ShortStack Review

I used ShortStack for several years as part of a social media/community manager role for both brand awareness, product spotlights and related contests/givewaways

Pros

ShortStack makes it really easy for a guy like me with no design or coding background to manage social media contests almost 100% by myself. Designing, launching, monitoring and measuring the contests and their results was really easy thanks to the platform's intuitive workflow.

Cons

After a few years of using this software, the designer and I started to reach the limits of its abilities. Part of what makes it so valuable is how plug-and-play some otherwise complicated design/programming features. However, that templated framework has its limits, keeping you from realizing fully customized ideas outside that framework.

ShortStack is the Best, Free Contest Platform

We were able to use ShortStack in order to gather user images to use on social media. We ran a photo contest where the winner wins free product and we gather e-mail and contact information from entrants and voters to use in future e-blasts.

Pros

I love that I am able to use this software in full for free. For a simple contest, we have free use of the platform as well as free support from the company. If we need to add features, it is easy to upgrade without a contract.

Cons

The software can take a little getting use to when it comes to design. There are design options within design options which can make it a little confusing. But you can always preview your design to make sure it looks okay.

Easy to use for competitions and lead gen

Very good for what we needed it for. Great out of the boxes features - and quick to setup.

Pros

Easy to Setup. Great for quick landing pages & lead gen. great to customise & email triggers built in are a nice touch.

Cons

Little expensive. Some functions look generic unless designed & customised.

ShortStack is good, but has low limits on entries

Pros

-fairly easy to use -easy to scale up -the variety of ready made templates and the ability to customise them

Cons

don't like the fact that you are limited on : - views - entries i understand having a limit on the lower tier plans, but in the full plan, having limitations on the amount o page views and or entries on the account seems rather unprofessional to me. And this is a model i've seen to almost every software on the market that handles competitions ( i.e wishpond). They really should think about removing entry limits, at least on their full package, else if a company wants to create a high traffic competition and then replicate it, it will most probably mean it will need a new account..

Helpful software for competition management

Our web agency find it easy to integrate into the website. Gallery option works well to allow people to see other entries. Easy way to gather enties together in one place. We had issues embedding Shortstack into Facebook and now direct people to a link within the post copy. Load time was an issue when we added too many videos for one competition. Hard to identify what platform winners came from to contact them.

Pros

Ability to vote for winners and easily collate the results.

Cons

Unable to tell what platform the competition entries have come from in order to know how to contact the winners.

Professional Look Without the Pricetag

Positive. A well-designed piece of software. I will definitely be returning if we do this promotion again.

Pros

I really loved how easy it was to build a professional looking giveaway. My giveaway was very unique (different clues appearing at different days) and I loved how I could set the entire thing up ahead of time and let it run, confident all the timing was correct. This took a lot of stress out of the giveaway week.

Cons

It was hard to track the entries through social media.

Shortstack review

Getting custom-branded landing pages and contests up is very easy. The email tool built into each contest provides us a way to layout an entire contest campaign while logged into the platform, which is a major benefit to us.

Pros

Shortstack offers a great drag and drog type page builder with several contest tools that allow us to run successful contests. The drag and drop type builder allows us to create very custom-branded landing pages that our clients appreciate and users love.

Cons

As you start to use the software, you quickly realize that you need to upgrade to one of the larger plans to access the features that make the software attractive for most contests. We have the $199 agency option, which is relatively high considering our CRM costs about half that per month. After 12 months we will evaluate whether the monthly cost for the service is worth it.

A great solution for those running contests

We are in a very niche market and we rarely run contests outside of social media giveaways, but I needed a good option for allowing our customers to enter using multiple platforms (i.e. Facebook, Youtube, submitting images, etc.). I looked at quite a few options and even tried out some other ones but ShortStack was by far the easiest to use AND offered the most versatility for the price. Because we do these types of contests so rarely, I actually did end up cancelling my account so that we weren't paying for a service that we didn't use, but for the time period that we needed it, ShortStack was great.

Pros

I chose ShortStack because we needed a platform that would allow multiple types of entries--everything from viewing a Youtube video to following us on social media to uploading images. Of the different software programs that I viewed or tried, ShortStack had the most versatility, was the most user-friendly, and had the best price point.

