Recognition points that turn into rewards people actually want
Karma connects peer recognition to real employee perks — automated gift cards, custom rewards, and group celebrations. Part of every employee incentive program that actually changes behaviour.
Automated gift cards
Custom company rewards
Group team celebrations
Recognition works without rewards. It works even better with the right ones.
Karma's rewards tab is completely optional — many teams use Karma purely for recognition. For those who want rewards, points earned through peer recognition can be redeemed for gift cards, custom perks, or group rewards. The result is an employee incentive program that feels personal, while keeping recognition at the center.
Gift cards for employees — popular brands, charity donations, real choice, zero admin
Gift cards for employees are one of the highest-rated rewards in every incentive program survey — because choice beats guesswork every time. Karma connects recognition directly to a catalog of popular brand gift cards and charity donations. Employees accumulate karma points through peer kudos and spend them on the brands that matter to them — or donate to a cause they care about. No manual processing, no vouchers expiring in a drawer, no friction between a great piece of work and a real reward.
- Popular brand gift cards — employees choose from the catalog and spend their points on what they actually want
- Charity donations — employees can direct their karma points to a cause they care about instead of a personal reward
- Company-configured catalog — pick the brands, causes, and non-monetary perks that fit your culture and rewards program
- Available across Slack, MS Teams, Telegram, and Web — same reward experience no matter where your team works
Build a reward catalog that reflects your culture — not a generic vendor list
Not every team wants the same perks. Karma lets you create a fully custom reward catalog alongside the gift card options — team dinners, extra days off, learning budgets, branded swag, or anything else that fits how your team works and what they actually value. Your rewards, your culture.
- Create any custom reward — experiences, time off, learning budgets, team events, physical items
- Set your own point costs per reward — align the value of rewards with what matters most to your team
- Customise point names to match your brand — call them "stars", "coins", or anything that fits your culture
- Full branding control — your logo, your colours, your reward names across the entire Karma experience
Celebrate team wins together — not just individual achievements
Some wins belong to the whole team. Group rewards let colleagues pool karma points toward a shared goal — a team dinner, an offsite, a group experience. When the target is reached, the reward is unlocked for everyone. It's the most effective way to boost morale after a big sprint, a product launch, or a tough quarter — because the celebration is collective, not top-down.
- Set a group reward goal — any reward, any point target, open to any subset of your team
- Teammates chip in karma points voluntarily — the progress bar in Slack keeps everyone motivated
- Reward unlocks automatically when the goal is reached — no manual tracking, no admin overhead
- Creates a shared moment of celebration that connects the team's daily recognition to a tangible outcome
Resources
View all- Recognition vs. Rewards: What Actually Motivates Employees?
For years, companies have tried to answer one deceptively simple question: What truly motivates employees? Is it money? Bonuses? Gift cards? Promotions? Or is it something deeper — like feeling seen, valued, and appreciated?
Jan 14, 2026 · 5 mins read
- Recognition on a Budget: High-Impact Ideas That Cost Nothing
Employee recognition doesn’t have to come with a hefty price tag.
Sep 11, 2025 · 6 mins read
- Beyond “Thank You”: 20 Creative Employee Recognition Ideas
A quick “thank you” is nice, but let’s be honest: it’s no longer enough to keep employees motivated or loyal. In today’s modern workplace, recognition has to go deeper, feel more genuine, and be woven into the everyday culture of an organization.
Jul 31, 2025 · 5 mins read
Frequently asked questions
What are employee perks and rewards?
Employee perks are benefits and rewards given to team members beyond their salary — things like gift cards, experiences, team celebrations, or custom incentives. Unlike fixed benefits (health insurance, pension), perks are typically earned through recognition or performance. Karma connects perks directly to peer recognition: when a colleague gives you karma points, those points accumulate and convert to real rewards you choose yourself — from popular gift card brands to custom rewards designed by your company.
What is an employee incentive program?
An employee incentive program is a structured system that rewards employees for specific behaviours, contributions, or achievements. The most effective programs are continuous (not just annual), peer-driven (not just manager-approved), and tied to real rewards employees actually want. Karma's incentive system runs automatically inside Slack and MS Teams — employees earn karma points for peer recognition, hit milestone bonuses, and redeem points for gift cards or custom rewards on their own schedule.
What are good employee appreciation gifts?
The most appreciated employee gifts are ones the recipient chose themselves. Generic company-branded merchandise or standard gift cards feel impersonal. Karma solves this by letting employees accumulate points and redeem them from a reward catalog your company configures — popular gift card brands, custom experiences, team dinners, or anything else that fits your culture. The gift feels personal because the employee picked it, and meaningful because it was earned through peer recognition.
How do group rewards work?
