Why MakeTheBoard

Every team that tracks performance hits the same wall: the data exists, but nobody looks at it.

The sales manager pulls a report from Salesforce every Monday. By Tuesday it's stale. The teacher tracks points in a Google Sheet. The kids never see it unless she projects it during class. The event organizer updates a leaderboard in a shared doc. Half the participants don't have the link.

The issue isn't the data. It's the last mile — getting the numbers from where they're stored to where people are actually looking. A CRM is great for storing pipeline data. A spreadsheet is great for ad-hoc calculations. But neither is designed to be displayed on a TV on the sales floor, shared as a link reps check from their phone, or embedded on a website that the audience can view without logging in.

That's what MakeTheBoard is: a last-mile display tool for performance data. It doesn't replace your CRM or your spreadsheet. It replaces the gap between where the numbers live and where people need to see them.

MakeTheBoard is built around a specific set of beliefs about what makes performance tracking actually work. Every feature decision comes back to these.

Visibility over analytics

Most tools optimize for data analysis — charts, filters, drill-downs, exports. MakeTheBoard optimizes for display. The board is designed to look good on a TV, load instantly on a phone, and update in real time with animated rank changes. The display is the product. If nobody sees the numbers, nothing else matters.

Simplicity over power

One board tracks one metric. You add names and numbers. The tool sorts them and displays the ranking. That's the core. There's no badge system, no point multiplier, no achievement tier, no reward marketplace. Those features sound impressive in a demo, but in practice they add complexity that kills adoption. The most effective leaderboards are the simplest ones.

Speed over onboarding

Creating a board takes about 60 seconds. There's no onboarding flow, no tutorial, no "schedule a demo." If you can type into a form, you can create a leaderboard. We designed the product so that setup time is never the reason you don't run a contest.

Independence over integration

MakeTheBoard doesn't require a CRM, a learning management system, a HR platform, or any other tool to function. It works standalone. You can connect it to other systems via API if you want automation, but the tool is useful the moment you create an account. No IT ticket, no admin config, no vendor call.

Universal over vertical

The underlying mechanic — participants, a score, a ranking — is the same whether you're tracking sales revenue, classroom points, hackathon scores, or fundraising totals. One tool covers all of it because the core problem is the same everywhere: make performance data visible and competitive.

Knowing what to leave out matters as much as knowing what to include. These are features we've been asked for and intentionally decided not to build:

• Badge and reward systems. Badges, XP, achievement tiers, and digital rewards add complexity that most teams never use past the first week. They look good in a feature comparison chart but don't translate to sustained behavior change for most use cases. If you need a reward marketplace, an enterprise platform like Ambition or Spinify is the right tool.
• Deep CRM integrations. We have an API for pushing data in, but we don't build and maintain connectors for Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, etc. Every CRM connector is a maintenance surface that slows down everything else. Most of our users update scores manually in 30 seconds — and for users who want automation, the API is a single POST endpoint that any CRM can call via a webhook or script.
• Analytics dashboards. We don't build trend lines, pipeline analysis, or forecasting. Your CRM does that. We build the display layer that makes the current standings visible to the team. Different jobs, different tools.
• User accounts for viewers. Viewers never need to create an account or install an app. This is a deliberate design constraint: the barrier to viewing must be zero. Anyone with the link can see the board. This is non-negotiable because the whole value of a leaderboard depends on maximum visibility.

Every feature we add is evaluated against a simple test: does this make the leaderboard more visible, or does it add complexity? If it's the latter, we skip it.

Here's an honest look at when MakeTheBoard is the right choice and when something else is.

vs. Spreadsheets (Google Sheets, Excel)

When the spreadsheet wins: You need ad-hoc analysis, pivot tables, or formula-driven calculations. You already have a sheet and don't need real-time display.

When MakeTheBoard wins: You want to display the ranking on a TV, share it as a link, embed it on a website, or have rank changes animate in real time. Spreadsheets can sort; they can't display.

vs. CRM Leaderboards (Salesforce, HubSpot built-in)

When the CRM wins: You need leaderboards that pull directly from pipeline data with no manual input, and everyone on the team already lives inside the CRM.

When MakeTheBoard wins: You need the leaderboard on a TV, visible to people who don't have CRM licenses, updated in real time (not on sync schedules), or covering a metric the CRM doesn't track. Most CRM leaderboards are buried behind a login that reps don't check. MakeTheBoard solves the visibility problem.

vs. Enterprise Gamification (Ambition, Spinify, LevelEleven)

When the enterprise tool wins: You have 200+ reps, a dedicated RevOps team, budget for a $10K+/yr tool, and need deep CRM integrations, badge hierarchies, and coaching workflows tied to performance data.

When MakeTheBoard wins: You need something that works today — not in 6 weeks after an implementation. You don't have (or don't want) a CRM dependency. Your use case isn't limited to sales. You want a leaderboard, not a platform.

vs. Custom-Built

When custom wins: You're building a product where the leaderboard is a core user-facing feature (a game, a fitness app, a learning platform) and you need full control over the data model and UI.

When MakeTheBoard wins: You need an internal tool, not a product feature. Building and maintaining a leaderboard from scratch is 10–40 hours of engineering time for something you could set up in 60 seconds with an off-the-shelf tool.

For a deeper feature comparison, see our leaderboard software comparison page.

MakeTheBoard works best for people who need a leaderboard that's visible, live, and set up in minutes, not weeks. That typically includes:

• Sales managers who want a contest leaderboard on the office TV without an IT project. Sales gamification that works today, not after a 6-week implementation.
• Teachers who want a classroom leaderboard they can project during class. Students don't need accounts; the teacher updates scores from their phone.
• Event organizers running competitions, hackathons, trivia nights, or fitness challenges. The audience follows along on their phones; the organizer updates from theirs.
• Nonprofits running fundraising drives and want a public thermometer or donor ranking visible on a website.
• Startup founders who are also the sales lead and need a sales tracker that works without a CRM. The free plan covers the team until they scale.
• Anyone who Googled "how to make a leaderboard" and wants to be done in 60 seconds, not 60 minutes. See the leaderboard generator.

Leaderboard software pricing is all over the map — from free tiers to $50K/year enterprise contracts. Our approach:

• Free is real. 2 boards, 10 participants each, no credit card, no time limit. That covers a primary leaderboard and one active contest for most small teams. We don't cripple the free plan to force an upgrade — every feature that makes the board useful (real-time updates, shareable link, TV display, animated rank changes) works on free.
• No per-seat pricing. Plans are based on board and participant limits, not how many managers have logins. A team of 5 and a team of 50 pay the same $24/mo for Pro. Per-seat pricing punishes growth; we'd rather not.
• No annual lock-in. Monthly billing, cancel anytime. If MakeTheBoard isn't earning its keep every month, you should be free to leave. We'd rather build a product worth paying for than a contract that's hard to cancel.
• Upgrades are for scale, not for functionality. Pro and Premium add more boards, more participants, collaboration, branding, and API access. They don't gate core features like real-time updates or TV display behind a paywall. The free board is a real, usable leaderboard — not a teaser.

Full breakdown on the pricing page.