Cons

At first, it was kind of difficult to navigate all the different options and figure out how to create the contests that I wanted to. It took some playing around with, but I think compared to some of the other platforms I looked at, it was still more user-friendly.

Great little tool for your toolbox

Great experience. My first hour of training when I signed up went fast and was full of info but I got it. Then I did have to reach out for help through chat and finally figured it out. They were very professional and helpful.

Pros

I have a client that submits multiple job requests to me almost daily. We needed to create a form so they would be able to fill out all the pertinent info that i need to know in order to do their job requests. After much research, I found this product and it does what I need it to do (mostly)

Cons

There is a learning curve, and you cannot reach customer support by phone. But they definitely respond quickly by chat and are very helpful. But you as the user need to figure things out. One thing that I would like to see improved is the option to have the submitter be able to add more than one image at a time.

Love this product!

I loved it so far! There is a learning curve but overall its pretty good.

Pros

It gets updated every time I use it, so it keeps getting better.

Cons

Instagram post-filters is a nightmare, sometimes I just want to select certain posts to display during my campaign and not have them update dynamically on the lP

You'll fall in love with ShortStack

I've been using ShortStack for at least eight years. I've used ShortStack on my own as a blogger, and with four different companies I've worked for. I've had to write proposals on why I need the platform and it's always immediately approved. Beyond the platform - one of my favorite things about ShortStack is their customer service. I come up with crazy ideas and whenever I need help I can just chat or email them and I get an almost immediate response thoroughly explaining how to solve my problem. Special shout out to the support staff whom I've been working with for years and always manages to exceed my expectations.

Pros

ShortStack is the most customizable platform you'll ever use. From contests to landing pages to interactive quizzes - you name it - it can be built within the platform. There are even features you didn't know you needed - like autoresponder emails and entry hosting - even pop ups!

Cons

I have a really hard time trying to come up with a con for ShortStack. The one thing I can think of is if you are on a lower level subscription - you will have their 'ShortStack' branding at the bottom of your campaign. It's not a big deal, but if you are working for a very corporate company - you'll want to pay more so their branding isn't on your campaigns.

Easy to use, customizable look and to needs, with a few additions it could do everything you need!

Ability to embed a contest on our webpage, collect submissions efficiently, and close the contest seamlessly hiding some text (e.g., submission form) and displaying other text (e.g., "contest closed" text).

Pros

Ease of use. Fresh looking designs. Customizable to needs (voting/no voting). Widgit editing functionality (move content blocks). Visibility features (to be creating something without showing it, and timing features to swap out what is displaying).

Cons

A few rough spots to be improved upon. Entry form -- Default has First and Last name boxes beside each other, couldn't seem to make any other entry boxes beside each other. Text formatting – can’t have two lines with different font sizes without a space between lines. Gallery Widget – Doesn’t work in all browsers (looks bad in Chrome?). It stacks the images, instead of laying them side by side. Displaying Entries - more options for the layout of these would be preferable. Particularly what entrant info displays - and in each entries info, ability to add fields if we want to put certain info on each entry when displaying them (info that wasn't in submission form). Also - love the timing feature, but pretty sure one didn't work the way it should have. I had set to show something on a date and hide something on a date and it only did one of the two things. Couldn't figure out why the other wouldn't have worked. Email confirmation - only sends once per email address. I wish you could override this (we allowed multiple entries, would prefer they got an email for each one and it could reference one of the submission boxes like "photo caption". E.g., "Thank you, we received your entry "SEM image of microchip".

Stacks up to the hype

We have been using shortstack platform to create promotional competitions for seasonal campaigns which in turn has increased our sales during these times. Overall it’s a great tool and allows businesses like ours to not pay more for pricey developers we can do this ourselves for minimal cost but great results.

Pros

Ease of use, If you have some coding experience and can learn quickly this platform can be easy to implement once you get the hang of it. I could also adapt to suit my needs by adding unique code. Any questions I had were quickly and expertly answered by the support team. The framework of the design was easy to work with and design our own backgrounds and elements for also which made the end result presentation much more professional looking.

