How to Run an Employee Photo Contest at Work (No Registration Fees)
A photo contest should take an afternoon to set up, not a procurement process. Here is the exact setup for an invite-only workplace contest — no registration page, no entry fees, no roster — with company-domain voting and a Best in Show finale.
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In This Guide
Why Most Contest Tools Push You Into a Registration Flow
Most contest and bracket tools were built for sport tournaments, and their model assumes a paying participant: create an event, publish a registration page, set an entry fee, build a player roster, and only then can anyone submit a photo.
For an internal contest, every one of those steps is friction with no upside: you are not collecting fees, you already know who works here, and nobody wants one more account. The contest dies at the signup step.
Brakto voting contests work differently. They do not use the tournament registration page at all — no registration page, no entry fees, and no player roster signup. Employees sign in to a free Brakto account, open the category poll link you share, and either submit a photo or vote. If you want the feature-level view first, the voting contest software overview covers what the platform does, and the full lifecycle guide walks the whole setup end to end.
The 6-Step Invite-Only Setup
This order keeps an internal contest private and frictionless: status and access control first, detail later.
Step 1
Create the contest
Start at the voting contest creator and pick the Leaderboard format — a ranked poll, which is what most photo contests want. You need to be signed in to create it.
Create a voting contestStep 2
Name it and add categories
Give the contest a name, a description, and a brand colour, then create one category per theme — Cutest Pet, Best Desk Setup, Best Team Selfie. Each category becomes its own poll with its own link.
Step 3
Set the status to Invite Only
A new contest starts as a Draft, which blocks everyone. Move it to Invite Only: it disappears from public browse and search but works for anyone holding the direct link. That is exactly what an internal contest needs.
Step 4
Choose how photos get in
Either add every entry yourself, or turn on public submissions with organizer approval so employees upload their own photos. With approval on, nothing reaches the ballot until you approve it.
Step 5
Lock voting to your company
In Voting Defaults, choose Registered users only and add your allowed email domain. That gates both submissions and votes behind a company address.
Step 6
Send the announcement
Open the Directory, copy the generated announcement with the poll links and voting schedule already in place, and send it. Nothing to hand-assemble.
Invite Only, explained
Invite Only hides the contest from public browse and search, but it still works for anyone with the direct link. For an internal company contest that is the best of both worlds: no outside traffic, no login wall on the contest page itself, and a link you control.
Lock Submissions and Voting to Your Company Domain
A private link keeps strangers out, but it does not prove that the person voting works for you — links get forwarded. The fix is a two-part voting policy in Voting Defaults:
Registered users only
Voters must sign in to a Brakto account, which also gives you one vote per person per category instead of one per network address.
Allowed email domain
Add @company.com and both submissions and voting are limited to addresses on that domain.
Together they mean only signed-in employees with your company address can reach the ballot or cast a vote. It also makes the failure self-explanatory: sign in with a different domain and an inline message explains why before you vote — not a silent failure after tapping a photo.
You set these once at the contest level and they apply across categories, so you are not repeating the access rules in every poll. The voting admin panel guide has the detail on Voting Defaults, per-category overrides, and the embed widget.
Run Categories That Feed a Best in Show Finale
One giant poll with 60 pet photos is hard to judge and hard to vote on. A better structure is several small categories, each its own poll, and then a finale that pulls the winners forward.
Each category is an independent Leaderboard poll supporting up to 200 entries, and each gets its own voting window — so you can stage the contest instead of running everything at once. A clean pattern for a company pet photo contest:
Cutest Pet
Top 4 advance
Silliest Pet
Top 4 advance
Most Photogenic
Top 4 advance
Most Unique
Top 4 advance
Take the top 4 from each of the 4 categories and you have a 16-entry Best in Show finale. The finale is configured as its own division under the contest finale settings, where you pick the source categories and how many entries advance.
Keep the finale on a separate voting window that opens after the category polls close. That gives you a natural two-act contest: category week, then a short, high-stakes finale where everyone votes again on the finalists.
Moderation: Approvals Before Anything Reaches the Ballot
If you let employees upload their own photos, turn on public submissions with organizer approval. Employees can add up to 5 photos per submission and submit more than once — one entry per pet is fine — but nothing goes live until you approve it.
Approvals happen in the contest admin under Entries, and each category poll shows a Manage entries shortcut with a pending badge when there is review waiting. From there you approve or reject entries, and you can filter by submitter email when you are tracking down a specific person's photos. Approved entries appear on the live poll immediately.
The approval step is where workplace contests either succeed or get embarrassing — a stray whiteboard photo, a mislabelled entry, a duplicate. Ten minutes in Manage entries before the ballot goes live protects the whole thing.
The Announcement Email Is Generated For You
Writing the announcement is the step people put off longest, because it means hand-copying poll links and voting times into an email and hoping none are stale. The contest admin has a Directory that generates a copy-ready employee announcement, with the poll links and voting schedule already filled in from your contest settings.
You paste it into Outlook, Slack, or Teams and send. An embeddable voting widget can also be dropped onto an intranet page so the poll sits next to your other internal comms.
What the announcement covers
- Direct links to each category poll
- The voting window dates and times, pre-filled
- The submission steps and the photo limit
- Reminder to sign in with a company email address
Tips, Pricing, and Limits
Tips that make it work
- Finish submissions and approvals before you promote the contest widely — a half-empty ballot kills momentum.
- Keep the categories distinct so voters are not choosing between near-identical photos.
- Clamp the finale window to a couple of days so it feels like an event.
- Test the employee experience once yourself: sign in, submit, approve, vote.
The limits to plan around
- Up to 5 photos per submission; multiple entries per person allowed.
- One vote per person per category — separate from how many entries they upload.
- Up to 200 entries per Leaderboard category poll.
- Free plan covers up to 8 entries; paid voting plans start at $49/mo for up to 64 per category; larger by custom quote.
- Live leaderboard that polls for new data about every 15 seconds.
A small team running a single category often fits inside the free 8 entries; a larger office with several categories usually needs a paid voting plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do employees have to pay or register to take part?
No. Voting contests do not use the tournament registration page, so there is no registration page, no entry fees, and no player roster signup. Employees sign in to a free Brakto account, then submit photos and vote on the category poll pages you share.
Can I keep the contest private to employees?
Yes. Set the contest status to Invite Only. It is hidden from public browse and search, but works for anyone with the direct link you send. That is the normal setup for an internal company contest.
How do I stop people outside the company from voting?
Turn on Registered users only voting and add an allowed email domain such as @company.com. That restricts both submissions and voting to addresses on that domain. If someone signs in with a different domain, they see an inline message before they can vote.
How many photos can one person submit?
Up to 5 photos per submission, and employees can submit more than once — for example, one entry per pet. Each approved entry is a separate place on the ballot, but voting stays one vote per person per category.
How many entries can a category hold?
Each category is its own Leaderboard poll and supports up to 200 entries. You can run as many categories as your contest needs.
Can I run several categories and then a grand finale?
Yes. Each category is its own poll with its own voting window, and a finale division can pull the top entries forward. A common pattern is taking the top 4 from each of 4 categories into a 16-entry Best in Show finale. Categories and the finale use separate voting windows.
How do employees find the contest?
The contest admin has a Directory that generates a copy-ready employee announcement email with the poll links and voting schedule already filled in. You can also drop an embeddable voting widget onto an intranet page. The leaderboard updates live, polling for new data about every 15 seconds.
What does it cost?
The Free plan covers up to 8 entries. Paid voting plans start at $49/mo for up to 64 entries per category, and larger contests are handled with a custom quote.
Ready to Launch Your Employee Contest?
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