Perkbox alternatives: what HR teams move to when the platform goes unused

Most teams don't go looking for a Perkbox alternative because the features were wrong. They go looking because, a year in, hardly anyone was opening the app. If that's the box you're in, the fix isn't a longer feature list. It's picking for adoption.

Quick answer: The best Perkbox alternative depends on what went unused. If the discounts-and-perks model didn't land, a lighter, choice-led gifting tool like Huggg often gets more use because there's nothing for recipients to log into and they pick what they actually want. If you need a full benefits and engagement suite, Reward Gateway and Each Person are the usual comparisons. Choose on adoption and real cost, not feature count.

Why perks platforms get bought and then ignored

Here's the uncomfortable bit. A perks platform can do everything it promised and still fail, because the metric that matters isn't what's in the app. It's how many people open it twice.

Perks platforms sell on breadth: discounts, wellbeing content, recognition, benefits, all in one place. Perkbox, founded in 2015 and now merged with Vivup, sits firmly in that all-in-one category, and reports a strong activation rate at launch. The catch with the whole category is the gap between activation and habit. Signing in once during the launch push is easy. Coming back every month, remembering your password, hunting for a discount you might use, that's where the drop-off lives.

When usage fades, you're still paying. Most perks platforms, Perkbox included, price per employee per month and quote privately. That means you pay for every head whether they log in or not. A low-usage platform isn't just a disappointing benefit. It's a line item you're defending at budget time.

So the right question isn't "which platform has the most features?" It's "which one will people actually use, and what am I paying per person who does?"

What to look for in an alternative

Before you compare names, get clear on what you're optimising for. These four tend to predict whether the next tool sticks:

• Adoption, not activation. Ask how people use it in month six, not week one. A tool nobody has to log into clears the highest hurdle in employee benefits: getting people back
• Admin load on you. Some platforms hand HR a second job. Others run themselves. Count the hours, not just the licence
• Recipient choice. People use what they chose. A gift or perk someone picked for themselves gets opened; one that was decided for them gets ignored
• Real cost per person who uses it. Divide the annual spend by actual active users, not headcount. That number is the honest price, and it's the one that exposes a quiet platform

The alternatives worth comparing

A fair shortlist, depending on what went unused:

• Huggg, the lightweight, choice-led option. Not a perks suite. A gifting platform where you send a gift as a link, the recipient chooses what they want, and there's no app or login for them. It's free to use and you only pay for the gifts you send, so there's no per-head fee ticking over whether people engage or not. Best when the thing your team actually valued was being given a genuine gift, not a directory of discounts
• Reward Gateway, the full suite. A large all-in-one platform spanning discounts, recognition, wellbeing and communications. The closest like-for-like if you want everything Perkbox did and more, and you're confident usage was a content problem rather than a model problem
• Each Person, perks with a recognition tilt. A UK perks and recognition platform with everyday discounts and a points-style reward currency. Worth a look if the recognition side was the part people used and the rest was noise
• A dedicated benefits provider. If what you really needed was salary-sacrifice benefits (cycle to work, tech, healthcare) rather than perks and recognition, a benefits-focused provider does that job better than a broad perks app

The pattern across all of these: match the tool to the part of Perkbox your people actually used, and drop the rest. You're not obliged to replace a five-in-one platform with another five-in-one platform.

When a full platform still makes sense

To be fair, sometimes it does. If you genuinely use the discounts, the wellbeing content, the engagement surveys and the recognition feed, and people are active across all of it, a broad suite earns its keep and switching to something narrower would lose you things you value. The honest test is your own usage data. If most modules are quiet, you're paying for a suite to use a slice of it, and a focused tool will cost less and get used more.

There's also a quieter benefit to choice-led gifting that the feature lists miss: it tends to move the numbers people care about. GoCardless saw a 10% lift in customer satisfaction among customers who received a Huggg gift. A gift someone chose lands differently from a perk they have to go and find.

How to switch without a big migration

The fear of moving is usually worse than the move. A lightweight gifting tool has almost nothing to migrate: no employee logins to set up, no benefits to re-enrol, no app to roll out. You create a free account, upload a list of names and a way to reach people, and you can send the same day.

A sensible path:

1. Pull your usage data from the current platform. Active users, not licences. This is your baseline and your business case in one
2. Decide what people actually used and pick a tool that does that one thing well
3. Run a small first send to a team or a moment (new starters, a thank-you after a busy period) before committing everyone
4. Compare the response to your old activation numbers, then scale what works

Common questions

Is Perkbox still going after the Vivup merger?
Yes. Perkbox merged with Vivup in 2024 and still runs as an employee perks and benefits platform. The merger doesn't change the question worth asking, which is whether your people were actually using it.

Why do so many companies look for a Perkbox alternative?
Usually because usage faded, not because a feature was missing. Perks platforms are easy to activate at launch and harder to turn into a habit, so teams end up paying per head for an app most people stopped opening.

What's the cheapest Perkbox alternative?
It depends how you count. A tool like Huggg is free to use and you only pay for the gifts you send, so there's no per-head fee running whether people engage or not. The honest comparison is cost per person who actually uses it, not the headline licence.

Do I need to replace a perks platform with another perks platform?
No. If your team only really used one part, recognition, say, or being given a genuine gift, a focused tool that does that one thing well usually gets more use and costs less than another five-in-one suite.

The honest takeaway

A Perkbox alternative isn't about finding a platform with more in it. It's about finding the one your people will actually use, and paying for use rather than headcount. Start from what went unused, pick for adoption, and let recipient choice do the heavy lifting.

Huggg is free to use and you only pay for the gifts you send, with hundreds of gifts from over 120 brands and nothing for your recipients to log into. Used by over 2,000 UK businesses.

Book a demo to see how it compares for your team, or start gifting for free today.