Cons

It can take a while to get the hang of the platform particularly if you are using sporadically. It would also be good to have the platform save all your data inputted without deleting if you don’t have monthly subscription - this would work better for us for seasonal campaigns as we only use 2 or 3 months but have to pay for 12 to make sure our data not deleted. The data tools also could be more refined ie it would be good to know which people clicked on which element within the design I don’t think this is possible atm from what I have seen.

Effective marketing tool for tourism

Short Stack Customer Support is FIVE STAR. These guys are always there for me, and I usually make mistakes and have loads of tech questions, or functional queries. They are SO FAST to respond, the online CHAT feature has been the most beneficial, and the yearly Agency subscription has met our needs nicely.

Pros

The diversity of the campaigns has improved greatly since we used to only have to import with a widget into Facebook. We have had a lot of success in promoting our destination through easy-to-create trip giveaways, including a cool trivia contest we ran, so folks learned something new, had a chance to win a trip, and had some fun doing it.

Cons

Sometimes the templates are different (newer) than the tutorial videos, so I can get a little lost at times. Understanding the lingo, and in the editing panels what each Rich Text box applies to can be cumbersome. I am not a great fan that I have to be a Developer in order to customize campaign URLs, so for now I stick with the provided link Short Stack provides, and it works fine.

Great Resource, Intermediate Ease, Kind of Pricey

When I had questions they would refer me to the help section on the website which was outdated. Overall, it's a great tool if you have the money. They have multiple tiers to unlock different functionalities which was disappointing. Charge one price and give me all the things.

Pros

This was somewhat intuitive to use once you get the hang of it. You are easily able to integrate your social profiles to push out your campaign. We did photo submission contests and it worked great. Created a Giveaway section on our Facebook page and promoted it from there. Great turnout with a little Facebook promotion behind it.

Cons

It was kind of pricey for what you are getting. The software to building out your page if very technically involved so my assumption is that is what you are paying for. The overall collection of emails and assets, such as images, is fairly easy. Would probably make up for itself if you are doing a larger giveaway versus some under $100 items like we did. That way you are more likely to convert those into entries, aka emails that you can use.

The most easy-to-use and powerful social media app for building audience... period!

Shortstack is easy to use, powerful, up to date, fast, creative... a great product for startups.

Pros

ShortStack takes you by the hand and shows you how to look like a real social media pro. It has a complete set of features that can put any small entrepreneur in the social media game without too much effort. Having the ability to view examples and even reproduce them is a very helpful feature that provides easy understanding of the reach and scope of the software. The edit platform is friendly and does not require any profund IT background. The free plan is already so powerful that anyone starting to use the app will feel fulfilled. As as social media consultant, I loved to know that Shortstack is now offering marketing automation. This a great feature that will take this app into a highe and promising level. I truly recommend small and mid size entrepreneurs to give Shortstack a try and enjoy the benefits of this great business support idea.

Plug & Play - Mostly. Enjoyed the Features

I used Shortstack multiple times to run contests around email collection and was pleased with the results. It was easy to implement and after a few rough starts, was fairly easy to construct a campaign.

Pros

After creating everything at Shortstack, it was really easy to implement on my side. I implemented a campaign on both Magento and Shopify with absolutely no problem. It worked well the entire time it was live.

Cons

Getting started for the first time was a little complicated/confusing. I wasn't sure what to do and had to restart my project a few times after not being sure what I was doing. After I figured it out though, no problem.

Would Recommend Shortstack

Pros

It's extremely easy to use, even for non-developers and outside of the social team. Once you get the hang of how to edit the look, padding, etc., you can really make it your own without having to have creative team members generate this aspect.

Cons

There are still some struggles with the API integrations with Instagram (i.e. disconnects the feed almost daily). The fact that we have to fluctuate between membership levels to get the features needed from giveaway to giveaway. We're not able to pay annually, but rather have to work on a monthly schedule - not ideal for an agency.

A good basic software to create promotion

Despite having a difficult time navigating the page and not having some key needed features, ShortStack is a great platform for users to be creative and interact with the community.

Pros

I like that this software has all the basic functions needed to help create online application forms for giveaways contests, e-mail sign up lists, interactive quizzes, photo contests, or surveys, with the public. I like how it has different themes to help get you started on a new idea for promotions. There's also a lot of functions to explore to customize your page.

