You've researched Submittable, and either the pricing is more than your program budget (around $10,000/year minimum) or the product is bigger than what you actually need. Submittable covers grants management, social impact, and full submission workflows — a deep, mature platform deliberately built for the foundation-and-nonprofit scale. The right alternative depends on what you were actually using Submittable for: a competition with judges, an award program with submissions, or a live event where the judging happens in the room.
What Submittable Actually Is
Submittable is by far the largest player in the wider submission-and-judging category. A Y Combinator alumnus based in Missoula, Montana, founded in 2010 as "Submishmash," with $66.6M revenue in 2024 and around 5,000 customer organisations. The product is positioned more broadly than dedicated judging tools like Award Force or Judgify — it covers grants management, social impact programs, employer brand programs, literary magazine submissions, and competition judging in one platform.
Pricing isn't publicly listed. Third-party estimates put Starter at around $399/month (up to 5 users), Pro at around $799/month (up to 20 users), and Enterprise at $1,499+/month (up to 50 users). Implementation runs $3,000–$10,000+ depending on scope, and the practical minimum commitment is typically around $10,000/year all-in. Procurement is enterprise SaaS: demo, security review, multi-year contracts. Setup is multi-week.
When Submittable makes sense: foundation-scale grants administration, nonprofit social impact programs, large publishers managing thousands of submissions a year, or any organisation running multiple submission-based programs that need a single platform with audit-grade compliance. The judging features are one workflow inside the broader product. If judging is one of five things you're doing on the platform, Submittable is doing serious work for the price.
When Submittable doesn't fit: a single award program, a one-off live competition, a small organiser with no platform team, or any use case where you'd only touch a fraction of the product. $10,000/year for what amounts to a judging workflow is the wrong cost structure — you're paying for grants management, moderation queues, multi-program reporting, and integration depth that you won't use.
The Question Worth Asking First
Before picking an alternative, name your actual use case: are you running a grants program, an award program with submissions, or a live judging event? Each has a different category of tool. Submittable spans all three at the high-scope end. For a single use case, the right alternative is one of the narrower, cheaper tools below — and the wrong move is to pick another Submittable-scoped platform when you only need one slice of it.
The Best Submittable Alternatives
1. Award Force
Award Force is an Australian award management platform, founded in 2013. It covers the dedicated judging and award-program slice of what Submittable does — custom submission forms, contestant uploads, multi-round judging with weighted rubrics, shortlist and finalist workflows, judge dashboards, audit-grade reporting. It doesn't try to cover grants management or general social impact.
Pricing is annual: Growth is $3,125/year (up to 10,000 entries), Pro is $6,250/year, Premier is around $18,750/year. A $2,200 one-time onboarding fee applies in year one. No free tier — demo and trial only.
For organisations that picked Submittable purely for award-program judging and want to step down to a tool focused on that workflow, Award Force is the most direct match. You give up Submittable's grants/social impact coverage and broader integrations; you save roughly half the all-in cost and get a more focused product. See the Award Force alternatives guide for deeper context.
Best fit: organisations running annual or recurring award programs that don't need grants management or broader portfolio coverage.
2. Judgify
Judgify is the oldest product in the dedicated judging category (Singapore, founded 2009). Like Award Force, it focuses on the judging and submissions slice of what Submittable does. The pricing model is different: a free Basic plan covers 100 submissions, 5 categories, and 1 judging round. Pro is $699 per event plus an onboarding fee, with 500 submissions, 25 categories, and 5 rounds. Pro Unlimited is $2,399/year plus onboarding for unlimited events at Pro specs.
For organisations running one or two award programs a year, Judgify can come in well under $5,000 all-in — a fraction of Submittable's commitment. The product feels less polished than Award Force or Submittable, but it covers the lifecycle for a single program. See the full Judgify alternatives guide for context.
Best fit: small to mid-sized award programs running 1–3 events a year that want submission-lifecycle coverage at per-event or modest annual cost.
3. Evalato
Evalato is a Bulgarian award and grants management platform, founded in 2018. It's the closest match to Submittable's broader scope — it covers both award programs and grants management, with a structurally similar lifecycle (submissions, multi-round judging, reporting). The pricing model is per-program rather than per-organisation.
