Gleam vs Heyo: A Honest Comparison for Marketers

Heyo launched during the era when Facebook fan pages were the primary growth channel for brands. Running a contest on your page was a reliable way to build an audience, and tools like Heyo existed to make that easy. For that use case, in that moment, it made sense.

That moment has passed. Facebook's organic reach has declined sharply, audiences are spread across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Discord, and email, and the tools brands need to run effective campaigns have moved well beyond form-based Facebook contests. Heyo hasn't moved with them.

The product is now part of Votigo, and there are clear signs it has not been actively maintained in some years. The platform UI still shows Twitter's pre-2023 bird logo and the original Instagram icon - both replaced long ago. The campaign builder, the template library, and the integration ecosystem all reflect a product that stopped development around the same time those logos were current.

For anyone researching contest tools in 2026, Heyo is worth understanding historically. It isn't a serious option for a live campaign.

Even on its own terms - simple Facebook contests - Heyo's constraints have become hard to work around.

The 2,000-fan minimum. Every Facebook page connected to Heyo must have at least 2,000 fans. For newer brands or anyone running their first campaign specifically to build that audience, this blocks access from the start.

Campaign and lead caps. Heyo's Basic plan allows one campaign at a time and caps leads at 5,000 per month. Standard unlocks 10-15 concurrent campaigns and 10,000 monthly leads. There is no plan that removes these limits entirely.

Limited customisation. User reviews on Trustpilot and Capterra consistently flag the same complaint: the template library is small and customisation beyond Heyo's presets is restricted. Video-based campaigns cause the platform to slow significantly.

Form-based verification. Entries are recorded based on form submission, not verified against the platforms where actions take place. There is no API-level check that a follow, page visit, or video view actually happened.

Facebook dependency. Running a campaign on your website, through a creator partnership, or as a standalone landing page was never what Heyo was built for. As Facebook has become a smaller part of how brands reach audiences, that constraint has only become more limiting.

Gleam is built around four products: Competitions, Rewards, Capture, and Galleries. Each one addresses a specific part of the audience growth lifecycle, and each one works independently or as part of a connected system.

Competitions is the direct equivalent of what Heyo does - giveaways and sweepstakes with entry actions. The difference is in depth. Gleam Competitions supports 100+ entry methods across social platforms, email, e-commerce, Discord, referrals, custom actions, and more. Entry actions are verified via platform APIs where available, not just recorded via form submission.

Rewards is a programme Heyo has no equivalent for. It lets brands create guaranteed, instantly redeemable rewards - not prize draws, but concrete offers like coupon codes, exclusive content access, or loyalty incentives - gated behind actions. Where a Competition asks someone to enter for a chance to win, Rewards guarantees the outcome for everyone who completes the action. That distinction matters enormously for conversion rates and customer experience.

Capture lets brands create lead capture popups, banners, and subscription forms that sit independently on their website - no giveaway required. It's a standalone lead generation layer that activates visitors who land on your site but aren't ready to enter a competition.

Galleries turns user-generated content and hashtag campaigns into shoppable, embeddable social proof displays on your website. Brands running photo contests or hashtag campaigns can surface that content directly, without stitching together a separate tool.

Because these four products share a platform, the workflow after a campaign closes is fundamentally different. A Gleam Competition feeds leads into email nurture sequences and CRM workflows. Those leads can be retargeted via a Capture popup on your next visit. A Rewards programme can be layered in to move buyers along the purchase journey. UGC from a photo contest goes straight into a Gallery that drives conversion on product pages.

Heyo ends when the contest ends. Gleam is set up so the contest is the beginning.

One of the less-discussed differences between the two platforms is how they handle entry verification.

Gleam connects to social platforms via their official APIs where those APIs allow it. When a user claims to have followed an account, visited a product page, or watched a video, Gleam checks that the action was completed before recording the entry. This doesn't apply to every action type - some platforms restrict what third parties can verify - but it significantly reduces fake or low-quality entries compared to a purely form-based model.

Heyo's entry model is primarily form-based. Users fill out the contest form and entries are recorded based on what they submit. Moderation is available, but the verification burden falls on the campaign operator rather than the platform.

For brands where lead quality matters - e-commerce brands, for example, who want email subscribers who genuinely engaged - the verification difference has a real downstream effect on campaign ROI.

Gleam connects to 30+ email and CRM platforms, including Klaviyo, Mailchimp, HubSpot, Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, and Drip. E-commerce integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce let brands verify purchases as entry actions or tie campaign participation directly to their store.

Heyo integrates with Mailchimp, GetResponse, and Infusionsoft, with a small selection of additional email platforms. There are no native e-commerce or CRM integrations.

For brands running campaigns that need to feed into automation workflows, score leads in a CRM, or connect to a Shopify store, Heyo's integration ecosystem isn't built for it. Gleam's is.

The headline numbers are close - Heyo at $25/month annually versus Gleam's Hobby plan at $10/month annually (or $29/month month-to-month). But what each price buys is meaningfully different.

Gleam's entry tier includes unlimited campaigns and no lead caps. Heyo's entry tier includes one concurrent campaign and a 5,000 lead ceiling. For any brand running more than occasional, single promotions, Gleam's pricing structure delivers more utility at every tier.

Gleam also offers flexible month-to-month billing, which is useful for brands that run campaigns during seasonal peaks and want to scale down between them. Heyo's lowest published pricing is annual-only.

Gleam is the stronger fit if:

• Your audience is distributed across multiple platforms (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Discord, email)
• You run more than one campaign at a time, or want to run campaigns continuously without hitting limits
• Entry quality matters - you want verification, not just form submission
• You want campaigns to connect to your email platform, CRM, or Shopify store
• You're building long-term acquisition programmes, not just one-off promotions
• You need tools beyond contests - lead capture popups, referral rewards, UGC galleries
• You haven't hit 2,000 Facebook fans yet, or Facebook isn't your primary channel

Heyo and Gleam are not really competing for the same customer anymore. Heyo is a Facebook contest tool absorbed into Votigo, with a UI frozen in time and no signs of active development. For brands evaluating contest tools in 2026, it's hard to make a case for building campaigns on a platform that stopped moving years ago.

Gleam is built for brands where the giveaway is one part of a larger marketing system. Unlimited campaigns, 100+ verified entry actions, integrations across email, CRM and e-commerce, and a full platform that extends into rewards, lead capture and UGC - it's a different category of tool entirely.

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