Group rewards in Karma let the whole team pool karma points together to celebrate a shared achievement — like shipping a product, hitting a sales target, or completing a tough quarter. Instead of a manager choosing a reward, teammates collectively chip in points toward a group goal. When the goal is reached, the reward is unlocked for everyone. It turns a top-down benefit into a peer-driven celebration that reinforces the team's contribution rather than just one person's.
How do you boost employee morale with rewards?
The most effective way to boost morale with rewards is to make them frequent, peer-driven, and meaningful. One-off annual bonuses have almost no lasting effect on day-to-day morale. Karma creates a continuous reward loop: recognition happens daily in Slack, points accumulate transparently, and employees redeem rewards when they choose. The combination of public peer praise and real redeemable value consistently produces higher morale scores than traditional reward programs.
Can employees donate karma points to charity?
Yes — Karma's rewards catalog includes charity donations as a redemption option alongside gift cards and custom perks. Employees who'd rather direct their recognition points to a cause they care about can do so directly from the catalog. It's one of the features that makes Karma work for teams where not everyone is motivated by personal monetary rewards — and it signals to the whole organisation that recognition has real-world value beyond individual gain.
Ready to get started?
If you're ready to get started with Karma, sign up now and explore the benefits of the recognition for your team. You can also reach out for a free demo.
Karma bot privacy policy
Effective date: 18 August 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Sliday LTD ("Sliday", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects personal data. It covers both the Karma application (for Microsoft Teams, Slack, Telegram, and the web) and the https://karmabot.chat website.
Who we are and how to contact us
The data controller is Sliday LTD, a private limited company registered in Cyprus under company number HE450506, with its principal place of business at Pavlou Valdaseridi 2A, 1st floor, Larnaka, Cyprus, 6018.
For any privacy-related enquiry, or to exercise your data protection rights, contact us at hi@karmabot.chat.
Privacy matters are overseen by our Legal Advisor / Operational Security Manager, Stas Kulesh. A dedicated Data Protection Officer has not been appointed, as Sliday LTD is not required to appoint one under Article 37 of the GDPR; privacy responsibilities are held by the Legal Advisor.
Personal data we handle and where it comes from
From the Karma application
When your organisation installs and uses Karma, we process the following personal data, obtained from Microsoft Teams / Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) and from your use of the application:
- Display name — from Microsoft Teams / Microsoft Graph
- Email address — from Microsoft Teams / Microsoft Graph
- User Principal Name (UPN) — from Microsoft Graph (
/me) - Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) object ID and tenant ID — from Microsoft authentication
- Profile photo — from Microsoft Graph (
/me/photo) - Team and channel names — from Microsoft Teams
- Karma activity (karma given and received, associated messages) — from your use of the app
Where Karma is used with Slack or Telegram, the equivalent identity and workspace data is obtained from that platform instead.
From this website
- Contact details you give us — such as your email address and name when you subscribe to updates, request a demo, or contact support
- Usage and device data — IP address, browser type and version, pages visited, date, time and duration of visit, referring page, and similar diagnostic data
- Cookies and similar technologies — see "Cookies and website analytics" below
Why we process personal data
We process personal data to:
- Identify you and link you to your organisation's Karma workspace
- Operate the core recognition ("karma") features, leaderboards, and adaptive cards
- Display your name and profile photo within the app
- Deliver notifications and service communications
- Administer subscriptions and billing
- Provide customer support and respond to your enquiries
- Monitor, secure, maintain, and improve the service, and detect and address technical issues
- Send newsletters, marketing, or promotional material where you have chosen to receive it — you can opt out at any time via the unsubscribe link in any email, or by contacting us
Lawful basis for processing
We process personal data on the following lawful bases under the GDPR:
- Performance of a contract — to provide the Karma service to your organisation
- Legitimate interests — to operate, secure, and improve the service, where not overridden by your rights
- Consent — for marketing communications and for non-essential cookies and analytics, where consent is required
- Legal obligation — where we are required by law to retain or disclose data, including for tax and accounting purposes
Where your organisation is the controller and we act as processor, processing is carried out on your organisation's documented instructions.
Who we share personal data with
We share personal data only with the sub-processors listed below, each of which is necessary to deliver the service and is engaged under an appropriate data processing agreement. This is the complete list of sub-processors with access to personal data. We do not sell personal data.
Service sub-processors
- DigitalOcean — application hosting and managed database
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) — profile photo storage (S3)
- Cloudflare — edge delivery and web application firewall
- Microsoft — authentication, the Teams platform, and Microsoft Graph
- Stripe — subscription billing and payment processing
- Sentry — error monitoring
- MailerLite — notification and marketing email delivery
We do not store or collect your payment card details. That information is provided directly to Stripe, our payment processor, whose use of your personal information is governed by its own privacy policy (https://stripe.com/privacy). Stripe adheres to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council.