Pricing in EUR: Grow 50 is €1,900 (up to 50 entries), Grow 100 is €2,900, Grow 200 is €3,900, Pro is €4,900 (up to 10,000 entries). Enterprise is custom. No setup fees, no per-user charges, EU data residency and GDPR compliance emphasised.
For European foundations and award programs that want Submittable-style scope at public, per-program pricing, Evalato is the most transparent option in this set.
Best fit: EU-based organisations running multiple award or grants programs that want public per-program pricing without an enterprise SaaS contract.
4. ScoreJudge
ScoreJudge takes a different shape from everything else here: it's not a Submittable-lite or an Award Force-lite. It's a dedicated live competition judging tool. There's no submission stage — organisers add entries directly. There's no multi-round private judging — one scoring round, with a public leaderboard that updates in real time. Judges score from a phone or tablet via a private link (no account, no app install), and the leaderboard is designed to be projected on the venue screen during the event itself.
Pricing is public and self-serve: a free plan sized to run a real contest, then $19/month Plus and $39/month Pro, with one-time and annual options. Pro covers unlimited competitions — no per-event fee, no onboarding fee, no sales call. Setup is around 5 minutes.
The honest scope: ScoreJudge does not replace Submittable for grants management, social impact programs, or contests with formal submission stages. It replaces Submittable only for the live judging slice — hackathons, pitch days, talent shows, science fairs, audience-choice awards. If you've been using Submittable for the live-event piece of your work, ScoreJudge is the dedicated tool for that piece, at a fraction of the cost.
Best fit: live competition organisers — hackathons, pitch competitions, school events, Eurovision watch parties, community contests — who only need the live-judging slice and want a tool a volunteer can run themselves.
5. Spreadsheets + Google Forms (the DIY route)
The honest free option. A Google Form to collect entries, a shared spreadsheet with a rubric, and the organiser averaging columns at the end of the night. For a small contest with a handful of judges and no budget, it works.
The limitations show up as the program scales. No moderation workflow. No multi-round judging. No per-judge audit trail. No reporting beyond what you build manually. No GDPR or compliance posture. And — for live events — no public leaderboard.
For most serious programs, the DIY route is the prototype before buying a tool. For live events, it's the system you replace the second time you run the event and the spreadsheet falls apart.
Best fit: one-off, low-stakes contests with under a dozen entries and no budget.
Comparison Table
| Tool | Starting paid price | Free tier | Scope | Live leaderboard | Setup time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Award Force | $3,125/year + $2,200 onboarding | No | Award programs | No | Days | Annual award programs |
| Judgify | $699/event + onboarding | Yes (100 submissions) | Award programs | No | Days | Per-event submission contests |
| Evalato | €1,900/program | No (free testing) | Awards + grants | No | Days | EU award + grants programs |
| ScoreJudge | $19/month | Yes (real event) | Live judging only | Yes (real-time) | Minutes | Live competition events |
| Spreadsheets | $0 | Always | Anything (manually) | No | Minutes | One-off, no-budget contests |
| Submittable (reference) | ~$4,800–$18,000/year (estimated) + implementation | No | Grants + social impact + submissions + judging | No | Weeks | Foundation/enterprise-scale portfolios |
Pricing accurate as of May 2026. Submittable pricing is sales-gated; figures are third-party estimates. Confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before committing.
Why ScoreJudge Works for the Live-Event Slice
Most products in the Submittable orbit, including the alternatives above, share an assumption: your event has a submission stage. Contestants send something in, an organiser moderates, judges evaluate over days, and a report comes out at the end. Take that assumption away — the event is live, the contestants are in the room, the judging happens in front of an audience — and the whole category gets expensive and slow for no reason.
ScoreJudge was built for the live shape. The organiser adds entries directly (no submission stage to configure), criteria are defined in the wizard, judges get private scoring links (no account creation, no app install), and the leaderboard updates the moment a score lands. The whole point is to project the leaderboard during the event so the audience watches rankings move in real time — and announce winners the moment the last team pitches.
The honest scope: ScoreJudge does not cover grants management, file uploads, multi-round private judging, or moderated submission workflows. For Submittable users in the foundation, nonprofit, or scaled-program segment, none of the tools above are full replacements — your closest direct competitors are other enterprise SaaS platforms like SurveyMonkey Apply or OpenWater. ScoreJudge replaces Submittable only for the live judging slice of what some organisations use it for.
