--- title: "Award Force Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra" description: "Is Award Force the right Association Management solution for you? Explore 193 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice." source_url: "https://www.capterra.com/p/148148/Award-Force/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" publication_date: "2026-10-21" --- Award Force 4.8 (193) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated October 21st, 2026 # Reviews of Award Force Ease of use 4.5 Customer Service 4.9 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews SR Suzanne R Membership and Program ManagerNon-Profit Organization Management, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “We get over 19,000 submission in a year and Award Force allow us to manage submission with ease.“ August 22, 2025 CP Corinne P Senior Manager, Programs and EducationBroadcast Media, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “However, historic applications are stuck in the Awards section, and I have had to build the forms again from scratch.“ March 2, 2024 LD Loretta D Project AssistantLeisure, Travel & Tourism, 11 - 50 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Customer Service is outstanding. Whenever we have an issue, the staff replies quickly and helps solve our problem.“ July 7, 2025 SN Sujathan N Senior Administrative OfficerNon-Profit Organization Management, 11 - 50 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Like reporting part, I could not find any easy way to get the scoring sheet and scores together to be converted to a pdf format.“ September 18, 2023 SB Sophia B CEOConsumer Services, Self-employedUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “It is a smooth solution where all participants, jury members, and not least the competition management are always satisfied.“ December 5, 2024 JG Janet G Senior Manager, State Media AwardsNon-Profit Organization Management, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “I have had some really anxious moments trying to set up the awards I am working with.“ March 1, 2024 SH Sarah H Education and Awards Program ManagerNon-Profit Organization Management, 11 - 50 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “A very intuitive platform, once you have the overall layout of your awards program clearly planned out“ July 11, 2025 SM Sue M Executive DirectorNon-Profit Organization Management, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Setting up year two was a bit confusing and required that we set up a time to chat with customer service. “ January 10, 2023 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 193 available reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use HR Haley R. Member Engagement Specialist Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "Robust system for yearly awards" February 20, 2026 5.0 Pros Keeping award nominees, judges, and information organized. The fields make for easy sorting and filing. And repeating yearly nominations is so easy. Cons There is a lot of information to sort through to make the award process flow smoothly for all users, but there are help videos at the top of each page to assist with specific tasks. Review Source Matthew Charles G. Project Manager Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "Money, time and resources well spent!" August 5, 2019 5.0 Using a designated and bespoke product like AF, has taken out so much stress and uncertainty around getting the nominations in and judged remotely. we had over 1000 entries that needed to go through a very clear and strict judging process (in light of being fare and transparent ) We could let judging take place remotely and smoothly, with the confidence of our data security and personal reputational image being protected. Pros Everything! Especially the rep our account tech support manager. she was on hand 24/7 with not just support, but with solutions, and confidence building techniques to help me take charge of the growth of our work. The platform itself, is slick, very user friendly and a 100% reliable. It gave us the confidence we needed to launch our first annual HEAT awards. this has gone so well, we are already pencilling in next years campaign. Award Force have been the first and only platform I have used for this task, but I wouldn't dream of going anywhere else. In the grand scheme of things the cost was extremely good for all the benefits we obtained, and even though our event programme is over, we are still able use all the data for our analysis and personal development. Cons In all honesty I have very little bad to say about the whole experience. If you really pushed me for a balanced review, I would have to say that on a couple of times and considering I emailed support up to 4 times a day in the build up of our launch. that if our designated manager was out of the office or had finished for the day. The person that took over sometimes was a little enthusiastic to come back with a response and not grasp how slow I was being. That's really nothing bad just maybe a pointer for the future that they get a summary of the clients habits and personal synopsis before responding to a query. Review Source SB Sophia B. CEO Used the software for: 3-5 years ### "A great award management tool that deliver what I expect, and more. " December 18, 2024 5.0 I have been working with Award Force for almost four years now, and I am so grateful for the platform as it always delivers. Running competitions with an online jury has become so simple and secure because everything works so well. It is a smooth solution where all participants, jury members, and not least the competition management are always satisfied. Pros Award Force has an enormous strength, and that is the support team. There is always someone who answers my questions, no matter what time of day I submit them. The service is 5-star, and everyone I've been in contact with in the team is so helpful and clear in their explanations. Cons I can' t come up with any right now. I can' t come up with any right now. :) Review Source R Reviewer Secretary Used the software for: I used a free trial ### "Great