Pick the wrong UK staff discount platform and you will pay £6 per employee per month for a portal nobody opens. Pick the right one and the cashback alone covers the platform fee three times over. Six platforms genuinely compete for the UK SMB and mid-market staff-discount business in 2026, plus a handful of free directories. This is the comparison no platform vendor will run because half of them lose: who has the best catalogue, who has the cleanest implementation, and where the free alternatives are good enough.
Six paid platforms make the serious shortlist:
Plus two free directories worth knowing:
| Platform | Price (per user/mo) | Min seats | Catalogue depth | Wellness layer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perkbox | £5–£7 | ~10 | High | Yes |
| Reward Gateway | £8–£12+ | 50+ | Highest | Yes |
| Edenred | £3–£8 | 10+ | Medium | No |
| Pluxee | Enquiry-only | ~50 | High | Yes |
| MyStaffShop | £2–£4 | ~10 | Medium | No |
| LeaveManager Perks | £0 | None | Curated | Indirect |
Pricing is approximate and varies by negotiation. All paid platforms run sector-specific discounting.
Reward Gateway has the deepest UK retailer catalogue by margin. Around 1,500+ retailers, including most major UK supermarkets, fuel chains, fashion brands, restaurants and entertainment partners. Perkbox is roughly 60–70% of Reward Gateway's catalogue depth at half the price — a strong cost-per-retailer ratio.
Free directories like LeaveManager Perks are editorially curated rather than exhaustive — typically 100–300 carefully-selected retailers across the categories employees actually use, rather than thousands of long-tail brands.
Reward Gateway leads on supermarket cashback (typically 4–6% vs 2–4% on competitor platforms) because it negotiates centrally at scale. For a household spending £4,400/year on groceries, that 2–3 percentage point difference is £100+/year per employee. At 50+ headcount, this difference alone often justifies the higher Reward Gateway platform fee.
Perkbox has the best-rated mobile app of the paid platforms. Reward Gateway is a close second but the UI feels more enterprise-leaning. Pluxee is polished but heavier. Edenred and MyStaffShop are functional but unremarkable.
Perkbox bundles a meditation/learning app and a peer-to-peer recognition tool. Reward Gateway has a deeper recognition module (Reward Gateway Recognition) and integrates with employee-of-the-month and milestone reward flows.
| Platform | 3-year platform cost | Estimated employee savings (3yr) | Net to employees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perkbox | £10,800 | £75,000 | +£64,200 |
| Reward Gateway | £18,000 | £135,000 | +£117,000 |
| MyStaffShop | £5,400 | £45,000 | +£39,600 |
| LeaveManager Perks (free) | £0 | £35,000 | +£35,000 |
Employee-savings figures are estimates based on average UK staff use rates of around 50% and average savings per active user. Real numbers vary widely — measurement-discipline is important to assess actual ROI.
Free directories like LeaveManager Perks win for businesses where:
The trade-off is real: no co-branded experience, no usage analytics, no consolidated billing, and no formal employer/scheme membership. For sub-15-employee businesses, the trade-off is rarely worth £900+/year in platform fees.
Perkbox. The catalogue and UX are right for the demographic; the price is sustainable. Layer in an EAP and you have a credible benefits package.
Reward Gateway. Cashback rates on supermarkets, fuel and family days out matter most for these workforces, and Reward Gateway leads on those. A perks portal bundled into an HR suite can also work if the wider bundle is valuable to you.
Sector-specific schemes (Blue Light Card, Discounts for Teachers) supplement whichever paid platform you pick. Sector discounts on the platforms themselves often bring effective per-employee cost below £4/month.
Reward Gateway or Pluxee. The slightly more enterprise-feeling experience suits the demographic, and cinema/travel partner offers (Pluxee) are particularly strong for professional-services workforces.
LeaveManager Perks (free) plus a few direct corporate-rate sign-ups (Specsavers Corporate, PureGym Corporate, a Samsung EPP). Add a paid platform when headcount and budget justify it.
For most UK SMBs the right answer is Perkbox at £6/user/month, with sector-specific schemes layered in for free where applicable. Reward Gateway becomes the right answer at 50+ employees where the cashback differential pays for the higher fee. A perks portal bundled into an HR suite you already pay for wins on marginal cost, if its catalogue is deep enough. Free directories like LeaveManager Perks are credible for sub-15-employee teams. See the SMB-specific scheme review.
LeaveManager is leave management software built for UK businesses — track holidays, sick leave and TOIL in one place from £8/user/month.
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