July 3, 2025
There are plenty of reasons to research alternatives to Culture Cloud by O.C. Tanner.
Maybe you want a platform with more reward options, or you need analytics that prove your employee recognition programs positively impact your company’s KPIs.
Faster implementation and a quicker time-to-ROI are also key. According to G2, Culture Cloud takes about four months to implement, and many customers don’t see ROI for at least 14 months.
In this article, we’ll highlight five top O.C. Tanner competitors—starting with our own employee recognition and engagement platform, Terryberry.
Best O.C. Tanner Alternatives
- Terryberry: Tailored programs with measurable ROI
- Awardco: Combine employee and non-employee rewards
- Bonusly: Integrate employee engagement and communication
- Kudos: Create internal content and community forums
- Vantage Circle: Offer employee perks and discounts
1. Terryberry
For tailored programs and measurable ROI
Terryberry is an employee engagement platform that uses a validated engagement model to help customers achieve their business goals.
We serve 40,000+ clients—including Unilever, Tesco, and Ford—in 150+ countries, designing employee recognition programs that boost productivity and retention.
Our employee engagement software includes all the features that HR teams need:
- Rewards: gifts, experiences, and charitable donations
- Custom awards and milestone awards: work anniversaries, birthdays, and onboarding
- Manager and peer recognition: tailored to reinforce company values
- Health and wellness programs: step challenges, mental health well-being plans, and online training sessions
- Amazon Business integrations
What sets Terryberry apart is our platform empowers HR teams to prove ROI of engagement and recognition programs to the C-Suite.
Below, we show how Terryberry differs from O.C. Tanner and other platforms—and share success stories from our customers’ employee recognition programs.
Design Programs for Impact, Not Vanity Metrics
Too often, employee rewards and recognition programs launch as one-size-fits-all solutions, assuming:
- One program will improve employee engagement across every department and team.
- There’s no need to optimize or combine programs to accomplish desired results.
- Participation alone guarantees higher employee productivity and engagement.
Terryberry allows you to take a smarter, more strategic approach to employee recognition.
Our programs are designed to:
- Help HR teams motivate employees using data, not hunches.
- Align with business goals across departments, teams, or employee cohorts (like retaining top performers).
- Measure ROI, retention, and employee satisfaction—not just program participation.
Below, we break down how each element helps our customers—regardless of industry or size—design impactful employee engagement and recognition programs by uncovering what truly motivates different teams.
Diagnostics: Build Programs Based on Employees’ Real Motivations
There’s often a misalignment between incentives and what employees truly need to feel empowered, appreciated, and motivated to go the extra mile.
Here are some examples:
- Using rewards to boost performance without recognizing that employees are burned out and can’t be more productive.
- Sending generic recognition instead of personalized thank-you notes or meaningful appreciation.
- Launching a reward program to strengthen culture but making it hard for employees to access (like lacking a mobile app).
With Terryberry, HR teams can be confident they’re not papering over unresolved underlying issues—like lack of flexibility around scheduling or deep-seated resentment over missed promotions.
Terryberry uses targeted surveys to uncover what drives each employee and pinpoint weak spots in company culture.
It starts with a baseline survey to understand how employees feel about their work, including:
- Whether they feel a sense of purpose and empowerment.
- How they perceive workplace equity and trust in leadership.
- Their overall well-being and sense of belonging.
- The quality of their day-to-day employee experience.
From there, you can decide which employee engagement programs (or combinations) will boost productivity and engagement, such as:
- Incentives to gamify sales and improve performance
- Onboarding improvements to help new hires feel welcome
- Awards recognizing star employees for their hard work
- Peer recognition programs that reinforce core values, like our client Chelsea Groton Bank
Tailor Programs to Specific Goals to See Higher Impact
One-size-fits all programs are doomed to fail. Teams that thrive on collaboration will dominate peer recognition programs—but will remote workers or those needing deep focus be just as motivated to participate?
Awards for top performers work well in sales or customer support, but you’ll need to think outside the box for departments like accounting or design, where KPIs don’t directly measure performance.
If retention’s the goal, remember your top performers, frontline staff, new hires, and employees nearing retirement all have very different reasons to stay.
Tailoring programs to teams and cohorts works best—especially if you want faster, measurable results.
For example, if your goal is improving employee retention, you need to:
- Help new hires feel like your company is the right place for them
- Show appreciation to long-standing employees
- Motivate star performers to stay instead of chasing greener pastures
Can one-size-fits-all employee recognition programs hit all those marks? Highly unlikely.