Program!" July 29, 2021 3.0 Pros This program is very nice to have. Worth the money. Cons It takes some time to catch on to this program. Review Source TR Torey R. Controller Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "An Amazing Option for Project Management" June 25, 2021 5.0 Pros It's amazing! It looks great, the forward facing aspect has gotten many compliments. You can customize and tweak so much that you can make it work for almost anything! And the price is great! Customer service is very responsive and so helpful! They clearly know their stuff. Cons \-The built-in spreadsheet function is not great. -You can't have a submission from an anonymous source or without requiring a login. -If you want to have a lot of programs/ applications open at once, that tab view can get pretty cluttered and overwhelming. It would be nice if you could hide them by category or something. Review Source KH Kris H. EAN Program Manager Used the software for: 1-3 years ### "Award Force is superior software" October 31, 2022 5.0 Very positive experience overall. Other award platforms I have seen are just pale copies of Award Force! Pros The software is super easy to use and adapt to your program's needs. The help features and videos are best in class, and the customer service agents are patient and knowledgeable! Super fast turn around times too! Cons I wish there was more data around my applicants and submissions and the Full Report by Nomination type could be refined more. Review Source R Reviewer Director of Education Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "A great fit for our contest" July 29, 2020 5.0 Last year, we chose Award Force to replace a competitor that was going to raise its price by an unreasonable amount. A year later, I wish we had chosen Award Force sooner! Easy to use for administrators, contest entrants and contest judges. The price is very reasonable and we are excited to start up our contest using Award Force for the second year in a row. Customer support is outstanding. Pros 1\. Ease to implement and manage for administrators. 2. Ease of use for end users (contest entrants). 3. Great set of tools to set up and use the contest judging component. Cons Just one thing. Wish the company could allow us to use our primary online payment vendor. We have an existing account for one that does work, but it'd be nice to consolidate and have just one product to deal with in terms of online payment. That said, Award Force has already listened to our concern and our request was forwarded on. Review Source R Reviewer Innovation Consultant Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "Value for Money, Infinite Customization, GREAT Customer Support" July 29, 2020 5.0 We used AwardForce to run a two-round (semi-finalist + finalist) grant application process that required two different applications and two rounds of judging. AwardForce made the application and judging process easy, and customer support couldn't have been better. Pros I appreciated the level of customization that was possible, which makes this product flexible for different needs and even changes mid-stream. Perhaps the most valuable was the highly responsive and friendly customer support team via email or phone, which I leaned on frequently. Cons The in-app reporting views are limited, so I ended up exporting data to Excel to do certain kinds of sorting, filtering, and other data analysis. Also, the process of assigning judges was cumbersome in my case (instead of set judging groups, we assigned different combinations of judges to different applications - which was a multi-step process). Review Source R Reviewer Freelance Graphic Designer Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "Amazing and professional, with great support team." March 22, 2018 5.0 More entries than expected and we saved a lot of administrative fees. Their support team is very helpful and fast in responding, which was a big plus for us. Pros For our Biennial of Slovenian Design we needed an intuitive and adjustable system. We were hoping to make administrative processes more efficient. After a detailed e-call, we were confident that we will be working with professionals who understand their clients. They translated the system in our language: it has only 2 mill. users, and has characteristics that are hard to work into english-based interfaces. While setting up, we were met with a lot of help from our producer. We encountered a problem: in the EU, it is required to add VAT info on invoice. AF did not have that option. After contacting them, VAT was implemented for us and other users also. We are strict about our image, so the implementation of our visual identity was a must for us. Designers branded it the way they liked it. The base is clean and leaves enough room to make it your own. Our administrators were very happy with the experience, as it significantly lessened the workload and kept our costs down. Our users were very excited to use AF. We are confident that their efficient system brought in more entries than we expected. We are very much looking forward to working with them in the years ahead and would wholeheartedly recommend the system to anyone looking for solutions to dealing with user entries at any scale. We were very glad that our Biennial, which is quite small in comparison with their other clients, received a thoroughly professional and attentive approach from their excellent team. Cons Some specific features didn't have a lot of flexibility but we managed to go around it with their help. Review Source R Reviewer Marketing and Events Coordinator Used the software for: 1-3 years ### "AwardForce for MadeForMums and Junior Magazine" January 11, 2019 5.0 AwardForce has saved us a lot of time and means we can manage everything to with awards in one site. It's easy to pass on logon details to external judges who may be judging from afar and makes everyone feel as if they are on an important panel even being miles away. Pros AwardForce is very easy to use and means we can send one link out to hundreds of judges to get the best quality judging we need. The support team are super useful and always reply in