Same buyer. Different bet.
WorkTango serves the same mid-market band we do, and they believe what we believe: one platform beats a pile of point solutions. So this page can't hide behind company size or philosophy. The real difference is how each platform came to exist, and what that means for how it works.
If you only read one section, read this one.
Choose WorkTango if:
- Employee surveys are your anchor purchase and recognition is the add-on; their survey product has real pedigree
- You're consolidating off two existing point tools and want one vendor for voice plus recognition
- A quote-based sales process and a 12-month minimum contract fit how you buy
- Nomination and incentive workflows from the Kazoo-era recognition product match programs you already run
That's what WorkTango assembled, and in its lane it's credible. They serve the same band we do, and plenty of customers are happy there.
Choose Nectar if:
- You're 250 to 10,000 employees and want recognition and internal comms together: more than half of new Nectar customers buy them as a pair from day one, and WorkTango doesn't offer a comms product
- Your workforce includes frontline and deskless employees who need SMS, WhatsApp, and signage reach
- You want products built as one platform from the start, feeding one behavioral data layer, with Signals reading patterns across all of it
- You want pricing you can read on a website before a sales call
Nectar is the category leader in the mid-market. This is exactly the buyer we built for.
Same band. Same thesis. Very different ways of getting there.
WorkTango, formerly Kazoo, is a mid-market employee experience platform with two core products, Recognition & Rewards and Surveys & Insights, sold separately or as a bundle.
The platform is the product of a decade of mergers: an Austin recognition company (YouEarnedIt), a Chicago survey company (HighGround), and a Toronto employee-voice company (the original WorkTango), brought together under private equity, renamed twice, and, in July 2026, sold by Vista Equity Partners to BI WORLDWIDE, a Minneapolis-based enterprise engagement company. That history isn't a flaw. It's just the fact that explains everything else on this page.
Nectar is the recognition-first employee experience platform for mid-market companies, where daily peer-to-peer recognition powers a connected suite of communication, engagement, performance, and workforce intelligence tools.
Our core strength is the behavior: making recognition frequent, visible, and genuinely part of how your company operates, then putting that data to work across the entire employee experience.
One was assembled. One was born whole.
They're making our argument.
Read WorkTango's website and you'll find our own pitch looking back at you: a unified platform eliminates the data silos between employee feedback and action. We agree completely. It's the clearest sign yet that this category is consolidating, and that buyers have stopped wanting four logins for one culture.
Why "Nectar"?
Our name isn't an accident either. In nature, nectar is the essential ingredient. It's what bees gather, one small trip at a time, and turn into honey. No single trip makes honey. Thousands of small, consistent ones do.
We believe the same thing about organizations: frequent, meaningful recognition is the building block of a strong culture. Not the annual award. Not the big ceremony. The small, constant moments that compound into something sweet.
No single trip makes honey.
So if we agree on the thesis, where's the fork? Here:
WorkTango assembled the thesis.
Recognition from one acquisition, surveys from another, brought under one brand and sold separately or together. Assembly can absolutely work. But it makes the thesis a packaging decision.
Nectar built the thesis.
Recognition, Comms, Engage, Perform, and Flows were built as peers on one behavioral data layer, which is why each product makes the others smarter, and why Signals can exist at all. When the platform is the architecture, the thesis isn't packaging. It's physics.
This is why we obsess over participation. A recognition platform that employees don't open is a rewards warehouse with a login page. Everything about Nectar's design, the feed, the Slack and Teams integrations, the mobile experience, the speed of giving a shoutout, is built to make recognition frequent. Frequency is the product.
The feed where recognition happens daily, in Slack, Teams, mobile, and the browser.
When a vendor says "platform," is it one system, or two products with one invoice?
We can't answer that about WorkTango's internals, and we won't pretend to. What we can do is hand you the demo questions that reveal it, for any vendor, including us:
One. Does recognition activity actually appear inside the survey insights, and do survey results shape anything in the recognition product? Ask to see it live, not hear about it.
Two. Is it one login, one admin console, one data model? Or two of each with a dashboard on top?
Three. If I buy only one product today, what exactly do I lose besides the other product?
Four. What was built together, and what was acquired? Every vendor should answer this one comfortably. We were built as one platform; they were assembled from three companies. Neither answer is shameful. But the answers predict different things.
"A platform that was assembled can be good. A platform that was born whole is a different thing."
WorkTango just changed hands. Here's what we'd ask.
