Zealous 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews

Overview

Zealous

4.7

(52)

Pricing

Starting at £29.00 per month

About Zealous

🚀 Upgrade Your Contest Management Software with Zealous: Save Time, Save Money & Boost Entries! As your effortless contest management platform, Zealous manage submissions and boost entry volume, all while keeping judges & participants seamlessly informed with timely automated emails. Dive into a smooth, engaging, and hassle-free contest journey with Zealous! 🎯 Core Functions & Ultimate Benefits: 🕐 Massive Time Savings: Automate tasks and manage submissions seamlessly to cut down your workload by up to 80%! 🚀 Skyrocket Submissions: User-friendly interfaces designed to enhance participant experience and notably boost application entry numbers! 🏆 Efficient Judging: Simplify the evaluation process with organized, transparent, and accessible judging portals! 🗣 What Our Clients Say: "Using the Zealous system took away 80% of my workload." - Sue Ecclestone, Holly Bush Award "Very impressed, we increased our submissions by 50%" - Sophie Smyth, Society for the Environment 💸 Flexible, Fair Pricing...

Zealous Screenshots

Zealous Pricing and Plans

Starting price: £29.00 per month

Free Trial

Free Version

Free

£0.00

Plan includes:

1 Opportunity
Unlimited Drafts
Unlimited File Storage
Unlimited Judges
Unlimited Categories
1 Round
Free Submissions Only
Branding & Vanity Domain
Livechat for Candidates
Automated Schedule & Emails

Starter

£29.00

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

Unlimited Opportunities
Unlimited Drafts
Unlimited File Storage
Unlimited Judges
Unlimited Categories
1 Round
Free & Paid Submissions
Branding & Vanity Domain
Livechat for Candidates
Automated Schedule & Emails

Pro

£89.00

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

Unlimited Opportunities
Unlimited Drafts
Unlimited File Storage
Unlimited Judges
Unlimited Categories
Unlimited Rounds
Free & Paid Submissions
Branding & Vanity Domain
Livechat for Candidates
Automated Schedule & Emails

Enterprise

£427.00

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

Unlimited Opportunities
Unlimited Drafts
Unlimited File Storage
Unlimited Judges
Unlimited Categories
Unlimited Rounds
Free & Paid Submissions
Branding & Vanity Domain
Livechat for Candidates
Automated Schedule & Emails

Popular features found in Contest
Awards Management
Entry Management
For Marketers
Landing Pages/Web Forms
Promotions Management
More features of Zealous
Access Controls/Permissions
Activity Dashboard
Activity Tracking
Alerts/Notifications
Blind Judging
Categorization/Grouping
Commenting/Notes
Contact Management
Customizable Branding
Customizable Fields
Customizable Forms
Customizable Questions
Customizable Templates
Data Import/Export
Document Review
Electronic Payments
Electronic Submission
Email Reminders
Entrant Management
Entry Fee Processing
Forms Management
Judging Management
Polls/Voting
Progress Tracking
Real-Time Analytics
Real-Time Data
Reporting & Statistics
Scoring
Skills Contests (Photo, Essay, Design, etc)
Social Promotion
SSL Security
Third-Party Integrations
Workflow Management

Zealous Integrations

Stripe

Zealous User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.7

Ratings Breakdown

73%

25%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.3

Value for money

4.7

Customer support

5.0

Functionality

4.3

WKLyhne L.

Verified reviewer

Arts and Crafts

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2022

Fabulous software for running a competition

see above

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

We were a small start up during during lockdown who had never used a platform like this before. Zeaolus is easy to use, has wonderful features and flexibility and beyond belief good customer support. Heartily recommend

Cons:

The site graphics are complex and it can take a little while to load

Ziquita R.

Verified reviewer

Arts and Crafts

2-10 employees

Used monthly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed May 2021

Great Program for Small Organizations

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Very easy to use and score artwork. I LOVE the analytics that come with the software.

Cons:

As you collect more submissions the pricing increases. As a company that is growing I found it annoying to have to increase the package every month.

Reasons for choosing Zealous

The pricing at first was a great bang for your buck but if you plan on taking more than 500 submissions per year I would recommend using Typeform or some type of survey platform ,that seems to be the cheapest.

Stepanka F.

Verified reviewer

Arts and Crafts

2-10 employees

Used other for free trial

Review source

Reviewed March 2021

Excellent customer service

We used Zealous for launching an open call for free exhibition. Most of other platforms do not charge for free opportunities since they gain subscribers who need to register before they enter the opportunity. This was a little disappointing to receive a warning that we have reached the free trial limit and our account was going to be frozen. Zealous should make it more obvious that the service is free to only certain extent. Their quote on the website "It costs you nothing to be part of Zealous and it never will." is missleading.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

We really like the quick response we got from the customer service. The staff dealt with our issues very quickly, suggested several improvements and were overall very helpful.

Cons:

It wasn't clear that launching an unpaid opportunity within the free trial was limited by only six submissions. However, our concerns were resolved with the customer service to mutual satisfaction.