Website analytics and marketing providers
The https://karmabot.chat website additionally uses:
- Google — Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager, for website traffic analytics (https://policies.google.com/privacy)
- Meta (Facebook) — Meta Pixel, for advertising measurement (https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/)
- Ahrefs Web Analytics — privacy-focused website traffic analytics (https://ahrefs.com/legal/privacy-policy)
- ProfitWell (Paddle) — subscription and revenue analytics (https://www.paddle.com/legal/privacy)
- MailerLite — newsletter sign-up forms (https://www.mailerlite.com/legal/privacy-policy)
- Calendly — demo and meeting scheduling (https://calendly.com/legal/privacy-notice)
We may also disclose personal data where required to do so by law or in response to a valid request by a public authority, or where necessary to protect our legal rights, prevent or investigate wrongdoing, or protect the safety of users or the public.
Cookies and website analytics
Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your device. We use cookies and similar technologies (including beacons, tags, and scripts) to operate the website, remember your preferences, keep the service secure, and understand how the site is used.
The cookies we use fall into these categories:
- Essential cookies — required to operate the website and keep it secure
- Preference cookies — to remember your settings and choices
- Analytics and marketing cookies — set by the providers listed above to measure traffic and advertising performance
You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to notify you when a cookie is set. If you refuse cookies, some parts of the website may not function correctly.
We do not currently respond to browser "Do Not Track" (DNT) signals.
How long we keep personal data
We retain personal data for the duration of your organisation's active subscription and for six (6) months after subscription cancellation, after which it is deleted. This applies to customer account and identity data, profile photos, and karma transaction records.
- Database backups operate on a rolling 7-day point-in-time recovery window, so any backup containing erased data is automatically superseded within 7 days.
- Upon a verified data deletion request, we action it as promptly as reasonably possible and in any event within one month, as required by the GDPR.
- Billing and accounting records may be retained for longer where required by law.
- Operational data — error telemetry, security logs, and backups — is disposed of automatically as it ages out of the relevant service's retention window.
Full details are set out in our Data Retention and Disposal Policy.
Your data protection rights
Subject to applicable law, you have the right to:
- Be informed about how your personal data is used
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Rectification — to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected
- Erasure — to have your personal data deleted
- Restriction — to request that we restrict processing of your personal data
- Data portability — to receive your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format
- Object to our processing of your personal data
- Rights relating to automated decision-making and profiling — Karma does not carry out automated decision-making producing legal or similarly significant effects
- Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on your consent
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hi@karmabot.chat. We may ask you to verify your identity before responding.
Making a Subject Access Request (SAR)
To submit a Subject Access Request, contact us at hi@karmabot.chat. We respond to all SARs within one month, as required by the GDPR, unless the request is complex or numerous, in which case we may extend the response time by a further two months and will tell you if we do. We maintain a data mapping process that lets us locate and retrieve all personal data held about a specific data subject across our systems — principally the production database and the profile photo object storage — so that a SAR can be fulfilled thoroughly.
International transfers and safeguards
Karma production data is hosted in the United States (DigitalOcean SFO region). As Sliday LTD is established in the EU (Cyprus), this involves a transfer of personal data to a third country.
Such transfers — and transfers to other sub-processors located outside the EU/EEA, including Microsoft, AWS, Cloudflare, Stripe, Sentry, and the analytics providers listed above — are protected by appropriate safeguards, principally the Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) incorporated into each sub-processor's Data Processing Agreement, supplemented by those providers' certification frameworks, including the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider participates.
Sliday LTD takes all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Your right to complain to a supervisory authority
You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority.
Our lead supervisory authority is the Office of the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Cyprus:
- Commissioner for Personal Data Protection
- 1 Iasonos Street, 1082 Nicosia, Cyprus
- Email: commissioner@dataprotection.gov.cy
- Web: https://www.dataprotection.gov.cy
You may also lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority in your own country of residence.
Security of data
The security of your data is important to us. We apply technical and organisational measures appropriate to the risk, including encryption in transit, access controls, vulnerability scanning, and error monitoring. However, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Children's privacy
Our service is not directed at anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will take steps to remove it.
Links to other sites
Our service may contain links to sites we do not operate. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the content or privacy practices of any third-party site. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of every site you visit.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the updated policy on this page and update the effective date at the top. Where changes are significant, we will notify you by email and/or a prominent notice on our service before the change takes effect. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
Contact us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us:
- By email: hi@karmabot.chat
- By post: Sliday LTD, Pavlou Valdaseridi 2A, 1st floor, Larnaka, Cyprus, 6018