RafflePress Review: Best WordPress Giveaway Plugin (Lifetime Deal)

What Is RafflePress and Why Use It?

If you've ever wanted to run a giveaway contest to grow your email list or boost engagement, you've probably realized the options out there are either expensive SaaS platforms or clunky WordPress plugins that feel like they were built in 2012. RafflePress is a WordPress-native giveaway plugin that aims to change that.

RafflePress launched with a lifetime deal priced at $359 (with a $20 discount baked in). One thing worth noting upfront: their sales page uses a countdown timer that resets, which is a bit of false scarcity. The lifetime deal has been running since July 2019, and there's no clear end date. That said, the product itself is solid regardless of the marketing tactics on the landing page.

The core value proposition is straightforward — install a plugin, build a contest with a drag-and-drop builder, collect entries, and pick winners. No monthly fees, no entry limits, and you can use it on as many WordPress sites as you want.

Setting Up Your First Giveaway

Getting started with RafflePress is refreshingly simple. After installing the plugin on WordPress, you click "Add New Giveaway," give it a title, and pick a template. There are several templates to choose from, including one specifically designed to grow your email list, which is what most people are after.

The contest builder itself is clean and intuitive. You can add a prize image, set a title, and configure how people enter the contest. The two primary entry methods are Facebook login or email signup. For most use cases, email is the way to go since that's the whole point — building your list.

One of the standout features is the point system. You can assign different point values to different actions. For example, joining your email newsletter might be worth three points, while watching a YouTube video earns two points. This lets you incentivize the actions that matter most to your business.

Email Integrations and HTML Web Forms

This is where RafflePress really shines compared to competitors. Out of the box, it integrates with ActiveCampaign, AWeber, Constant Contact, ConvertKit, Drip, Mailchimp, and Zapier. That covers most of the major email platforms.

But the real killer feature is HTML web form support. If you're using a less common email tool like Sendy (a self-hosted email platform), you can simply grab the HTML form code from your email app and paste it directly into RafflePress. It just works. No custom API integrations, no developer needed. Copy, paste, done.

There's also a GDPR compliance checkbox you can enable for the email opt-in, which is essential if you have European subscribers. You can even make the email signup mandatory if growing your list is the primary goal of your contest. Just be transparent with your audience about what they're signing up for — nobody likes surprise emails.

Viral Sharing and Contest Actions

Beyond email signups, RafflePress offers a solid set of additional actions contestants can take to earn more entries. You can ask people to watch a YouTube video, visit your YouTube channel, follow you on social media, or refer friends to the contest.

The refer-a-friend feature is where things get interesting for viral growth. You can assign it a higher point value (like five points) to really incentivize sharing, and it works across multiple platforms. This is how giveaway contests snowball — each participant becomes a promoter.

There are also some creative options like polls, surveys, question prompts, and image submissions. You could run a caption contest or a photo contest where you judge the winner based on submissions rather than random selection. The key is not to overload your contest with too many actions. If you ask people to do ten different things, they'll probably do none of them. Keep it focused on three to five actions max.

Design Customization and Embedding

The design tab lets you customize the look of your contest widget to match your brand. You can change button colors using hex codes, set a page background color, and add custom CSS if you want to get more granular with the styling.

An important point that's easy to overlook: you don't need to use RafflePress's standalone contest page. The widget can be embedded anywhere on your WordPress site using a shortcode. This means you can drop a giveaway into a blog post, a landing page, or a sidebar.

Even more interesting — if you work with clients who don't use WordPress, you can still use RafflePress. Just set up a subdomain, install WordPress on it, and use it as a dedicated giveaway platform. This makes RafflePress viable as a standalone contest tool for agencies running giveaways for multiple clients across different platforms.

Contest Settings and Anti-Fraud Protection

RafflePress includes a built-in rules generator that creates boilerplate contest rules for you. Fill out a few fields and it spits out the legal language. Fair warning though — if you're running anything significant, have a lawyer review the rules. The legalities of running contests vary by country and region.

The general settings give you control over the contest permalink, display options (like showing winners after the contest ends), and IP-based signup limits. That last one is important — you can limit signups to three per IP address to prevent people from gaming the system with 150 fake entries.

For spam protection, RafflePress supports invisible reCAPTCHA. This is the version that doesn't make users click on traffic lights or fire hydrants — it runs silently in the background. Contest spam bots are a real thing; they crawl the internet looking for giveaways to exploit. Turning on reCAPTCHA is a no-brainer. You can also set up success tracking with Facebook Pixel or Google Analytics to retarget contest participants down the road.

Final Verdict: Is RafflePress Worth It?

RafflePress earns a 9.7 out of 10, and it's easy to see why. The contest builder is intuitive, the integrations are comprehensive (especially that HTML web form support), and you get unlimited entries across unlimited WordPress sites with the lifetime deal.

The only real downside is the price. At $359, it's significantly more expensive than a typical AppSumo lifetime deal. But context matters here. If you compare it to a SaaS giveaway platform charging $60-70 per month with a cap of 10,000 entries, RafflePress pays for itself in about five months. After that, it's pure savings.

If you're running contests for clients as part of your agency services, this is a no-brainer investment. If you're only planning to run a single one-off giveaway, it's probably overkill. But for anyone who makes contests a regular part of their marketing strategy, RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin available right now.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.