Categories and Awards

Categories and awards are the heart of your program structure. The Categories page is where you define them, alongside the entry fee, pricing periods, member pricing, discount codes, and tax. This page covers categories and awards. For fees and codes, see Entry fees.

Categories

A category is a bucket entries are submitted to. An entry picks one or more categories, and each category + entry pairing is judged, scored, and (if you charge) billed independently. Use categories to group entries by what they are being judged on:

• An industry awards program: "Best Innovation", "Leadership Excellence", "Community Impact"
• A "40 Under 40": one category for every honoree (or a single "40 Under 40 Honoree" category)
• A design competition: "Brand Identity", "Packaging", "Editorial Design"
• A creative awards program: "Best Campaign", "Best Use of Data", "Best Craft"

A program typically has 3 to 8 categories. More than that gets hard for judges to calibrate; fewer than 3 limits how you can recognize different kinds of work.

Click Add category to add one. Each category has:

• Name: shown everywhere the category appears
• Description: click Add description and write "A short description shown under the category name". It renders under the name on the program page and on the entry form's category picker, clamped to a few lines with a show-more toggle so long eligibility text never pushes the list apart.
• Entry fee: an optional price for this category. "Leave empty to use the standard fee, or enter 0 to make this category free". With member pricing on, each entrant type gets its own field ("Leave empty to use this entrant type's standard price"). See Entry fees.

Entering more than one category

When a program has multiple categories, the submission form opens with a Categories step where the entrant picks the categories their work should compete in. If you charge an entry fee, the running total updates as they select, so the cost of entering several categories is clear before checkout.

A single-category program skips this step entirely. From there, judging, advancement, and awards all treat the work as a separate contender in each category it entered. See per-category scoring.

Ordering and grouping a long list

Categories appear everywhere in the order you set on the Categories page: drag a category by its handle to reorder it.

When the list grows past a dozen or so categories, entrants scan it faster with headings. Open a category's Add to group control and type a Group name ("Product Design", "Small Port", "Rendering"): categories sharing a group render under that heading on the entry form, the program page, and your Categories page, and categories without a group follow at the end with no heading. On your Categories page those trailing categories sit under a muted Not in a group label so they cannot be misread as part of the group above; entrants never see that label. Click a group's name to rename it (every category in the group follows), use the arrows to move the whole group up or down, and Ungroup categories to dissolve it.

Groups are purely visual. They never change pricing, judging, eligibility, or what an entrant can select; they just make a 25-category list readable instead of a wall of checkboxes.

Awards

An award is what you give out. Awards live in their own Awards card ("What you give out.") on the Categories page. Names are free-form, so you can label your placements however suits your program (Winner, Finalist, Runner-up, Honoree, Honorable Mention, anything you like).

Click Add award and choose where it applies:

• In each category: the award is given inside every category. Only entries that picked that category are eligible. Most awards are this type.
• Overall: the award applies across the whole program. Every entry is automatically eligible, with no extra fee. Use these for cross-program recognition like "Grand Prize" or "Program of the Year", or for sponsor-funded themes like "Best Use of AI" or "Best Sustainability Initiative" that should be open to any entry regardless of which category they picked.

An empty card offers presets to start from: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Winner, Finalist, or Start from scratch. The card then lists awards under Given in each category and Overall awards.

For each award you can configure:

• Name: free-form label shown publicly (Winner, Gold, Finalist, Honoree, anything)
• Prize: one optional free-form field describing what the recipient receives ("e.g. Trophy + feature, or $1,000"). Because it is free text, you can combine cash and recognition in one line: "Trophy + feature", "$1,000", or "$5,000 + gala invite". It is displayed on your public program page.
• Limit (per-category awards): how many recipients the award allows in each category, toggled between 1 per category (a single Winner) and Unlimited (as many Finalists or Honorees as you name)

A category can have multiple awards (a Winner plus two Finalists, for example). Add as many as you need. Once an award has winners, it shows a Has winners marker and deleting it removes those winners with it.

How awards appear publicly

Your awards are listed on your public program page in a Categories & awards card, grouped into the ones Awarded in each category and the Overall awards, with each award's prize shown beneath its name.

Prizes and Stripe Connect

The prize field is descriptive only. AwardKit displays it on your program page so entrants know what they could win, but you handle the payout to the winner directly.

This is different from entry fees, which use Stripe Connect to flow money from entrants to your organization. See Entry fees for the full guide.