What earns points
Customers earn points for publishing a post, voting, commenting and receiving votes on their posts, and a post's author earns more when it moves to Planned and again when it ships. Everyone who voted for a request at least a day before it shipped gets a bonus too, so backing good ideas early pays.
Admins set the amount for each action in Admin, then Rewards, and setting an action to zero turns it off. Out of the box, shipping pays far more than a single vote or comment, so the incentive points at contributions that lead somewhere rather than at clicks.
Only first-hand activity counts
Points go to people taking part themselves on your boards. Your own team never earns, and nothing created through the API, imports, integrations, automations or votes cast on someone's behalf pays out. Posts need at least 30 characters and comments at least 20 to earn, voting on your own post earns nothing, and only one comment per post per day pays.
Points are not awarded retroactively: activity from before rewards were switched on, or while they were off, does not earn later.
Streaks and levels
A streak counts the consecutive weeks in which someone earned points by posting, voting or commenting. Streaks are shown to the contributor as encouragement; they do not earn points of their own.
Contributors move through five levels as their settled points grow: Newcomer, Contributor, Regular, Champion and Legend. You can rename the levels to suit your community. A level appears as a chip next to the person's name on posts and on the leaderboard; levels are recognition only and do not change how much a vote counts.
Leaderboard, bounties and the rewards store
The leaderboard ranks contributors over a recent period. It lists people who have posted or commented on a public board, never people who have only voted, and anyone can hide themselves from it.
A bounty puts extra points on one post, with a deadline: your team says what it is asking for, contributors opt in, and the team awards the points to one person who joined. Referrals reward people who bring in others who go on to take part.
In the rewards store, contributors spend points on rewards you publish, such as a discount code, a link or a perk. New workspaces get a few example rewards as drafts, which stay hidden until an admin edits and publishes them.
Avoid gaming
Daily earning caps are on by default, both overall and per action, and points from new accounts and from votes received are held for a period before they can be spent. A built-in check flags suspicious patterns for review in Admin, then Rewards, and admins can reverse or adjust points by hand.
When someone on your team uses Remove as spam, the author loses the points that post or comment earned. When a duplicate is merged, its author loses the points it earned, while its voters and commenters keep theirs. Review the ledger monthly; a single runaway account usually means a cap needs lowering.
Turning rewards on
Rewards are a workspace-level feature you can switch on or off, included on Growth and Business. Every new workspace can try them during the 14-day Business trial; they are not part of Free or Starter.
Contributors are enrolled automatically; there is nothing for them to join. The How points work page on your workspace explains the rules to customers in plain terms.
Rolling rewards out
Switch rewards on once the board has enough activity to make a leaderboard meaningful, usually after the first few dozen posts. Announce it to existing contributors first, so the people who have already helped hear about it before newcomers start chasing points.
Start with the default values and caps, then adjust after a month based on who is at the top. It is easier to raise rewards that turn out too modest than to take back points from people who earned them under a scale that was too generous.