Consider the problem of thanking a basketball fan. The Utah Jazz had gifts for more than 5,600 season ticket members. Someone had to stack them, package them and hand them over. Fans sometimes made a special trip to collect them. Appreciation had acquired a stockroom.
Then the Jazz put the program on Awardco. Members could select exclusive merchandise from a branded catalog and have it shipped home. According to the published customer account, redemption rose from roughly 50% to 70-75%. The relationship already existed. The improvement was in making the gesture easier to receive.
- Recognition, milestones and rewards share one platform.
- Employers buy software and fund rewards separately.
- Amazon Business supplies a familiar redemption route.
- Adoption depends on access and manager participation.
That is a useful way into Awardco, a Utah software company selling employee recognition and engagement tools. Its subject is gratitude; its daily work involves budgets, integrations, delivery and all the administrative details that can make a generous idea feel like another assignment.
The shopping cart before the software
Steve Sonnenberg’s early version of the business was painfully literal. In a 2022 interview, he recalled borrowing $5,000 to buy Awardco.com after losing an earlier company. He and his cousin Mike wanted employees to earn points and choose rewards from Amazon. Amazon initially rejected their proposal.
For four years, Sonnenberg sold the idea while his wife helped fulfill incoming orders. The desired experience existed before the machinery to deliver it efficiently. Amazon Business launched in 2015, eventually opening a route to the partnership. The first obstacle had been permission and fulfillment, rather than a shortage of things people might want.
Today, Amazon Business independently lists Awardco as an integration partner. Employees choose products; administrators manage the recognition program. Awardco also offers gift cards, travel, charitable giving and custom rewards. A company can make lunch with its CEO or extra time off part of its own catalog.
A factory floor is a better test
A catalog tells you what someone can redeem. It tells you less about whether anyone will bother. McCormick, the spice company, offers the more revealing test. Its workforce included 14,000 people, with 70% in frontline and offline roles. Recognition was scattered across more than 100 programs.
Its Awardco-powered replacement, Bravo, began with workshops, manager huddles and local champions. McCormick emphasized everyday, non-monetary appreciation before major monetary incentives. The company’s published case study reports 50% adoption within six weeks and more than 6,500 non-monetary recognitions in the first 90 days. Training and program design were part of the intervention.
“Prior to Awardco, our process was clunky.”Casey Glines / Utah Jazz, member experience
Hertz faced a related distribution problem. In Awardco’s account, 80% of its workforce worked away from desks. Email and occasional shoutouts left appreciation fragmented. Microsoft Teams integration brought recognition onto phones, while physical AwardCodes let managers hand over points in the moment. The practical lesson travels well: put recognition where employees already work.
- 01 / NoticeA peer or manager names the contribution.
- 02 / RecognizeA message, with or without funded points.
- 03 / ChooseThe recipient selects an available reward.
The price of making it happen
Awardco sells subscriptions, with Standard, Scale and Enterprise plans differentiated partly by the range of program types available. Automated anniversaries, peer recognition, nominations and incentives can sit within the same system. Premium additions include A-Pay payment cards and a company merchandise store.
The plans page advertises packages starting at $3,000 for eligible startups and businesses with 100 employees or fewer. That figure comes without a stated billing period on the page. Employers also need a rewards budget. A subscription price cannot tell a buyer the total cost of the program they intend to run.
Awardco advertises zero product markups through Amazon Business. That claim has a specific scope: buyers should still examine other redemption fees, shipping, implementation and add-ons in their proposal. Its appeal is straightforward. A reward feels less generous when an inflated catalog price consumes the budget.
Round sizes, not revenue. The May 2025 financing valued Awardco above $1 billion.
This is a competitive market. Bonusly offers peer recognition, rewards and automated milestones. Workhuman combines social recognition with global rewards and administration. Awardco’s case rests on its particular combination of Amazon redemption, configurable programs and operational controls. A buyer should test an actual workflow with actual employees, including those without a desk.
Investors have backed the expansion. A $65 million Series A in 2021 preceded the $165 million Series B announced in May 2025, led by Sixth Street Growth and Spectrum Equity. At that announcement, Awardco reported more than six million users across 163 countries. Those are scale figures, rather than proof that any individual rollout will succeed.
After the survey, somebody has to act
In January 2026, Awardco introduced Engage to its administrator community. Employee surveys, sentiment reporting and action planning extend the product beyond distributing appreciation. The commercial logic is clear: employers already using the platform for recognition can also gather feedback there, then use the results to guide their programs.
Awardco uses its own software internally, including nominations and a wellness incentive tied to hikes named for office conference rooms. Its case study describes alternative activities for people who cannot join those hikes. Even a playful incentive needs rules that give different employees a fair chance to participate.
The reader can copy something smaller than the platform: begin with a specific behavior worth noticing, give people an accessible way to acknowledge it, and check who is being missed. McCormick’s experience suggests that points need not be the opening move. Hertz’s suggests that access deserves attention before another campaign.
These are customer accounts, with several changes happening together; they do not isolate the software’s effect. A neglected rollout, inaccessible tools or rewards that employees do not value can still disappoint. The Jazz example offers a modest standard for judging the purchase: did the appreciation actually reach the person it was meant for?