good time, there have been times where we need something done urgently and they are very quick to get back to us with a solution. It's easy to download data and keep a record of how we are doing year on year. Cons It would be good if you could view more on the page at one time, for example filter some of the options when viewing entries like you can in excel but in the site. Other than that I have no cons! :) Review Source R Reviewer NEiTA Event Coordinator Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "Having used Raisers Edge I found changing over to AF so much easier and more intuitive to use." May 2, 2018 5.0 I can bring all my information together and export to Excel. I have the opportunity to learn as I go or with a consultants assistance and the software is very responsive to my particular award needs. Pros Processes are relatively easy as is replicating seasons. Pulling reports is an absolute joy compared to asking the database the right questions as you do in RE and any queries or challenges you may face are quickly fixed by the team of consultants. They're happy to show you, teach you or do it for you. I also really like the ability to choose what you can see. Cons It can be tricky at times like all software however, by working slowly through the problem and with the assistance of the consultants, the majority of challenges can be worked through Review Source R Reviewer Project Assistant Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "\[sensitive content hidden\] is the best!" March 20, 2025 5.0 My overall experience with Award Force is very positive as it is a very powerful tool. Pros They have the best customer service! They help out very quickly and always help me fix my problems. Cons It is a little bit tricky at times and dives very deep. Review Source R Reviewer Senior Manager, Programs and Education Used the software for: 1-3 years ### "Review of Awardforce" March 4, 2024 5.0 Extremely positive. When I joined our organisation last year, I had only ever used Awardforce as an external judge. I needed a lot of support, some of it urgent, and the team were absolutely reliable and incredibly helpful. \[sensitive content hidden\] in particular has dug me out of multiple holes and her patience, combined with granular knowledge of the product, has been a godsend. Pros I love that the system is highly customiseable, and responsive to our needs. The fact that it is so customiseable makes it easy to make mistakes - but the robust customer support and configuration support mean any mistakes I make are quickly spotted before launch. Cons We use the platform for Awards, and for Scholarships and Grants. Some of our scholarship programs used to be run on the Awards section. We are moving them to Scholarships and Grants. However, historic applications are stuck in the Awards section, and I have had to build the forms again from scratch. Review Source GC Gillette C. Consultant Used the software for: 1-3 years ### "The support on Award Force is the best I have EVER experienced" August 22, 2019 5.0 I inherited an open Award season to manage and was able to come up to speed fairly quickly due to the intuitive nature of the platform and the SUPERB support I got from Award Force e.g. one on one training calls, common help tips embedded in the platform (ie don't have to go to another screen and back and forth but can take action in the platform with the tips right there on the same screen), and extraordinarily fast responses to my emails asking how to do certain things. I am managing our 2nd season and it is going very smoothly and I am digging deeper into the functionality that is available. This is our team's second year using the platform and it works extremely well for the needs that we have and I highly recommend the SW if you need to manage an Awards program. Pros The program is fairly intuitive so the learning curve is not too steep. And for the times when I have needed help, the response time and quality of support is unparalleled in my experience. I send an email, within a few hours no matter what time of the day or night I send it, someone from around the globe answers me. If further assistance is needed e.g. a call with someone, it can usually be set up within a day or two of my request. And the quality of the support is excellent. The staff are extremely knowledgeable of the product and understand the questions from a user or functionality perspective vs providing technical-speak. It seems that often times tech support for other SW I have used is staffed by technical wonks who write the code and make the bells and whistles but don't have a real understanding of the business or user function so the support comes from that perspective rather than understanding what I am trying to do and then providing a solution. Another thing that I use all the time is importing to excel to run reports. In this way, I can always have a user friendly aggregated view of what is on the platform depending on what I am needing. I love this ability to have offline access and I know some of our judges have also made good use of being able to download PDF versions of entries that they can review on the go and then come to the platform to enter their scores and comments. Cons I have come across some small functionality that I would like to have such as a bit more ability to "pretty up" my email broadcasts or filtering by 2 different dimensions to randomly assign entries for judging. With that said, the SW really addresses so many of our main needs that these issues are not an issue and I have been able to create workarounds if needed. Review Source R Reviewer Systems Coordinator Used the software for: 1-3 years ### "After the learning curve: the relief!" October 22, 2020 5.0 It was not quite so easy on the Admin end because the system is complex and allows for many configurations, but the customer service is stellar! I got replies to my queries regardless of day or time within a few hours, and even had a few video calls. I am a fan ! Pros We use it to allow design students to upload their work at the end of the year. Setting the system up to meet our requirements was challenging because