Punchtab Retires Giveaway Widget: Alternatives For You

Punchtab announced last week that the were retiring their giveaway platform and they announced it was happening very soon, by January 2015 if you were using Punchtab to host your giveaways you won’t be able to and their email mentioned for readers to go to Rafflecopter even offering a 1 month free trial as a recommendation.

I like Rafflecopter and have used them for about a year in the earlier years but found other platforms to be viable as well, PromoSimple for example was a great giveaway platform for bloggers (I say was, but they do not offer a free plan anymore and their $15 per month plan does not include the refer-a-friend option which makes them too expensive for the smaller bloggers and lacking some of the best features at lower priced plans.  Rafflecopter as well can be expensive for bloggers and has no analytics at the lower price or free tier plans and limited options available.

Gleam.io is still the only remaining giveaway platform that provides the most options for a free no-cost plan and this includes the reporting, refer-a-friend and more, in fact Gleam.io which I use for all my DragonBlogger giveaways now offers the following in it’s free plan.

INCLUDES

• Gleam Branding
• Unlimited Competitions
• Unlimited Entries
• Automatic Verified Entries
• Automated Fraud Detection
• All Entry Options Except Email Signup
• Search Entries & Users
• Viral Entry Types
• Bit.ly API Integration
• Embed Anywhere
• Facebook Tab Installation
• Facebook Mobile Smart Links
• Real-time Analytics
• CSV Export
• Random Winner Draw
• Display Winners in Widget

Gleam offers all of this for free, but even if you didn’t use the free plan I find Gleam has better options for those who need YouTube integration as well as Twitch.tv or Soundcloud entry options especially.  Therefore if you need to switch giveaway platforms, go ahead and check out Rafflecopter but then compare to Gleam giveaway platform and then let me know what you think of the two and if you agree with my assessment that Gleam is a better platform for those who can’t afford any giveaway plan, but also better for all but the most expensive tiers and even then Gleam holds it’s own and is better in many ways.  The only thing PromoSimple could do better was easier and better real time analytics and reporting than Gleam but it did not justify the price for a technology and giveaway blog, it may for a huge brand or business.

Join Gleam for free and test out their platform, then let me know what you think.  Have questions, I have been using Gleam for a long time and I can answer just about any question.