Categories and Awards

Categories and awards are the heart of your program structure. The Categories page is where you define them: the Categories card on the left, the Awards card on the right (stacked on narrow screens). Entry fees, discounts, and tax have their own Fees page; 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. Long descriptions collapse behind Show more. When the program has a single category, the description is what the program page shows in its place, in full: without one, the page shows no category block at all.
• Price: once the program charges anything, what entering this category can cost, from the lowest price (an early bird or member rate) to the highest, shown next to its name. A category with its own price is tagged Own price. Prices are set under Fees > Prices > Per category, not on this page; clicking a category's price opens its row there. 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. To keep each work in a single category, see Limiting categories per entry; to cap how many entries one person can submit, see Limiting entries per person.

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, or use Move up and Move down in its options menu (the keyboard way to reorder).

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.

Limiting categories per entry

Journalism, media, and photography awards often rule that a work competes in one category only: a story entered in Investigative cannot also go into Feature Writing, while the same reporter can still enter a different story there. Both this rule and the entries per person limit live in one control in the Categories card's status line, which reads No entry limits until you set one. Click it to open the entry limits ("How many categories one entry can compete in. The same person can still submit other entries."), then under Categories per entry choose:

• Any: each entry can compete in several categories. This is the default.
• One: the entry form asks for a single category instead of a checkbox list. The status line then reads One category per entry.
• Up to, then a number per entry: the form stops each entry at that many categories. The status line reads, for example, Up to 2 categories per entry.

With both limits set, the status line names both, for example One per entry, 3 per person.

The limit applies to each entry on its own and never stops anyone from submitting another entry; pair it with Limiting entries per person when your rules cap both. The program page states the rule ("Each entry can compete in one category."). Spotting the same work submitted twice as two separate entries is still a check for your reviewers.

Add entry on the Entries page and CSV import can go over the limit: Add entry shows "Your rules allow one category per entry. You can still add it.", and the import preview and results flag each row over the limit while importing it anyway.

Limiting entries per person

Many programs allow one entry per person: a "40 Under 40" where each honoree is nominated once, a short film festival that takes one film per director, a call for proposals that takes at most three proposals per presenter. Click the entry limits in the Categories card's status line and, under Entries per person ("Submitted entries count, drafts do not."), choose:

• Any: no limit on how many entries one person submits. This is the default.
• One: each person can submit one entry. Once they have, Submit another like this is hidden on their entry page. The status line then reads One entry per person.
• Up to, then a number per person: each person can submit up to that many entries. The status line reads, for example, Up to 3 entries per person.

This limit counts entries and leaves the category picker alone: an entry can still compete in several categories unless you also set Categories per entry. For "one entry, in one category", set both to One; for "three entries, one category each", set Entries per person to 3 and Categories per entry to One.

Submitted entries count, whether or not their fee is paid yet. Drafts do not, so an abandoned form never locks anyone out, and withdrawn entries do not either. Being listed as a team member on someone else's entry does not count; the allowance belongs to the person who submits. Deleting an entry frees its slot, and editing an existing entry is never blocked by the limit.

The program page states the rule ("This program allows one entry per person.", or "This program allows up to 3 entries per person."), and tells an entrant how many they have used ("You have submitted 2 of the 3 entries allowed per person."). An entrant who has reached the limit sees why on the program page and on the entry form instead of the submit button. The rule is tied to the email address confirmed at submit; someone with a second address can enter again, so treat it as a strong default rather than an airtight gate.

You can always exceed the limit yourself: Add entry on the Entries page and CSV import never apply it, so late or exceptional entries can still go in.

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. In Test mode, deleting an award that holds test winners asks you to confirm and removes those winners with it. Once the program is live, an award with winners cannot be deleted (hovering its delete button reads Has winners).

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.