RafflePress Review 2025: The Ultimate WordPress Giveaway Plugin

Looking for a powerful WordPress plugin to run viral contests and giveaways on your blog or website? RafflePress may be just the tool you need.

Giveaways are one of the most effective ways to quickly grow your email list, boost engagement, drive traffic, and even make more sales. People love the chance to win cool prizes. And when you make it easy for participants to get extra entries by referring friends or engaging with you on social media, giveaways have the potential to spread like wildfire.

But organizing a successful contest takes careful planning and execution. You need a way to set up your giveaway, choose prizes, accept entries, pick a winner fairly, and more. While you could try to piece together your own system, using a dedicated giveaway tool makes the process much simpler.

Enter RafflePress. This WordPress plugin aims to be the ultimate contest solution, making it a breeze to create and manage giveaways that get results. But is it really the best option out there? In this RafflePress review, I‘ll take an in-depth look at its features, pricing, pros and cons to help you decide.

Let‘s dive in!

What Is RafflePress?

RafflePress is a feature-packed WordPress giveaway plugin built by the same team behind popular page builder SeedProd. It‘s designed to make it easy for bloggers and marketers to create and run professional contests in WordPress without needing any technical or design skills.

With RafflePress, you can build giveaways in minutes using the drag-and-drop builder and pre-made templates. It comes with everything you need to create a successful contest, including:

• Intuitive giveaway landing page builder
• Viral refer-a-friend entry options to reach more people
• Social media entry actions to drive engagement
• Zapier integration to connect 1000+ apps
• Fraud protection & verified entries
• Email marketing integrations
• Winner selection, notifications & follow-up emails
• Detailed entry reporting

RafflePress aims to include all the features you need in one affordable package. But does it live up to the hype? Let‘s take a closer look.

How to Create a Giveaway with RafflePress

To give you a better idea of how RafflePress works and what it can do, let me walk you through the steps of setting up a giveaway from scratch. I‘ll point out some of the key features along the way.

After installing the RafflePress plugin on your WordPress site, you‘ll see a new RafflePress tab in your dashboard sidebar. Clicking this will take you to the main RafflePress dashboard where you can view and manage all your giveaways.

Step 1: Choose a Template (or Start From Scratch)

To create a new giveaway, click the Add New button at the top of the screen. This will take you to the template selection screen:

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RafflePress includes 8 pre-built templates for different goals:

• Classic Giveaway
• Grow Your Email List
• Refer-a-Friend
• Pre-Launch Campaign
• Grow Your Instagram Following
• Grow Your Facebook Page
• Grow Your YouTube Channel
• Grow Your Twitter Following

These are a great starting point and can save you time versus building your contest from scratch. For this example, I‘ll choose the Classic Giveaway template which is the most flexible.

Step 2: Enter Prize Details

After choosing a template, you‘ll be taken into the giveaway builder where you can enter the prize details:

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First, give your giveaway a title and description. I recommend making this short, sweet and compelling to entice people to enter.

Next, enter the prize details including name, description, image and the monetary value. If you‘re giving away multiple prizes, click Add Another Prize to include them all.

Finally, set the start and end datetime for your giveaway. People will see a countdown timer letting them know how much longer they have to enter.

Step 3: Choose Your Entry Methods

This is the most important part of setting up your giveaway. The entry methods are the actions people can take to get entries. RafflePress offers a ton of options grouped into goals:

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Let‘s look at a few examples of entry methods you may want to use:

• Join an Email Newsletter – One of the most popular entry methods. Integrates with 10+ email marketing services or any list via Zapier. Allows you to massively grow your list.

• Follow on Instagram – Get more Instagram followers by requiring it as an entry method. Supports either your profile or a specific post/video.

• Refer a Friend – Create a viral loop by awarding extra entries when someone refers their friends via a unique sharing link. One of the most powerful ways to extend your giveaway‘s reach.

• Watch a Video – Embed a YouTube video and award entries for watching it. Great for promoting a product video, brand story, or sponsorship message.

• Visit a Page – Drive traffic to any webpage, like a blog post, sales page or affiliate link. You decide how long they need to visit the page to get an entry.

With RafflePress you can add as many entry methods as you like. Generally I‘d recommend at least 3, but no more than 7 to avoid overwhelming people. Be sure to assign more entries to higher-value actions, like email opt-ins or purchases.

Step 4: Design Your Giveaway Widget

Next, you can customize the look and feel of your giveaway widget. RafflePress offers a simple design customizer:

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Here you can choose from multiple layouts, pick font combinations, set colors, and even upload a background image. The widget is fully responsive and will look great on any device.

While the design options are somewhat limited, the pre-set styles are clean and professional. Plus you can always add custom CSS if you want more control.

Step 5: Configure Settings

The last step is to configure some key settings for your giveaway. RafflePress gives you options for:

• Giveaway Rules – Generate a terms & conditions agreement for your contest to help prevent any legal issues. Includes a helpful template you can modify.

• Success Tracking – Add your Google Analytics ID, Facebook pixel or custom tracking scripts to the confirmation page. Helpful for tracking conversions and building retargeting audiences.

• Social Logins – Let people enter using their Facebook account to reduce friction.

• Success Redirect – Send people to any URL after they enter, like a thank-you page, tripwire offer, or related content to continue engaging them.

• Email Verification – Require people to confirm their email before their entry is counted. Helps keep your list clean from fake or low-quality entries.

Once you have all the settings dialed in, your giveaway is ready to publish.

Step 5: Publish Your Giveaway

Finally, it‘s time to publish your giveaway and start promoting it! RafflePress gives you 3 ways to display your contest:

1. Giveaway Landing Page – RafflePress can automatically create a distraction-free landing page for your giveaway. Just give it a permalink and share the URL anywhere.

