Searching for the best WordPress contest plugin to run some giveaways on your website?
Implemented well, giveaways can help you grow your email list, boost your social following, and just generally promote your website.
But if you want to achieve that “implemented well” part, you need the help of a contest plugin to help you gather signups, promote your giveaway, choose winners, and more.
Below, I’ve collected six of the best WordPress plugins for running giveaways and contests, including the plugin/tool that we use here at WPLift.
Let’s dive in…
Six Best WordPress Contest Plugins
1. RafflePress
RafflePress is a new WordPress contest plugin from the same company behind WPBeginner and plugins like WPForms and MonsterInsights.
Basically, it lets you set up a contest where visitors can earn entries by performing certain tasks, like subscribing to your email list, sharing your contest on Twitter, and more. You’ve probably experienced these types of contests before.
The big benefit here is that you can use your giveaway to:
- Grow your email list
- Get more social media followers
- Promote content, like asking people to view a Facebook post or YouTube video
- Learn more about your readers by asking them to answer questions
- Gain more exposure for your contest (to help you do those previous things)
You can add as many tasks as you want and assign a certain number of entries to each. You can also mark certain tasks as required, while leaving others as optional.
Wherever possible, RafflePress tries to use a service’s API to verify that a person actually performed the action (this isn’t possible for every action, though).
RafflePress also integrates with many popular email marketing services out of the box and it has a Zapier integration for everything else.
Price: RafflePress has a limited free version at WordPress.org. To get access to all of the features, paid plans start at $39 for use on a single site.
2. Simple Giveaways
As the name suggests, Simple Giveaways provides a simple way to run contests and giveaways on your WordPress site. It’s a freemium plugin that can run both basic giveaways as well as giveaways with more complicated entry conditions.
With the free version, you can choose start/end dates, collect email addresses, and select winners using different methods. It’s a totally workable solution for a basic, simple-entry contest.
Then, the paid version adds integrations with popular email marketing services, an option to perform more actions for entries, automation, and some other useful features.
Price: Basic free version. Paid version starts at $49 for use on a single site. You can also save 30% on the premium version with our Simple Giveaways coupon code.
3. Rafflecopter
Rafflecopter is the contest solution that we often use when we run giveaways here at WPLift. It’s technically a standalone contest service, but it’s easy to embed on WordPress via a dedicated embed code. The only thing to consider is that your contest isn’t hosted on your own servers.
You’ll see a lot of similarities in design to the RafflePress plugin above (Rafflecopter came first, in case you’re wondering). You can create a contest and let people enter by completing actions like:
- Signing up for your email list
- Sharing or following on social media
- Answering a poll/survey question
You can assign different values to certain tasks and mark some as required. Then, once the contest ends, you can automatically notify the winner.
Rafflecopter has a free plan that lets you create unlimited giveaways with unlimited entries, but limited entry options and integrations. To unlock the one-click integrations and full list of entry options, you’ll need to go Pro.
Price: Limited free plan. Paid plans start at $13 per month. You can also try out the paid plans for free for seven days (with a max of 50 entries on the free trial).
4. KingSumo
KingSumo is a premium giveaway tool from the same team behind the popular AppSumo deals site (from which we feature a lot of WordPress discounts).
It works a lot like RafflePress and Rafflecopter – people can sign up for your contest by entering their email address and then perform additional tasks to earn more entries, like sharing your giveaway on social media.
You get tons of entry conditions, including actions like subscribing to a podcast, watching a YouTube video, visiting a link, and more.
You can integrate directly with some email marketing services, as well as use a Zapier integration to connect to more spots.
Then, once the contest ends, you can automatically pick random winners.
KingSumo comes in two versions – a self-hosted WordPress plugin and a hosted web-app (which you can also embed on WordPress like Rafflecopter). Personally, I think the web app is a better choice if you can get the AppSumo deal (which appears to have no end date).
Price: The KingSumo WordPress plugin is $198 for use on a single site, but they have a semi-permanent AppSumo deal that costs just $49 for lifetime use of the web-based version (which again, you can embed on WordPress). The web-app probably offers better value for your needs if you’re ok with using a hosted tool, rather than self-hosting the plugin on your site.
Get WordPress Plugin Get AppSumo Deal (Web App)
5. Woorise
Woorise is a little more feature-rich than the previous options, with tools to create contests, forms, and even landing pages. You’ll probably be most interested in the contests, though, which you can embed in WordPress via the dedicated plugin.
Like many of the other plugins, you can let participants earn entries by performing various actions, including downloading mobile apps, interacting with social media, uploading photos, and more.
Once you finish the contest, you can either randomly select a winner from all entrants or export your contestants to manually choose the winner.
Price: Limited free plan for up to 500 entries per month. After that, paid plans start at $23 per month.
Get WooRise Plugin Visit WooRise Website
6. WooCommerce Lottery
As the name suggests, WooCommerce Lottery is focused on contests for one specific WordPress plugin – WooCommerce.
With it, you’ll get a new Lottery product type in WooCommerce. You can either:
- Make the product free to let people enter the giveaway for free.
- Charge for access (check your applicable local laws before doing this).
You’ll also be able to set various limits, like setting an end date or a minimum or maximum number of participants.
You can either offer a single prize or multiple prizes. Once the lottery ends, you can randomly choose a winner and send an email notification to all participants.
Because it’s based on WooCommerce and lets you charge for access, this is a bit of a different take on a WordPress contest plugin. But if it fits your use case, it’s a good option.
If you want to learn more, you can check out our full hands-on WooCommerce Lottery review.
Price: $23
Which Is the Best WordPress Contest Plugin?
All of these contest plugins can help you run effective giveaways.
Here at WPLift, we use Rafflecopter, but you can also achieve a similar effect with RafflePress (self-hosted plugin), KingSumo (self-hosted plugin or web app), or Simple Giveaways (self-hosted plugin).
And if you have a WooCommerce store, you can also check out the WooCommerce Lottery plugin.
Any questions about choosing the best WordPress contest plugin for your needs? Let us know in the comments!
