Your awards programme should look like your awards programme, not like generic SaaS software with a logo dropped in. A proper branded entry website — on your domain, with your colours, typography, and sponsor branding — is standard in the better platforms but remains a differentiator.

This matters because entrants and sponsors interact with the entry website before they interact with anything else. A polished, branded entry website increases submission volumes and sponsor satisfaction.

What to ask: Can the entry website run on our own domain? What level of design customisation is available without developer resources?

A scoring system that works for one type of award may be completely wrong for another. A technology innovation award might weight technical merit at 40%, business impact at 35%, and scalability at 25%. A sustainability award uses completely different criteria. An employer of the year category needs different dimensions than a product of the year.

Platforms that offer only a single universal scoring template force you to work around their limitations. Look for the ability to define different criteria per category, set weighting percentages, and require written commentary alongside numerical scores.

What to ask: Can judging criteria and weightings be configured per category? Can different categories in the same programme use different scoring templates?

Many professional awards programmes use at least two judging rounds: a first round to produce a longlist or shortlist, and a final round where senior judges select winners. Some use three.

This should be supported natively by the platform — meaning the same system handles all rounds, with appropriate access permissions and score aggregation at each stage. If you need to export results from round one into a separate spreadsheet to set up round two, the platform isn't properly configured for multi-round judging.

What to ask: How does the platform manage multi-round judging? Can different judges access different rounds without seeing other rounds' scores?

For recurring annual awards programmes, the ability to clone the previous year's programme structure — categories, judging criteria, weights, website design, email templates — is a significant operational time-saver.

Without this, setup time for each programme cycle includes recreating everything from scratch. With it, the first-year configuration becomes the template for all subsequent years, with incremental updates only.

What to ask: Can we clone the previous year's programme structure, including categories and judging criteria? What needs to be manually reconfigured?

An awards programme generates a large volume of transactional communications: entry confirmation emails, judge invitation emails, reminder emails, shortlist announcement emails, feedback delivery. Managing this manually through a standard email platform is time-consuming and error-prone.

Platforms with built-in email automation handle this through configurable triggered messages — entry confirmation goes out automatically when an entry is submitted; judge reminders go out automatically when a judging deadline approaches. The communications are personalised to the recipient (entrant name, category, entry title) without manual effort.

What to ask: Which communications are automated? What level of personalisation is available in automated messages? Can we customise email templates?

Pricing varies widely across platforms, and the difference between subscription pricing and per-entry pricing becomes significant at scale.

A per-entry model charges a fee for each submission received. At low entry volumes, this is manageable. At 500 entries, the costs add up quickly. Some platforms also take a percentage of entry fees collected, which directly reduces your programme revenue.

Subscription-based pricing with no per-entry fees is better for programmes with high submission volumes. Verify this carefully before signing.

What to ask: Is there a per-entry or per-submission fee? Does the platform take a percentage of entry fee revenue? What's included in the base subscription?

What happens when something goes wrong? Award ceremonies have fixed dates. If the platform has an issue on the night of the ceremony — the seating plan isn't loading, check-in isn't working — you need a direct line to someone who can fix it, not a support ticket queue.

Some platforms include dedicated onboarding support and event-day support as standard. Others charge for it separately. Others direct you to a help centre.

What to ask: What support is included in the subscription? Is there event-day support available? What's the response time for critical issues?

Post-event, the platform should give you a clear picture of programme performance: total entries, entries per category, submission trends over the entry window, judging score distributions, and revenue summary. This data is valuable for benchmarking against previous years and demonstrating the programme's performance to stakeholders.

Exportable data — in standard formats like CSV or Excel — matters if you need to use the data in other tools, share it with sponsors, or archive it.

What to ask: What reports are available natively? Can all programme data be exported? Is historical data accessible after the programme closes?

Awards entries often contain commercially sensitive information: product roadmaps, financial data, client lists, proprietary research. Your platform needs to handle this responsibly.

For UK and EU-based programmes, GDPR compliance is a procurement requirement. Check where data is hosted, what the data retention policy is, and what security certifications the platform holds.

What to ask: Where is our data hosted? What GDPR and data protection certifications does the platform hold? What is the data retention and deletion policy?