Cons

I dislike how hard it is to navigate on the site; even though there are a lot of great features, it can really overwhelm the page when they are not explained or shown properly. I had previously had to contact customer service many times in order to understand where each function is or how to use them. I also dislike how there's no function to add social media buttons such as to follow or like certain posts from Instagram or Facebook. Most of the time I want to use ShortStack to give exposure to our business instagram and Facebook page so having the functions and features to do so is important.

Great software for a space with very limited options

Overall experience with ShortStack has been great. In a nutshell, the ability to fully customize your campaign to how you like - matching your brand identity, and prevention of looking like complete spam - has been easier and more robust than other platforms I have tested such as KingSumo for example.

Pros

Generally speaking, the software is easy to use. Setting up a campaign, connecting an optional autoresponder is quick and painless. Exporting the data collected from entrants and selecting custom fields for forms are some of the most liked features across the board here. It is also nice to have the option to publish as a standalone landing page, or on your site - a feature we haven't found much success with on other platforms.

Cons

The design features are clunky and difficult to use unless you have a skilled designer who also knows how to code.

Full featured, some learning curve

We love the reporting and the seemingly infinite design capabilities for landing pages.

Pros

There are so many customization options for campaign set-up/implementation and design. It's a bit overwhelming to learn the landing page design tools at first, but with some play and trial/error, it's a great platform.

Cons

No major issues for us. We've run 3 campaigns on the platform so far, and with experience, it becomes easier and faster to set up and launch. Only (slight) negative is a little more learning curve than some of the "not so full-featured platforms" out there.

Six Years with ShortStack

Over all it has been very good, there's not much that I want to do using ShortStack that it can't do. It's easy to design and deploy and the customer service I have received when I needed it.

Pros

One word "flexible". I enjoy how flexible ShortStack is, how I can easily design the app / contest that I want, how I can deploy it across multiple channels and make it work with our social media channels and website. How we can design something that looks uniquely us and offers the features I am mostly looking for.

Cons

I do run into limitations occasionally with design functionality but not often, for example, recently spoke at ShortStack about running an online charity auction through ShortStack to find out that it's not a feature supported because of the payment handling.

Shortstack is Great

We use the platform at various tradeshows and events. It captures information of attendees and offers a clean interface.

Pros

After using a lot of different platforms for online contests, my previous company settled on ShortStack and it was a great decision. One of the first things I did with my new company was purchase ShortStack so we can run contests.

Cons

I really can't think of a con, you definitely get what you pay for.

Effective but hard to learn

We've used it for a photo submission contest and several form-based contests and have recommended it to several others for easy contest management. It's always proved effective and easy to use.

Pros

Absolutely love the output of data (so easy to read and interpret) and the functionality possible with the contests. It offers so much more than just a form, and I love that it gives me ideas that I would never have thought of myself.

Cons

It is tough to navigate until you get the hang of it. There are a lot of opportunities for customization and design, but it's hard to figure out how to do the customization at first.

Used it for years

An easy, affordable solution.

Pros

Easy WYSIWYG designer. I use mostly for simple splash pages, some social contests. Have not explored the full functionality for a while, but I know there is lots more.

Cons

Not really loving the new design, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Everyone grumbles about change.

Superior Network Review

We have been able to provide additional services with ShortStack, providing our customers a more rewarding and enticing experience.

Pros

ShortStack provides an easy-to-use interface that allows many different functions that help us communicate with our customers. Everything we have needed ShortStack to do has been met with satisfaction.

Cons

The design tool layout/screen is a little confusing and not as easy to use. Perhaps it could be made to be a little more simple and more clear.

Great Way to Get in the Giveaway Game

Pros

Easy to start, learn and implement in an hour or less. Intuitive interface with a small learning curve.

Cons

The updates are often excessive leaving the user wondering if they should pause the campaign, and update, or leave alone...

Shortstack is a Phenomenal Tool

Overall, I would absolutely recommend that companies use Shortstack if they would like to run giveaways, signups, or create any sort of landing pages.

Pros

I absolutely loved the signup sheets and campaigns you could create, especially for giveaways. It gives you the ability to get creative with the art and layout while gathering very good analytics. It is the perfect tool to use when running a giveaway for a client.

