Does Nectar Require an Annual Minimum (and Is There a Free Plan)?
Yes. Nectar requires a $4,000 minimum annual commitment and no longer offers a free plan. Paid tiers run $5/employee/month (Plus) and $6/employee/month (Premium), billed annually — so a 50-person team pays the $4,000 floor regardless of actual usage.
Pricing, minimums, and the discontinued free tier were sourced from public vendor and review-site listings (SelectSoftware Reviews, G2, Capterra) and re-checked on the verification date above. Figures are list prices; your negotiated quote may differ.
What Nectar Would Cost Your Team
Drag the slider to your headcount and compare Nectar's annual cost to Actify's flat fee in real time.
Nectar / year
$4,000
Below the $4,000 minimum — you pay the floor. · $80 per employee
Actify / year
$1,200
Flat monthly fee · employees join free
You'd save about
$2,800 / year
Based on Nectar's Plus tier ($5/employee/month) and its published $4,000 annual minimum, billed annually. List prices as of the date above — your quote may vary.
What's Actually Going On
What Nectar actually charges
Nectar's published model is per-employee, billed annually: Plus is $5/employee/month and Premium is $6/employee/month. On top of the per-seat rate, Nectar enforces a $4,000 minimum annual commitment — so even a 40- or 50-person company pays the floor whether or not the platform gets used. The free tier Nectar used to offer has been discontinued, which removed the obvious on-ramp for smaller HR teams that wanted to pilot recognition before committing budget.
Why the minimum stings for smaller teams
For a 200-person company, $5/employee/month is roughly $12,000/year and the minimum is irrelevant. For a 40-person company, that same $4,000 floor works out to far more per active employee — you're subsidizing seats you don't have. That's the gap admins feel: the pricing is built around mid-market headcounts, and below a certain size you pay for capacity you can't use.
What Nectar still does well
To be fair: Nectar's rewards catalog, Slack and Teams integration, and core recognition feed are solid, and mid-to-large teams that will clear the minimum anyway often find it good value. The annual-minimum question only becomes a real problem if you're a smaller team, budgeting cautiously, or want to start small and expand — exactly the situations where a flat, no-minimum model fits better.
What Nectar Admins Actually Say
Verbatim from public review sites — not our paraphrase. Every quote links to its source.
“Nectar requires a minimum annual agreement of $4,000. The platform no longer offers a free tier.”
“As an admin with insight into budgets, the cost is a little pricey in my opinion.”
Actify vs Nectar on This
The same question, answered for both platforms.
Switching from Nectar? It takes minutes, not a migration.
Flat fee, employees free, no contract. See it on your own data in a 20-minute demo.
When Nectar Is the Better Pick
We're not pretending Actify wins for everyone. Here's when Nectar is genuinely the right call.
You're a 200+ employee team that will clear the $4,000 minimum anyway — at that scale Nectar's per-seat pricing is competitive and the minimum is irrelevant.
A large, swag-and-gift-card rewards catalog is the centerpiece of your recognition program.
Your team has already standardized on Nectar's Slack/Teams recognition workflow and adoption is strong.
Actify has no annual minimum — and employees never cost extra
Actify charges one flat monthly fee for your whole company: $50/month for up to 25 employees, $100/month for 26–100. Employees join free, friends and family join free, and there's no per-seat math and no $4,000 floor to clear. No long-term contract either — cancel any month. So a smaller team that Nectar's pricing pushes away can run a full engagement program for a flat, predictable fee.
- Flat $50 / $100 per month — not per employee
- No annual minimum and no long-term contract
- Employees and their friends & family join free
- Currently free for founding companies in beta
Switching from Nectar? Setup is invite-and-go — no IT project required.
Frequently Asked Questions
See Why Teams Leave Nectar for Actify
One flat monthly fee, employees join free, no annual minimum, and no long-term contract. Book a 20-minute demo and we'll show you the difference.
No credit card required. Invite-and-go setup.