Instead, you’ll see better results by combining:
- Milestone awards for new employees
- Annual awards for long-term employees
- Top performer awards
The same goes for breaking down broad goals like “higher productivity” or “better performance” into department-specific sub-goals. Each team has different KPIs, motivations, and work environments.
Ultimately, the right combination of incentives depends on your company.
For example, The Co-op designed their employee recognition program around line-manager recognition, since it was the most meaningful award for their staff. On the other hand, Freedom Financial Network combined peer recognition with milestone awards because they needed to strengthen company culture during a period of rapid growth.
With access to surveys and program metrics, you can see what works—and what needs to be adjusted:
More than that, you can track program impact on the company level and prove its ROI to the C-Suite.
Analytics That Prove Employee Recognition Programs Drive Revenue
There are plenty of articles online with stats showing that employee engagement programs improve employee turnover, productivity, and profitability. But aggregate data doesn’t prove a program will move the needle at your organization.
With Terryberry, you can actually prove the impact of employee engagement and recognition programs on your business outcomes:
Our reporting and analytics capabilities include:
- Recognition Analytics: Track engagement trends, most-recognized behaviors, and participation across teams or cohorts.
- Manager Dashboards: Track team recognition patterns and understand their impact.
- KPI Measurement: Compare outcomes between recognized and non-recognized employees to quantify impact and demonstrate ROI.
- Sentiment Tracking: Measure changes in employee sentiment and NPS scores.
As a recent example, Marston’s peer recognition program revealed a clear link between participation and stronger company culture just months after its implementation.
Terryberry Plans and Pricing
Terryberry offers 3 plans plus tailored packages for custom awards and incentive programs. Every plan includes dedicated customer service support to help you develop, implement, and optimize your programs.
Schedule your demo to see how our employee engagement platform can boost retention, productivity, and performance.
2. Awardco
For combining employee and non-employee rewards
Awardco is a good fit for companies that want to focus specifically on product-driven recognition for in-office and remote employees. It supports several programs, including employee incentives, recognition, and rewards. Awardco also offers experiences and gift cards.
Standout Feature
Awardco can be used to run non-employee recognition programs, such as:
- Customer loyalty programs
- VIP programs
- Research panels
- Volunteer recognition programs
- Donor appreciation programs
Awardco Pricing
Awardco doesn’t list pricing on their website, but their pricing page includes a breakdown of plans and add-ons, such as payment cards, point cards, options for customers or other third parties to recognize employees, and a company store solution for swag.
3. Bonusly
For linking employee engagement and communications
Bonusly supports various types of employee recognition: rewards and incentives, milestone celebrations, and awards. It also offers features to help managers build a stronger team culture, including prompts for 1:1 meetings.
Standout Feature
Bonusly serves as a hub for employee announcements and communications, offering:
- Announcement scheduling
- Bundling announcements with incentives
- Multi-channel distribution
Bonusly Pricing
Bonusly plans start at $2 per seat per month, and come in 3 tiers, each with different features:
- Appreciate: Manager-driven celebrations and awards
- Connect: Peer-to-peer recognition and team pages
- Achieve: Tools to support managers in their roles
4. Kudos
For building internal content and forums
Kudos is a rewards platform that supports social recognition, rewards, employee milestones, awards, and nominations. It also offers extra options for celebrating employees, like e-cards.
Standout Feature
Kudos helps build a stronger company culture through content hubs that can be used to publish updates, photos, or educational content. Employees can comment inside those spaces and engage with games or fun content.
Kudos Pricing
Kudos doesn’t have any information about plans or pricing on their website.
5. Vantage Circle
For employee perks and discounts
The Vantage Circle platform supports various employee recognition programs, including awards and badges, team and panel awards, and peer-to-peer recognition. It also features gamification and an internal social feed to build connections.
Standout Feature
The Vantage Perks program gives users access to corporate offers, discounts, and cashback that can be used to purchase electronics, clothing and accessories, health and wellness products, and book hotel stays.
Vantage Circle Pricing
Vantage Circle offers 3 plans, starting at $2.69 per user per month for the Grow plan and $3.89 per user per month for the Transform plan. Enterprises can contact Vantage Circle for custom pricing.
Launch Tailored Programs That Drive ROI with Terryberry
Terryberry is the only platform that proves employee recognition and engagement programs deliver measurable business impact. Whether you’re launching your first program or upgrading your current one, we can help you find the right levers to hit ROI faster.
Book your demo to see how Terryberry can help you design recognition and engagement programs that align employee motivations with business goals.