See the pitch competition judging page for a walkthrough, the hackathon judging page for demo days, or ScoreJudge vs Judgify for the closest head-to-head.
The Bottom Line
If you're running a foundation-scale grants program, a multi-program social impact portfolio, or a large submission-based contest with audit-grade compliance — Submittable is a deliberate, mature choice. The pricing reflects the product depth. There's no point comparing it to lighter judging tools if you genuinely use the full platform.
If you picked Submittable for one slice of what it does — judging an award program, running a live event, accepting submissions for a single contest — there's a narrower, cheaper tool for that slice. Award Force and Judgify cover dedicated judging. Evalato covers awards plus grants. ScoreJudge covers the live event slice. For everything else Submittable does — grants administration, social impact reporting, multi-program portfolios — the right comparison set is larger enterprise platforms, not the tools in this guide.
Looking for narrower context? See the Award Force alternatives guide, the Judgify alternatives guide, or ScoreJudge vs Judgify for the closest head-to-head.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ScoreJudge a true Submittable alternative?
Only for a specific slice — the live judging part. Submittable is a much broader platform that handles grants management, social impact programs, full submission workflows with moderation, and multi-program reporting. ScoreJudge is built narrowly for live competition judging. If you're using Submittable for the judging piece of an award program with submissions and rounds, Award Force or Judgify are closer Submittable alternatives. If you're using Submittable for the live event slice — a hackathon, pitch day, or talent show — ScoreJudge is the simpler, cheaper option.
What is the cheapest Submittable alternative?
Depends on what you actually need. For live event judging with no submission stage, ScoreJudge is $19/month with a free plan that runs a real event. For award programs with submissions, Judgify Pro is $699/event and Award Force starts at $3,125/year — both well below Submittable's ~$10,000/year minimum. For grants management at scale, Submittable's direct competitors charge in the same ballpark.
Does Submittable have a free version?
No. Submittable doesn't publish a free tier — pricing is sales-gated, and third-party estimates put Starter around $399/month (~$4,800/year). Free tiers exist on Judgify (100 submissions on Basic) and ScoreJudge (real-event free plan). For most organisations evaluating Submittable, the question isn't 'free vs paid' — it's whether the $10k/year minimum spend is justified by the program scale.
What is Submittable actually used for?
Mostly grants management, social impact programs, and large submission-based contests (literary magazines, creative awards, employer brand programs). Around 5,000+ organisations run grants and submission programs through Submittable. The judging features exist and are real, but they're one piece of a broader platform. If judging is your only use case, you're paying for a lot of product you won't touch.
When does Submittable's pricing make sense?
When you run multiple programs across an organisation, judging is one workflow inside a broader portfolio (grants + community programs + awards), compliance and audit-grade reporting matter, and you have a team that runs the platform full-time. The $10,000/year minimum reflects product depth — Submittable isn't enterprise software in disguise, it's enterprise software priced honestly. For a single award program or a single live event, that pricing structure doesn't fit.
Which Submittable alternative is best for live events like hackathons?
ScoreJudge. Hackathons need live scoring, a leaderboard the audience can see, and a tool organisers can set up in minutes. Submittable's submission-and-moderation model is built for a different shape of event. For pitch days, talent shows, science fairs, or any contest where the judging happens live with an audience watching — ScoreJudge is the dedicated option.
Which Submittable alternative is closest in scope?
Honestly, nothing in this comparison set matches Submittable's full scope. Award Force and Judgify cover the dedicated judging slice. Evalato covers awards plus grants — more than Award Force but less than Submittable. For full grants-management coverage at scale, Submittable's direct competitors are larger enterprise platforms (SurveyMonkey Apply, OpenWater, Foundant) that aren't in this guide because they're a different category from competition judging.
How long does Submittable implementation take?
Multi-week, typically. The implementation cycle covers form configuration, workflow setup, user training, and integration work — that's what the $3,000–$10,000+ implementation fee is for. Award Force and Judgify implementations are shorter (days to weeks). ScoreJudge is pure self-serve and runs in minutes.
Try ScoreJudge Today
No annual contract, no implementation fee, no judge accounts. Create a competition in under five minutes — the free plan is enough for a real event.