2. Giveaway Widget – Use the built-in RafflePress block to embed your contest in any WordPress post or page, like a blog post announcing the giveaway. You can also use the provided shortcode to place it in your page builder or theme.

3. WordPress Sidebar – Show your giveaway in your blog‘s sidebar so it appears across your site.

I recommend using a combination of all 3 placements to maximize your giveaway‘s visibility and reach.

Once your giveaway is live, it‘s just a matter of promoting it through your existing channels like email, social media, paid ads, etc. RafflePress makes it easy to spread the word with built-in social sharing buttons and viral refer-a-friend links.

What Happens After the Giveaway Ends?

After your giveaway ends, RafflePress will automatically stop accepting new entries. You can then go to the Entries screen to view all participants and select a winner:

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RafflePress uses a provably fair selection system to randomly choose winners based on the number of entries they earned. You can also export a list of all entries for your records or to run your own selection process.

Once you‘ve selected a winner, you can email them right from RafflePress to notify them and request any info you need to deliver the prize, like a shipping address. The email is fully customizable.

RafflePress will also send a follow-up email to everyone who didn‘t win. This is a great opportunity to thank them for participating, share a consolation prize, or offer a coupon code.

Overall, RafflePress provides everything you need to run a giveaway from start to finish. The whole process is very intuitive and straightforward.

RafflePress Pricing

Compared to other WordPress contest plugins, RafflePress is very affordable. There are 4 pricing options depending on your needs:

• Plus – $39.50/year for use on 1 site
• Pro – $99.50/year for use on up to 3 sites (most popular)
• Growth – $199.50/year for use on up to 10 sites
• Ultimate – $499.50/year for use on unlimited sites

The Plus plan includes all the basic features you need to run a giveaway, like unlimited entries, email integrations, social actions, and landing pages.

Upgrading to the Pro plan unlocks more advanced features like Refer-a-Friend viral sharing, bonus entry actions, and advanced fraud protection. For most bloggers & marketers, this is going to be the best value.

The Growth and Ultimate plans add priority support and more social entry options, for businesses running lots of contests across multiple sites.

All plans come with a generous 14-day money-back guarantee so you can try RafflePress risk-free. They also offer a free lite version with limited features.

RafflePress Pros and Cons

To summarize, here are the key advantages and disadvantages of using RafflePress to create a giveaway:

Pros:

• Easy drag-and-drop giveaway builder
• Customizable giveaway landing pages
• 1-click entry fraud prevention
• Viral sharing features like Refer-a-Friend
• Free prize winner selection
• Social media entry actions
• Integrated with all major email providers
• Helpful customer support
• Affordable pricing

Cons:

• Limited customization options
• Basic reporting & analytics
• Some features lacking (multi-language, GDPR, etc)

RafflePress Alternatives

How does RafflePress stack up against other popular giveaway tools? Here are a few alternatives to consider:

• Kingsumo – A powerful contest platform used by top marketers. More expensive and lacks a WordPress plugin. Best for big giveaways with 5000+ entries.

• Gleam – Another leading contest app with a well-designed widget and campaign builder. No WordPress integration. More focused on social media contests.

• UpViral – Primarily a contest platform for running viral competitions. More expensive and complicated than RafflePress. Better for large enterprise campaigns.

• Woorise – An all-in-one lead generation platform including landing pages, forms, surveys, quizzes & contests. Offers more flexibility but steeper learning curve.

• Agorapulse – A full-suite social media management platform with built-in contest tools for Facebook and Instagram. Pricey, but great if you want an all-in-one social toolkit.

If you‘re specifically looking for a WordPress giveaway plugin, RafflePress is hard to beat. It hits the sweet spot of being beginner-friendly while still packing in a ton of premium features at an affordable price.

Tips to Run a Successful Giveaway

A tool like RafflePress can make running a contest much easier, but there are still a few best practices to keep in mind:

1. Offer a prize your target audience will LOVE. The better the prize, the more excited people will be to enter and share. Consider pooling prizes from sponsors.

2. Make your giveaway headline irresistible. Use power words to spark curiosity and emotion. Clearly state the value of the grand prize.

3. Keep entry methods simple at first. The easier your contest is to enter, the more people will participate. You can always add more options later.

4. Promote where your audience hangs out. Share your contest in email newsletters, on social media, in blog posts, on podcasts, etc. Paid ads can also help.

5. Partner with other bloggers & brands. Reach out to influencers or companies in your niche to help co-promote the giveaway to their audiences.

6. Follow up with entrants after the contest. Don‘t let your new leads go cold. Keep them engaged with great content, offers & more giveaways in the future.

With a little creativity and hustle, giveaways can be incredibly effective for growing your traffic and subscribers.

Is RafflePress Right for You?

Now for the key question – should you use RafflePress to run a giveaway on your WordPress site?

If you want a simple, all-in-one solution for creating viral contests that drive traffic and grow your list, RafflePress is an excellent choice. It‘s easy enough for beginners to use, while including powerful features like viral sharing, fraud protection, and tons of entry options.

I was impressed by how quick and intuitive the setup process was. In less than 10 minutes, you can have a professional-looking giveaway ready to go. The customizable landing pages and email integrations are a huge time saver. And the Refer-a-Friend viral entry method is killer for getting more exposure.

Plus, it‘s hard to beat the price. Alternatives like Kingsumo and Gleam are 3-5X more expensive.

The main downside is the design customization options are a bit limited. And some advanced features like GDPR compliance, multi-language, and analytics are lacking. But for most bloggers and marketers those aren‘t deal breakers.

Overall, if you want to grow your email list and social media presence without spending hours figuring out the technical details, RafflePress is a fantastic option. Give it a try and see how it works for your next giveaway.