of Staff, said the QR card "significantly streamlined the administration process for our on-site teams." Read the Newsprinters story.

Pricing and commitment

This is the clearest practical difference.

Awardco is sold the way most recognition suites are: a demo, a plan built around the programme types you need, and an annual commitment. That's appropriate for a company rolling out recognition across a large or global workforce, with an HR team to run it.

Huggg's core platform costs nothing. There's no subscription and no per-employee charge: you add funds and pay for each gift you send, at a price that already includes VAT. That suits teams who want to start small, a single department or a pilot, and grow from there. Paid add-ons such as your own branding, SSO and API access are there if you need them later.

Huggg or Awardco: five questions that settle it

Ask these in order:

1. Do you need one platform for every recognition programme, including nominations, incentives and engagement surveys? Awardco is built for that. Huggg focuses on gifting.
2. Are your people mostly outside the UK? Awardco's global reach is a real strength. Huggg is strongest for UK teams.
3. Do you want points or gifts? Points for flexibility and saving up, gifts for a thank-you that lands in the moment.
4. Do anniversaries need to trigger automatically from your HR system? Both can. Awardco's automation is built for large, global workforces with physical awards. Huggg's suits UK teams who want each person to choose their own gift.
5. Do you want to start without a contract? Huggg is free to use, so you can begin with one team this week.

Choose Awardco if you're a larger or international organisation that wants a complete recognition and engagement suite, a points economy and physical service awards across several countries, and you have the budget and HR capacity for an annual platform.

Choose Huggg if you're a UK company that wants managers to send real gifts quickly, frontline staff reached without logins, and no platform fee or minimum. If you're comparing more widely, our shortlist of the best employee reward and recognition platforms in the UK sets out the full field.

If you'd like a second opinion on which fits, talk to us. We'll tell you straight if Awardco is the better call.

FAQs

Is Huggg an alternative to Awardco?

For UK companies that mainly want to thank and reward people with gifts, yes. Huggg lets managers send a real gift by link, SMS or QR card, with recipients choosing from a range you set, and no platform fee. It isn't a like-for-like replacement for Awardco's full suite of nominations, incentives, surveys and global points network.

How much does Awardco cost?

Awardco doesn't publish standard prices. Its plans (Standard, Scale and Enterprise) are quoted after a demo, and its pricing page says packages for businesses with 100 employees or fewer start at $3,000. There's no Huggg subscription to set against that: the platform costs nothing and your spend is the gifts themselves.

Does Awardco use points?

Yes. Awardco is points-based: employees receive points and redeem them through its reward network, which includes Amazon Business products, gift cards, experiences and charity. Huggg doesn't use points; recipients receive and choose an actual gift.

Which is better for long service awards in the UK?

Awardco is stronger if you need service awards automated across a large or global workforce, with plaques, pins and points. Huggg suits UK employers who want birthdays and anniversaries automated from their HRIS, with each employee choosing their own gift. Either way, check the HMRC long service award exemption, which applies to non-cash awards for 20 or more years of service.

Which works better for frontline teams without company email?

Both have options. Awardco offers mobile access, kiosks and physical AwardCodes cards, with set-up depending on how employees are provisioned. Huggg needs no login at all: gifts go by SMS, as a group link up to 10,000 people can claim, or as a printed QR card.

Last reviewed: October 2026. Awardco details are taken from its own website on 9 October 2026 and may change.