Vendor Response

Thank you for the great review Stepanka. Thank you also for the feedback, we'll be sure to take a look at our communications to make sure our pricing is clearer. (I know the pages aimed at artists using Zealous highlight us being free so that's where the ambiguity might be). All the best, Guy

Replied March 2021

Victoria W.

Verified reviewer

Cosmetics

2-10 employees

Used monthly for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed July 2025

Amazing site would highly recommend

Amazing experience, I never write reviews but this product was that good I felt I should. I would recommend them to anyone

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The help I received in the back end of the site was so valuable. I would have struggled with a few things without the help

Cons:

To be honest I’m not very technical, I couldn’t even make a square space website but I found this to be a very easy site to work around. And when I did get stuck help was only ever a few hours away at best.

Sophie H.

Verified reviewer

Arts and Crafts

11-50 employees

Used monthly for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed May 2024

Great software for managing large open calls

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Zealous made the management of our art prize so much easier - the platform enabled judges to view admissions individually as well as collectively and made our administration of the entries so much easier. Would definitely use again.

Cons:

The pricing structure for paid entrants, this is very high compared to other options our there, especially as you're also paying a monthly fee.

Simon C.

Verified reviewer

Sports

2-10 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed June 2022

Zealous effortlessly manages the Rugby Photographer of the Year awards

We had a very positive experience with Zealous. Apart from the platform just working and doing what we wanted it to do without any issues, the real bonus was the real time customer service. And not bot chat, but speaking to an actual person that had all of the answers and actioned them there and then. For me that was the real bonus to Zealous.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The Zealous platform has ease of use at its heart. We used it for submissions to a photographic awards. We were easily able to set up multiple categories under one entry mechanism and make it easy for not only our own use but for applicants to use. We also saw a massive uptake in entries from our previous awards. We have to attribute that to the Zealous platform and the clear steps to making a successful submission.

Cons:

No cons to using Zealous. It did exactly what we wanted it to.

Vendor Response

Hi Simon, Thanks so very much for your glowing review! We're thrilled you enjoyed the platform and customer support. We're never far should there be anything more we can do to improve our services for your next Rugby Photographer of the Year awards All the best, Guy Founder

Replied June 2022

Alec R.

Verified reviewer

Design

2-10 employees

Used monthly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed March 2024

Eessential for Competition management

A useful tool to save administration time for Competition managenent of entries.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Ease of uploading Competition Entries and scoring of them by Judges.

Cons:

The scoring system needs to have an optional 'comment box' to record Judges views of Entries too and for Judges to automate feedback to Competitors if required.

Reasons for choosing Zealous

Cost was less and customer support seemed better.

Lisa H.

Verified reviewer

Financial Services

5001-10000 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed May 2023

Great platform

Really pleased! The platform is great and the customer service is amazing! [sensitive content hidden] in particular were so helpful and friendly!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The platform itself is great, everything is in one place, easy to navigate and manage. However, for me, the customer service is what has really stood out. We had an unusual situation where I needed to take over the management of our account, and the team were amazing! They helped get me set up, hopped on calls to talk me through everything, were just on the end of the phone or an email away for any query I had and regularly checked in to make sure I understood everything. Really impressed!

Cons:

We had a couple of teething issues, as this is our first time using Zealous. I don't know if these are things we would have been able to do or if we'd need new functionality:A couple of our questions couldn't be formatted by the person entering the category, so they just appeared as one text block, rather than separated with line breaks.As this was a multi-stage entry process, the entrants didn't get an email notification when completing their finalist submissions.

Vendor Response

Hi Lisa, Thank you so much for the glowing review and the feedback. It's always much appreciated. The form currently gives you two options for text, one for simple blocks of text, and one for rich text (which allows for line breaks). I'll look into making sure these are closer together in the menu to make it clear to users they have a choice. I'll also look into creating an email to be sent out to candidates once they have completed editing any submissions in later rounds. Thanks again for taking the time to leave us a review! Guy

Replied May 2023

Kim-lin H.

Verified reviewer

Environmental Services

11-50 employees

Used monthly for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed November 2023

Weather Photographer of the Year

Really good customer service and support! A useful and affordable tool for managing photography competitions.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Fantastic and quick support. It was great to be able to rank the photographs during the judging process, to be able to easily pull of CSV files and access photographer quotes and information. Looking forward to using the new features next year.

Cons:

Unable to use batch commands when ranking long lists of photos but this has been fixed. Special characters in foreign language addresses not always working but this has also been fixed.

Verified

Reviewer

Information Services

51-200 employees

Used weekly for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed April 2022

An efficient platform for awards judging

Overall a very good experience. A friendly team for support too.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The judging process for our annual awards this year has been immensely successful thanks to the Zealous platform. Being able to assign specific categories to judges, score cards, and a robust submissions catalogue have shaved off a lot of time for all involved, and saved us days of manually faffing around in folders and spreadsheets.

Cons:

At the moment, score cards are limited to just numerical scoring. What would have made the judging process even easier for the panel would be the an open text box for comments. In general, score cards could do with a lot more components like "Yes/No" or "Listbox" segments, though I understand this is a relative new feature.

Reasons for choosing Zealous

It was the cheapest option

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