When you want to push yourself to get more active and “step out” of your comfort zone, there’s no better motivation than money!
Both HealthyWage and WayBetter (the parent company of StepBet) offer step challenges that pay you for increasing your daily steps. While they are each awesome motivators, there are a few differences between the challenges that you should be aware so that you can decide which challenge is best for you.
Similarities Between HealthyWage’s Step Challenges and StepBet
The Pot
With HealthyWage’s Step Challenges, every participant’s entry fee (less a 25% administrative fee) gets added into a pot. At the end of the challenge, each participant that has successfully reached their goal wins an equal share of the pot.
Similarly, participants in a StepBet challenge fund the pot with their entry fees (minus a 15% administrative fee). The money in the pot is split evenly among all winning participants at the end of the challenge.
The Motivation
Both step challenges push you to increase your activity level by increasing your daily step count. Participants put a little “skin in the game” for both challenges by paying an entry fee. This creates a loss aversion mindset that helps with success – these steppers want to WIN money, not lose it. Additionally, the financial incentive of earning MORE money than the entry fee creates an even stronger motivation for success.
The Community
HealthyWage and StepBet have in-app communities where fellow participants within a particular challenge can interact with each other to provide support, encouragement and a little friendly rivalry.
Automatic Step Tracking
The ability to automatically sync the step challenge app with a step tracking device is available with both HealthyWage and StepBet.
No Lose Guarantee
Both companies have a No Lose Guarantee that means participants are guaranteed to win back at least as much as they paid in if they complete the challenge successfully. If a high percentage of participants win, HealthyWage and WayBetter forfeit their standard admin fees.
Personalized Goals
Participants’ goals are personalized based on their recent step history with both HealthyWage’s Step Challenges and StepBet.
Differences Between HealthyWage’s Step Challenges and StepBet
The Goal
The HealthyWage Step Challenge focuses on overall success and building long-term, sustainable new habits. Therefore, the challenge goal is for participants to increase their overall daily step count by 25%. Allowing for a cumulative increase means HealthyWage participants can strive for a holistic increase instead of just hitting their marks.
With StepBet, the challenge format lends itself to more of a short-term change with participants focused on hitting certain milestones on certain days. During each week of the StepBet game, participants must hit a certain number of Active and Stretch days each week. Miss your weekly goal, and you’re out of the running to win.
Ease of Participation
Due to the challenge structure, participating in a HealthyWage challenge is quite a bit more user-friendly than participating in a StepBet. The cumulative step increase philosophy lets participants focus on one thing – increasing their overall steps! This eliminates the stress, confusion of fear of disqualification from making sure varying step milestones are achieved on different days.
The Customer Support
Unlike WayBetter, HealthyWage provides phone-based customer support so that participants can call and speak with a friendly and responsive support team member whenever needed.
The Winner Between HealthyWage’s Step Challenges and StepBet
HealthyWage’s Step Challenges!
For it’s long-term focus, user-friendly format, ease of step tracking and responsive customer support, HealthyWage gets my vote as the step challenge provider of choice.
Sure, I might be a little biased since I am a HealthyWage employee, but I’m also a mom of 5 who strives to maintain my fitness and activity levels on a daily basis. I know what I like and what works and that’s why I choose and recommend HealthyWage’s Step Challenges!