On July 20, 2026, WorkTango was acquired by BI WORLDWIDE, ending Vista Equity Partners' ownership. The facts, stated fairly: BIW is a serious, decades-old engagement company with fulfillment reach in 200+ countries. WorkTango keeps its name, team, and product, and both companies describe the deal as a deliberate push into the mid-market. If you're a WorkTango customer, some of what follows could be genuinely good: a bigger rewards catalog, more resources, and an owner that builds engagement programs for a living.
But an acquisition five days old is also a set of open questions, and a buyer signing a 12-month minimum contract deserves answers, not vibes. Two things are worth naming.
One, a migration is already announced. WorkTango has said it will move its core rewards fulfillment onto BIW's marketplace. Expanded catalog: real upside. But a fulfillment migration is a project your employees live through: catalog changes, points continuity, admin retraining. Ask for the timeline and the guarantees in writing.
Two, this is the fifth chapter. The people building this product have worked under YouEarnedIt, HighGround, Kazoo, WorkTango, and now BI WORLDWIDE ownership, in eight years. Teams can absolutely thrive through that. But roadmaps are set by owners, and this platform's owner has changed again. When priorities compete inside an enterprise parent, ask where the mid-market roadmap ranks, and ask for the next 12 months of it in writing.
Four questions for their next demo.
What happens to our rewards catalog and points balances during the fulfillment migration, and when? Which product teams stayed through the acquisition? Where does mid-market rank in BIW's portfolio? Who owns our renewal conversation a year from now?
Ask us the same class of questions.
Ownership, roadmap, and who answers for your renewal are fair diligence for any vendor, including us. We won't answer them with a press release. We'll answer them directly, on a call, and you can hold us to what we say.
None of this predicts a bad outcome. Acquisitions sometimes make products better. It just means the roadmap you're buying belongs to an owner who arrived this month, and you're allowed to ask what they plan to do with it.
Both of us implement in weeks. Buying, though, looks different.
Let's clear the easy one first: implementation is a wash. Their own FAQ says four to six weeks; ours land in the same range. Anyone in this matchup claiming a dramatic speed edge is selling you.
The difference is what happens before implementation. WorkTango prices by quote across all tiers, with a 12-month minimum contract. Nectar publishes pricing on our website. Neither approach is wrong: quote-based pricing gives their team deal flexibility; published pricing means you know the number before the first call and can hold us to it. Which one you prefer says something about how you like to buy, and you should weight it accordingly.
Exclusive PartnerThe world's largest HR association
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.SHRM President & CEO · Strategic Advisor to Nectar
SHRM chose one recognition partner. It's Nectar.
When two vendors look this similar, third-party judgment matters most. SHRM is the world's largest HR association, representing hundreds of thousands of HR professionals. When SHRM decided to partner in the employee recognition category, they evaluated the field and made Nectar their exclusive recognition partner.
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM's President and CEO, also serves as a strategic advisor to Nectar. That means the person leading the world's largest HR organization has direct input into where our product goes next.
We won't tell you what to conclude from that. We'll just note that the organization whose entire job is knowing what HR teams need looked at every vendor in this category and picked one.
What WorkTango does well.
We told you this page would be honest, so here's the other side.
Surveys with pedigree. The Surveys & Insights product descends from companies that did employee voice seriously for years. Unlimited surveys, strong dashboards, real survey science. If measurement is your anchor and recognition is the accessory, they've earned the look.
The rewards economics are honest. Zero-markup rewards, free shipping, and, credit where due, they bill when employees redeem, not when points are granted, same as we do. On rewards billing, we're the same kind of honest. And once the BI WORLDWIDE fulfillment migration lands, their catalog should get meaningfully bigger; that's a real upside of the acquisition.
A real customer base. A thousand-plus customers, including some large enterprises, with long-tenured customers who describe responsive support.
If surveys are the job and recognition is the add-on, WorkTango deserves a real look. If recognition is the daily habit you're building culture on, and you want it connected to comms your whole workforce actually sees, that's the company we built.
Recognition is where culture starts. It shouldn't be where your platform ends.
This isn't hypothetical. More than half of new Nectar customers buy Internal Comms alongside Recognition from day one, because the same feed that carries recognition is where announcements finally get read. WorkTango doesn't offer a comms product, so that pairing isn't a choice you can make there. And the platform bet compounds from there: surveys benchmarked against Mercer data, real performance management, lifecycle automation, and Signals, the intelligence layer reading behavioral patterns for attrition risk. Nothing in WorkTango's two-product lineup does what Flows or Signals do.
