Run an Internal Hackathon
Without a Multi Year Subscription.
HackHQ is the per event alternative to seat based corporate hackathon platforms. Private events, no public listing, no participant accounts on a third party platform, and pricing that does not scale with your headcount. Pay for the event, not the company size.
The three reasons internal hackathons stall
Real objections we hear from L&D, internal innovation, and engineering ops teams when they pick up an annual SaaS contract and put it back down again.
“A multi year, per seat contract for one hackathon is not getting through legal.”
On HackHQ, you are invoiced per event. $0, $199, or $599. No annual subscription, no per employee math, no procurement loop.
“We are not approving a third party account for every employee who wants to join.”
On HackHQ, there are no accounts. Engineers submit via personal links, leadership scores via personal links. No SSO ticket required.
“I need this private. The platform you sent me has a public directory and a sponsor reach product.”
On HackHQ, events are unlisted by default. No public directory listing, no SEO indexing, no participant data shared with anyone.
Per Seat Platforms Charge for Your Whole Company
Most corporate hackathon platforms invoice per employee per year, even if you run two events. HackHQ invoices per event. Drag the sliders to see what it actually costs you.
- Charges scale with headcount, even non participants
- Annual subscription locks budget for the year
- Sales call required, custom quote, no public price
- Invoiced per event, no annual commitment
- Unlimited judges and audience voters at no extra cost
- Public price, self serve, 14 day money back guarantee
Conservative $20 per employee per year. Competing platforms like Devpost for Teams and HackerEarth do not publish per seat pricing, so your actual quote will likely be higher.
What an internal hackathon looks like on HackHQ
Per event pricing, not per seat
Free up to 10 submissions, $199 for up to 50, $599 for up to 200. No annual subscription, no per employee fee, no procurement loop. Run one hackathon a year or four.
No third party accounts for participants or judges
Personal links for everyone. Engineers submit from a link, leadership scores from a link. No signups, no passwords, no SSO config to provision. IT review is lighter than a typical SaaS rollout.
Unlisted by default, private end to end
Events are unlisted by default. No public directory listing, no SEO indexing, no participant data shared anywhere. The event lives on its own URL, accessible only to people you share the link with.
Tracks for departments, challenges for special awards
Run a customer track, an internal tools track, and a moonshot track in parallel. Layer in challenges for the CEO pick, the engineering prize, and the people choice. Teams self categorize during submission.
Open the vote to the whole company
Share a single audience voting link in Slack or email. Everyone at the company can vote on their colleagues projects from any device, no signup, no accounts. Drives engagement well beyond the teams who built and the panel that judged.
Live leaderboard ready for the all hands
Real time leaderboard with weighted averages and Borda Count. Live ranked results during deliberation, ready to project the moment the last vote lands.
Every data point you need to brief your CEO
Participation rate by department, submission count, judge engagement, award distribution. Full CSV export ready to drop into your reporting tool or post event update.
Send this to your CFO
Paste it into Slack or email to keep your CFO in the loop.
Hi, Wanted to give you a heads up that I'm going with HackHQ for our next internal hackathon. Pricing is per event, $199 for up to 50 submissions or $599 for up to 200. No annual subscription, so it isn't sitting on the SaaS spend long term. I can set it up myself and have it live this week. A note on data and access. Events are unlisted by default, no public directory, no participant data shared externally. Engineers submit and judges score through personal links rather than creating their own accounts, which should make IT review simpler than a typical SaaS rollout, no SSO config or per employee provisioning. I'll start on the free tier for a prototype, then upgrade to Starter or Pro for the real event. There's a 14 day money back on the paid tiers. Let me know if there's anything you want to dig into. Thanks
Procurement and IT, answered
Run an Internal Hackathon Without the Procurement Loop.
Start free, no credit card required. Per event pricing from $199, no per seat fees, no annual subscription.