Cons

It takes a bit of time to get used to all of the tools and aspects in the software but that is also a plus because it just shows all of the options available in creating a great landing page.

Great Option for Contests

My overall experience with ShortStack has been very positive. It's allowed our team to run an entire contest from landing page design through selecting winners on our own, without having to use an agency for help. It's ultimately saved us money by allowing us to keep this in-house.

Pros

I love how easy ShortStack is to set up and use. I was able to design and deploy a beautiful landing page for a contest without needing to use any code. Managing the photo contest has also been super easy and smooth, with all of the entries in one place.

Cons

I wish we could run a video upload contest without requiring contestants to upload their videos to another site (like Youtube) first.

Perfect

Pros

I love how easy it is to customize our landing pages and then publish them. I also love the hashtag aggregator

Cons

The only issue is that it took my team a little bit to learn all the customization options

The best way to quickly build and execute digital campaigns & landing pages!

Pros

The easy to use campaign builder is so flexible, we have yet to run into anything we can't do with it!

Cons

I'm not sure I can come up with anything negative to say about ShortStack. I've been a user for a long time now, and haven't looked back.

The software works great, your target audience may not

So far, it's been great. Customer service was excellent both before and after I made my purchase. Software works wonderfully. I would recommend their service with the proviso that you need to target a responsive audience.

Pros

Easy to put together a promo, lots of templates to choose from, lots of different types of promotions to run

Cons

It's not the software - it's the audience that can be problematic. I've run 3 different refer-a-friend promos. One was pretty good, one was so-so, and one went downright terrible. Again, the software worked flawlessly! It was the audiences that really determined how things worked. You need to start out with a large initial email list, or a large reach with an extremely targeted message to get the audience you want to respond.

Great Product & User Friendly

I have enjoyed the few campaigns I have created. It was fun to play around with and easy to make.

Pros

ShortStack is very each to use, even for a first-timer. Most of the software is intuitive and also easy to navigate.

Cons

Some of the functionality can seem overwhelming during your first try. It also doesn't seem very intuitive on where to download your collected emails.

I'm not happy

The chat support is awful. Get a phone number and show people respect.

Pros

It works and does what it needs to do but I'm still not happy.

Cons

The support you over is terrible. You need a phone number. You also need to adjust the way you do billing it's terrible how people are automatically upgraded and expected to pay for it. Far to many emails that are useless and feel like spam. I only want emails if they are important to me and directly related to my account.

Self-serve social apps made easy

I have built a variety of sweepstakes and contests in Shortstack for clients ranging from no-budget non-profits to large CPG brands, with happy clients and successful promotions.

Pros

Flexibility, ease of setup, high level of customizability.

Cons

Some of the design tools (wysiwyg) can be a little twitchy.

Amazing social software!

Pros

We've used Shortstack for several years to run social contest and it's great! We enjoy the ability to have an advent calendar giveaway at Christmas, collect leads, run photo contests and endless other possibilities. Data files are easy to export and the ability to have a auto response email to submissions is great! Customer service is great any time we've encountered an issue or question.

Cons

There are some limitations what you can do with templates if you don't know CSS or have a person for that on your team.

ShortStack Review

Pros

Very easy to use with multiple platforms including social, website, etc.

Cons

Would love to see more robust reporting options for surveys. Once the reports are exported it still requires a lot of manual work to assemble the data.

If only fb would make it easier ...

Been using it for years! The minor cons that I have come accross are by far outweighed by the pros!

Pros

- Great software. - Not the easiest to use but it does cover everything giving multiple options to users and designers! - Excellent customer service!

Cons

- Facebook intergration couyld be better. I know that Facebook changes things often but the instructions and integration process is not ammended so fast. - Not enough premade themes and not updated for too long! It is ok ig you have a designer to make your own theme but the premade ones that are great help are very few!

Landline Pages Made Easy

I’ve had had really good experience with short stack so far, and I don’t know anything about computers or programming or making pages… It is a little overwhelming at first, but after playing around with it for a bit it gets super easy and you can save your templates

Pros

This has a great visual interface making it super easy to do basic coding and create your own landing pages and giveaway pages and ability to export the list if you upgrade

Cons

What I like least about this software is the fact that they do not have a phone support for customer service and I had to email people whenever I have a question, but at least they respond very quickly!