there are so many options, but once it was configured the students found it very easy to upload their work, and even sent some fan mail. They could revise their entries up to the deadline, we could specify the acceptable file types and everything worked smoothly. We also invited reviewers to comment on the work , that too was very easy on the user end. Cons There are a few odd things here: it is , for instance, not possible to sort all entrants by their last name, only by their first. If a judge is already in the AF system they have to use their previous password to log in which can cause confusion. With the help of AF we set up an algorithm that randomly assigned student work to reviewers and you would think that it would be easy for the computer to do this evenly, but it turned out that the some judges got only 10 assignments and others as many as 16. One complaint judges had was that they did not get any sort of confirmation after they completed the reviews that were assigned to them. There were a few questions I did not know to ask at the initial setup. I DID ask if there was a file size limit for the upload (the answer is no) but I did not ask if the file sizes have an effect on the download. The answer here is: yes, definitely! This may not matter for users who deal with text files, but in the design world files get big, and when I tried to download all the work to local drives it turned out that large files (almost ALL of ours) could not be downloaded in bulk, but in batches of about 10, and extra large ones had to be done separately, This is almost a deal killer, but hopefully can be avoided next time with file size limits during upload. MY number one item on a wishlist: create an option for a one stop download of ALL selected files. Review Source R Reviewer Creator Engagement Associate Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "Judging Tool with Outstanding Customer Service!" December 14, 2023 5.0 Overall, our judging team LOVED AwardForce and we're looking forward to using it next year again! Pros We were incredibly excited to implement AwardForce as we needed something to revamp our judging processes. The customer service provided was phenomenal- truly the best my manager and I have ever had. Whenever you have a question, the team is there to support you. Our contest was quite complex and has been running without the help of the judging software for several years so we were thrilled to know AwardForce was there every step of the way to ensure our contest was successfully built out on their platform. Shoutout to Marco - a wonderful customer service rep on this team who met with us for our one-on-one support sessions! Cons There were several things we would have liked to see on AwardForce, little "nice to haves" that would have made certain finicky parts of our contest operations a bit easier, that we were unable to make work with the current platform. Some examples include: - A way for judges to sort their assignments in VIP judging from highest to lowest score without needing to navigate to the leaderboard - Allowing commenting at every judging phase, including PASS/FAIL rounds - Having YES/NO dropdown fields instead of numerical 0/1 dropdown fields when evaluating submissions However, I know the product team is always implementing new features so I feel confident that the product will continue to get better and better with time! Review Source DK Dana K. Communications and Marketing Manager Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "Award Force helped our program become completely digital. The entire process worked so well. " June 14, 2018 5.0 Ease of time on the administrators end. Ease of use and uploading ability to make all things electronic on the users end. Wrap up after the award process was so simple! That was the best part. Even though there is a cost that we didn't have before, our organization found that the benefits outweighed the costs. We needed to be all electronic and needed to alleviate the time component from the administrators, who are all volunteers. This program did that for us. Pros The ease of use on the user and the administrator ends was great. The administration learning process was not complex and Award Force staff took the time to train us. The entry process for the users worked so well. It was simple! The part that sold our organization was the wrap-up portion. We didn't have to do much of anything and the program did it for us. Our members could login and see the winners' entries. This saved our admins a ton of time compiling award winners and sending them out to everyone. That was an amazing process! I would definitely recommend this, and have, to other organizations if they want to go all digital and have a simple back-end process to administer, and help the users get their information entered and then received quickly. Cons Like any software, you have to learn it. It takes a little time at first to learn, but once you do, it is not hard to utilize. The Award Force team was very helpful through that process, though. There are some unique ways to find information within the software, so it just takes working with it to gain an understanding. The payment system was something that we had to inform our membership of, since this software is based in Australia, when using an United States credit card, it is best to charge all entries at one time and not individually, as they card will question foreign purchases and possibly shut the card off temporarily. This happened to us, but once we realized why, we explained it to the membership and then it worked fine. Review Source R Reviewer Science-Policy officer Used the software for: 1-3 years ### "Useful tool for project applications" February 19, 2024 4.0 Good overall but too many bugs this year (started in Sept. 2023) compared to 2022 Pros Easy to set up and prompt support available in any timezone Cons There can be some bugs to the system that prevent from making progress when setting up things. The support that needs to be email than a zoom call. I had around 30 email exchanges with support this year which is not efficient on our side - Last year was much better, two zoom calls resolved my issues Review Source R Reviewer Partner Used the software for: 1-3 years ### "Best customer service... maybe ever?!" February 12, 2024 4.0 It's good but it could be better. The terminology isn't as straightforward as it could be. It would be great if there could be a website widget for nominations just to make life easier for nominators. (I manage the website) Pros The team are insanely helpful and lovely. I spent years working in CS so I really appreciate good service! Cons The ease of use could be better. There seem to be multiple places to edit the same content which is just weird. Overly complex in places. