If you’ve landed here, you’re probably looking for a Reward Gateway comms alternative. You’re not alone.
While Reward Gateway is a well-known platform for recognition and employee benefits, many internal comms and ops teams are finding it falls short when it comes to reaching and engaging frontline teams — especially when the communication is about doing, not just feeling good.
That’s where Ocasta comes in.
In this post, we’ll compare Reward Gateway with Ocasta, focusing on internal and operational communications — the kind that drives action, keeps your business running, and helps your frontline know what matters.
Let’s break it down.
Platform focus: bolt-on comms vs. built-for-comms
| Reward Gateway | Ocasta | |
|---|---|---|
| Core platform | Recognition and employee benefits | Frontline operations and performance |
| Comms positioning | Add-on / bolt-on comms features | Internal comms is a core hub, designed for operations |
| Primary use cases | Recognition, wellbeing, perks, intranet | Targeted comms, knowledge, coaching, checklists, onboarding |
| Target users | HR and people teams | Internal comms and operations teams |
| Frontline reach | Limited targeting and delivery for shift workers | Built for mobile-first, region/role targeting and instant reach |
Reward Gateway is fantastic at what it’s built for: celebrating people, sharing company-wide feel-good moments, and managing benefits. But when it comes to getting an urgent message to the 6am bakery shift or walking teams through a store process change, it wasn’t designed for that.
Ocasta was.
What operational comms really needs
Operational communications aren’t about the pet of the week or social updates. They’re about getting the job done:
- “The tills are updating this morning. Here’s what to do.”
- “New stock process is live — watch the 30-sec explainer.”
- “Safety check needs completing before open.”
That kind of comms needs to be:
- Targeted — only relevant people should get it
- Timely — it should land in the right moment
- Actionable — it should be clear what someone needs to do
- Measurable — you should know if it landed and who read it
Reward Gateway can post messages to a central feed, but it lacks the targeting, urgency, and measurement operational comms needs.
With Ocasta, you get:
- Targeted messages by role, site, shift or region
- Push notifications that land on personal and work devices
- Internal comms calendars and scheduling tools
- Read tracking and reporting per team, per site, per update
- Content that can be scheduled, edited after publish, and auto-archived
In short: you know what’s being read, and you know it’s reaching the right people — no manager relay required.
What about recognition and rewards
Reward Gateway leads here — it’s what the platform’s built for. If you need a complete reward and benefits solution, it’s a strong contender.
That said, Ocasta does offer built-in recognition too:
- Peer kudos messages
- Points-based rewards
- Local leaderboards
- Internal shout-outs via comms
For many teams, that’s more than enough. But if you’re already using Reward Gateway for recognition and need better comms, it’s not an either/or — you can run Ocasta and Reward Gateway side by side.
Let Reward Gateway handle benefits and top-level recognition. Let Ocasta take care of operational updates, shift-specific comms, performance nudges, and learning.
A quick feature comparison
| Feature | Reward Gateway | Ocasta |
| Targeted comms by site/role/region | ❌ Basic only | ✅ Full targeting |
| Push notifications to personal devices | ❌ No (email/SMS only) | ✅ Yes |
| Internal news feeds | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Read tracking + manager dashboards | ❌ Limited | ✅ Full analytics |
| Reward and recognition | ✅ Core feature | ✅ Included as add-on |
| Learning and knowledge hub | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
| Mobile apps | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Podcast support | ❌ No | ✅ Internal comms podcasts |
| Used for shift-level operational comms | ❌ Not suited | ✅ Purpose-built |
Built for frontline industries
Ocasta is already used across:
- Retail — store visits, operational updates, loss prevention
- Hospitality — checklists, pre-shift comms, training
- Logistics — safety briefings, process changes, inspections
- Field sales and service — live updates, microlearning, observations
- Fitness and wellness — onboarding, staff training, team comms
In industries where teams are moving, mobile, and multi-site, getting comms right isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s the only way to perform.
Why teams switch to Ocasta
We often hear from teams who started with Reward Gateway, but hit limitations:
- They struggled to reach the frontline in the moment
- Messages were too generic or HQ-centric
- Comms were buried among rewards, stories, and social posts
- They couldn’t tell if messages were read or actioned
Ocasta solves all of that — with a focused, structured, measurable way to communicate operationally. And when paired with our other hubs (Knowledge, Inspections, Observations, New Starters), you go from ‘announcing things’ to actually seeing change happen on the ground.
So, should you use Ocasta or Reward Gateway?
That depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
- If your goal is to celebrate staff and manage benefits, Reward Gateway is excellent.
- If your goal is to reach the frontline with timely, targeted, performance-focused comms — and to track and improve how work gets done — Ocasta is the better fit.
And in many cases, you don’t need to choose. Let Reward Gateway do what it does best. Let Ocasta take care of the comms that drive the day-to-day. Together, you’ll have the full picture.
Want to see Ocasta in action?
We’d love to show you how Ocasta helps ops and comms teams stop guessing and start knowing — with the insight and tools to support your frontline in every moment.