Fun and easy to use

Pros

ShortStack helped us grow our email list and improved our social media engagement. It is easy to use once you set up your first campaign and become more familiar with the software. Transferring the email list to our email service was a breeze.

Cons

I found it difficult to set up the background and header exactly the way I wanted it. I wish there were more templates included with the basic package.

Fantastic customer service and support!

We're solving the problem of limited amount of followers on Facebook AND the "rules" Facebook implements for giveaways.

Pros

The majority of my job is graphic design so when starting with this software, I felt a little nervous. Luckily the online support team is VERY responsive when I need help. Plus all of the videos they have online are a great help when you don't want to constantly ask for help.

Cons

I can't say anything negative at this time.

Overall good. Easy to use and implement campaigns.

Pros

Shortstack makes it easy to set up campaigns and lists. There are a lot of templates to choose from. Integrates seamlessly with Facebook. Easy to export lists (entries).

Cons

Customer support - they only offer chat support with no number to call. Hard to use when you don't know how to explain what you are looking to do with a campaign.

It's ok

it's doing what we need it to do, despite the awkwardness of its design, and it's capturing the leads we need it to.

Pros

It does what we need it to do, without our having to manually do a lot of it. We were able to use it's webhooks to plug it into Zapier to integrate with our list management.

Cons

It's cumbersome and awkward on the backend, the builder doesn't feel like it's been updated for over a decade. It feels very Windows 95 in a world that's running iOS.

Awsome Customer Service

Pros

Using Short Stack has helped our campaigns as customers find it easy to use and enter the competitions we run from the platform. For the business, using Short Stack has also been beneficial as it has given us an easy and seamless way to engage with customers via competitions.

Cons

The only drawback of the platform is that it takes a while to figure out how to use it and sometimes can be hard to navigate. It would also be ideal if they would allow for more than one person to be on the account at once to make it easier for teams to work together on competitions.

Easy way to boost performance

We use ShortStack to engage with our customers

Pros

It was easy to build engaging experiences for our customers

Cons

Little tough to implement some of the more advanced features, but still a great tool.

Shortstack review

My overall experience with ShortStack has been positive. We have executed several online contests with voting as the winning metric. The interface was easy to use and allowed winners to be chosen quickly. I also like the way the campaign renders on various devices.

Pros

It was easy to figure out how to manipulate the forms. User interface is intuitive. The pre-made templates help to create a functional campaign quickly. I like the voting and the choose a random winner features.

Cons

I use it mainly for social media contests and it would be nice to have more variety in the choice of templates or perhaps more customization features.

Shortstack

I like the product.

Pros

The drag and drop functionality and the ability to see your campaign in real time.

Cons

The form styling. Not being able to use the same link when you need to unpublish and republish due to Facebook errors.

Be lazy and look good doing it

This program is cooler than a well-diggers butt. These contest and sign-up pages come out looking like a someone who knows what they are doing developed them. If you have a client that wants email addresses, this is how you get them.

Pros

The template system makes it so easy to wait to the last minute to do stuff. I can get a contest page set up in 30 minutes, then take it to my bosses and tell them with a straight face that it took 8 hours. The page looks and performs so good that no one blinks an eye. One time they actually applauded.

Cons

When you upload images you have to do the sizing blind. Make it so the uploader suggests the optimally sized image (either pixel size or aspect ratio). Not knowing the best size made things even tougher when it came to making sure everything looked good on mobile too.

Easy to use but limited features

Quick development of Facebook tabs for lead generation, contests, and giveaways.

Pros

Ease of use with existing templates. Quick drop and edit feature, simple even for non-developers

Cons

Limited features, limited templates, unable to add multiple tabs or pages.

Seamless for a visually-trendy video contest platform

ShortStack provided a very useful platform to make and distribute our video contest. More versatility with contest entries and the voting page would have been great, but even without that it was very visually appealing and well organized.

Pros

It was easy to use with a drag-and-drop editor, but also allowed for customization.

Cons

As a non-profit, it would be nice if there were even smaller-priced options than what is available for projects intended to be interacted with by an audience. Also, it would be nice to have the capability to download entries from our contest entrants.