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Mentor Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "The customer support is wonderful. They are very prompt, and accept numerous inquiries. " January 22, 2018 4.0 The customer service was wonderful, and it spoke to salesforce well overall, despite the hiccups we experienced collectively. Pros I like the fact that the layout of the content is organized and visually appealing. (concept tabs for example) Also, the dashboard, side panel with all the features, and checklists are helpful. Cons The foreign DOB text box is not conducive to many of the US teams we work with. Also, I wish the videos were more directly accessible and embedded within the software so I was more likely to use it instead of constantly asking the team for support. Review Source R Reviewer Executive Director Used the software for: 3-5 years ### "Grant making made easy!" January 11, 2023 5.0 From the initial conversation about the software and its capabilities to entering our first grant cycle, it has been a great experience. I have recommended this software to countless other foundations looking to streamline how they do grants. Pros We only do a once-a-year grant award so the price seems reasonable for what we do. It has been a game changer for us. Previously we had lots of spreadsheets and it took one staffer a great deal of time to get the packets together. Then, it was reams of paper to get a copy of each grant into the hands of our judges. Now, it is as easy as entering some basic information and the program is virtual! Cons Setting up year two was a bit confusing and required that we set up a time to chat with customer service. Once did that, everything was good. Review Source R Reviewer Senior Manager - Membership & Projects Used the software for: 3-5 years ### "Business to Arts - AwardForce" July 29, 2020 4.0 Pros We really like the ease of copying entries for entrants, to make it easier for them to submit multiple entries (if eligible). The variety of judging options is also very helpful, enabling us to select the best type of judging for that particular instance, rather than doing a workaround on a static judging process. Cons While there isn't a lot I don't like about AwardForce, it would be helpful to provide an accessibility colour checker/palette - we recently changed sponsor, so had to change the theme colours, and it was difficult to test the colours with all of the design nuances, to ensure the theme a) looked good and b) was fully accessible to people who have eyesight challenges. Review Source R Reviewer Trade Marketing Manager Used the software for: Less than 1 year ### "A fantastic platform from which to run our annual awards program" December 18, 2017 5.0 Use of this software has greatly eased our administrative processes in managing our annual awards program. It has greatly improved the entry process for entrants. Pros Having previously run our annual awards program via submission of hard copy entries from entrants in 2017 we moved to use Award Force software - allowing us to build a custom online platform via which entrants could submit their entry portfolios, and we could easily manage the process from the back end/administrative end of the entry portal. A seamless operation - and very easy to use - allowing us to monitor rate of entry, auto respond to entrants, and obviously the great benefit of being able to digitally store a huge amount of data/info instead of our previous headache of having excessive paper copies. The software has been exceptional value for money. Award Force provided excellent upfront training in how best to use the software and also provided an excellent back up service for any small glitches that might arise in initial use. All in all it has been a fantastic purchase for our organisation and one which we wish we had probably made a number of years ago! Highly recommended. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Executive Assistant To Chief Executive Officer Used the software for: 3-5 years ### "This is my second year using Award Force and the experience just gets better and better. " April 20, 2018 5.0 From an administrator perspective it is easy to use and nice and clear. For those externally who use it again their user experience is always positive. Pros The software itself is easy to use and easy to navigate. Due to its clean look and feel you cant really get lost. To change or update anything it is all clearly labelled and where as you may forget what order to do it in the customer service is first rate and their knowledge and helpfulness is second to none. Cons I don't think there is anything not to like. I use other software programmes for HR and payroll and tI wish they were as easy to use as Award Force. Review Source R Reviewer Head of Awards Used the software for: 3-5 years ### "Award Force Review" November 25, 2020 4.0 Great! Very supportive, efficient and helpful customers service experience with all the Award Force team, coupled with an easy user experience and set-up process. Pros The ease that entrants can create and submit their entries and the ease that we can track their progress and monitor incoming revenue. Cons From time to time we do pick up on small errors or system glitches that interfere with live judging sessions - this tends to be related to 'system maintenance' Review Source ## Send me user reviews about this product ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox. Talk to a Capterra advisor for free and get results within 15 minutes.