The daily habit layer. Peer-to-peer shoutouts tied to your values, manager awards, milestones, challenges, and a full rewards catalog spanning Amazon, gift cards, custom swag, experiences, and charitable giving.
Internal communications that reach your whole workforce, including frontline and deskless employees who never open email, in the same feed where recognition already has everyone's attention.
HR workflow orchestration. Onboarding moments, anniversaries, birthdays, promotions, and lifecycle touchpoints that run automatically, without a spreadsheet of dates.
Engagement surveys with Mercer benchmarking, living alongside recognition so you can see the relationship between how teams feel and how they behave.
Performance management built for mid-market reality: lightweight reviews, continuous feedback, and goals, informed by recognition data instead of December's memory.
Every product you turn on makes the shared data richer. A single-purpose tool means four contracts, four logins, and four integrations for one problem.
Signals: where it all compounds.
Because recognition, comms, surveys, and performance all run on one platform, Nectar can read the behavioral patterns underneath them. Signals surfaces attrition risk weeks before it shows up in an exit interview, identifies disconnected teams before engagement scores drop, and gives HR leaders something they've never had: an early warning system built on how people actually behave, not how they answer a survey twice a year.
No single-product vendor can build this, because no single-product vendor has the data. A rewards platform sees redemptions. Nectar sees the organization.
"WorkTango bundles recognition and surveys. Nectar runs the employee experience those products are part of."
Questions buyers ask us about WorkTango.
How long does Nectar take to implement?
Most customers launch within a few weeks, with our team guiding you the whole way. Connect your HRIS, set budgets and values, invite your team. And in fairness: WorkTango's published implementation window is comparable. Speed isn't the difference between us.
Can we migrate from WorkTango (or Kazoo) to Nectar?
Yes, and we hear both names; plenty of their customers still say Kazoo. We regularly onboard companies coming from other recognition platforms, and our team helps plan the transition, including existing points balances and service award schedules, so employees don't lose anything in the move.
Aren't Nectar and WorkTango basically the same?
Fair question: we serve the same size of company, and we both believe in one platform over point solutions. Three differences that matter. Nectar pairs recognition with a full internal comms product, and more than half of our new customers buy both together; WorkTango doesn't offer comms. Nectar's products were built as one platform on one data layer, which is what makes Signals (attrition intelligence) and Flows (lifecycle automation) possible; WorkTango's two products came together through acquisitions and are sold separately. And SHRM, the world's largest HR association, chose Nectar as its exclusive recognition partner.
Their surveys look more established than yours. True?
Their survey product has real pedigree, and if unlimited standalone surveys are your anchor purchase, that's a genuine strength. Nectar Engage takes a different bet: surveys benchmarked against Mercer market data and connected to the same data layer as recognition, comms, and performance, so what employees say can be read next to what they do. Depth of survey history versus depth of data connection. Which matters more depends on the job you're hiring surveys to do.
How does pricing compare?
WorkTango prices by quote with a 12-month minimum; Nectar publishes pricing on our site. On rewards billing we're the same, and we'd rather say so than let you find out: both companies bill when employees actually redeem rather than when points are granted. Get a quote from both for your actual headcount and compare the total, including any charges for the second product.
WorkTango was just acquired by BI WORLDWIDE. Does that matter?
It might, in both directions. The upside: BI WORLDWIDE is a serious global engagement company, and WorkTango customers are slated to get its much larger rewards marketplace. The open questions: a fulfillment migration is already announced (ask about catalog changes, points continuity, and timeline), and roadmap priorities now get set by an enterprise parent that arrived in July 2026. Neither is a reason to rule them out. Both are reasons to get specifics in writing before you sign a 12-month contract. And ask us the equivalent hard questions too; you should be able to hold any vendor to their answers.
What does the SHRM partnership actually mean for us?
It means the world's largest HR association vetted this category and chose Nectar as its exclusive recognition partner, and SHRM's CEO advises our roadmap. Practically, it means the product is built with direct input from the organization that represents your profession.
We're deciding between Nectar Engage and their Surveys & Insights. How should we think about it?
If you want the deepest standalone survey tool and recognition is secondary, they're credible. If you want surveys that share a data layer with recognition, comms, and performance, plus benchmarking against Mercer data, that's Engage. Ask both of us to show, live, how survey results connect to action in the rest of the platform. Demos settle this one fast.
See whether Nectar fits
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