Quickstart: Launch Your First Award Program

Create your account

Go to awardkit.io and click Start your program free. You can sign up with your email or with Google.

Create a program

After signing up you land on Create your program. Fill in the basics:

• What's your name?: shown only the first time, so your teammates and entrants know who they are dealing with
• What's your program called?: the name entrants will see (for example, "Marketing Excellence Awards 2026" or "40 Under 40")
• Name your organization: your organization's home on AwardKit, where all your programs live. Name it after your organization ("Acme Awards", "City Chamber"). Once you have one, this becomes an Organization picker with a Create new organization option.

Click Continue to pick a starting point. Dates, timezone, categories, and fees are all set later on the program itself, and everything is editable.

Pick a starting point

The Set up your program step offers two ways in:

• Fastest way to start: import your program. Choose Award website, Entry pack PDF, or Paste text and give AwardKit your existing program. It drafts the categories, fees, key dates, judging criteria, entry questions, and awards for you to review before anything is created. See Program import.
• Or start from a template. Pick Business Excellence Awards, Design Competition, or Recognition List, check the What this sets up panel (categories, awards, entry questions, judging criteria), and click Create program.

Either way you land on the program's Overview. Template programs come with sample entries, judges, and scores so every page has something in it; a Creating your sample program data banner shows the progress while they are written. Sample data is cleared automatically when you go live, or earlier with Clear sample data.

Set your dates and review the setup

The Overview shows the lifecycle bar (Build, Entries, Judging, Results) with the program's dates and timezone. Set when entries Open and Close, the judging window (or click Use timeline dates to follow the entry dates), and when results are Announced. All deadlines switch over in the timezone you pick here.

Below it, Setup progress walks you through the rest:

• Set your entries deadline
• Customize your program page
• Review your award categories
• Review your entry form
• Review judging criteria
• Connect payments (only when the program charges entry fees)
• Preview your public page
• Go live

Pages that came from a template open with a review banner ("Do these categories fit your program?", "Does your entry form look right?", "Do these judging criteria work for you?"). Edit what does not fit, or click These look good to check it off.

Categories, awards, and entry fees

Open Categories. This is where you define what entrants are competing for and what they pay to enter.

• Categories are the buckets entrants choose when submitting ("Best Innovation", "Leadership Excellence", "Community Impact"). An entry can be submitted to one or more categories and is judged independently in each. Give each a short description, and group a long list under headings.
• Awards are what you give out. The Awards card holds awards given In each category (a Winner in every category) and Overall awards any entry can win, like a "Grand Prize" or a sponsor-funded "Best Use of AI". Names are free-form.
• Entry fees, early-bird and late pricing, member pricing, the multi-entry discount, discount codes, and tax all live in the Entry Fees and Tax cards on the same page.

See Categories and awards and Entry fees for the full guides.

Configure the entry form

Open Entrant pages and switch to the Entry page view to set up your entry form. Submitted entries are reviewed separately under Entries.

Every program comes with sensible defaults: the entrant's details, entry name, an entry summary, categories, team members, and an Attachments upload. Add your own questions with Add question:

• Short Answer for one-line responses (Year founded, Project URL handle)
• Paragraph for narrative responses, with an optional word or character limit
• URL for demos, websites, or supporting links. YouTube and Loom links render as inline players.
• Number and Date for structured single-value answers
• Dropdown, Single Choice, and Multiple Choice for picklists (industry, company size, capabilities)
• File Upload for images, documents, and video
• Section Heading to break a long form into titled chapters

Need different questions for different categories, or follow-ups that only appear when relevant? Each question has a Visibility setting, so it shows only for certain categories or only when an earlier answer matches. See Conditional questions.

Configure judging criteria

Open Judging to define how entries are scored and to invite your panel. Click Edit scoring to open the setup card.

Voting Method sits at the top and controls how judges score. AwardKit supports two:

Score Criteria

The default method, well-suited to most professional award programs. Judges score each entry on criteria you define (for example, Impact, Innovation, Execution) on the Scale you pick (0 to 5, 0 to 10, or 0 to 100). Every program starts with a Default rubric; click Add criterion to break scoring into several dimensions. Each criterion has a name, a description (guidelines for judges), and a weight. Weights are percentages and must total 100%.

A common setup for award programs:

By default, every category is scored on the same criteria. If a category needs to be judged on different things, use Per category to give it its own rubric. When an entry is in several categories, it is scored independently in each.

Top Picks

A simpler alternative where judges pick and rank their favorite entries instead of scoring criteria. Set Picks per judge inside the tile. Top Picks works well for shorter shortlist rounds, "best of" awards, or any time you want judges to choose with their gut rather than calibrate detailed scores.

Add judges and audience voting

Scroll down to the Judge Voting card. If you turned on Public voting, an Audience Voting card appears above it.

Judge voting

Click Add Judge and enter each judge's name and email. AwardKit creates a unique voting link for every judge. You can:

• Copy links to share them manually
• Invite all to send email invitations in one click
• Invite individually from each judge's card

Judges do not need an AwardKit account. They click their link, see the entries assigned to them, and start scoring. While the program is in Test mode they see a "Test mode preview." banner and can score the sample entries.

Assignment modes control how entries are distributed:

• All judges: every judge reviews every entry. Best for small programs (fewer than 30 entries) where you want maximum calibration.
• Per judge: assign specific entries to each judge. Best where conflicts of interest matter or judges have category specialties.
• Rooms: organize judges and entries into parallel judging rooms. Best for large programs where each entry should be seen by, say, 3 of 9 judges.

Audience voting

Shown when Public voting is on. Share the Audience Voting Link with your audience: anyone with the link can vote during the judging window, no account required. This is great for "People's Choice" awards, fan-vote categories, or a popular-vote sidecar alongside the main judging panel.

Preview, then go live

Until you go live the program is in Test mode: the sidebar shows a green Test mode pill, your public pages carry a "Test mode preview." banner, and only your team can find them. Click through the program page and the entry form exactly as an entrant would; the entry form ends in a preview of what a real submission does, without saving anything.

When it looks right, use the Ready to go live? card on the Overview (or the sidebar pill). The confirmation reads "Take this program live?" and spells out what happens: submissions open to the public, Stripe must be connected if you charge fees, and sample entries are cleared. If your organization has no subscription yet, the button reads Subscribe and go live and shows the flat yearly price.

The Program URL card on the Overview holds the address to share: awardkit.io/your-organization/your-program. The entry form, gallery, and entry pages all follow the same shape. See Test mode and going live.

After judging is complete, you can publish results on the program page and issue certificates to winners and finalists.