Getting started with rewards in HeyTaco
Rewards are a great way to add extra meaning to the tacos your team earns. This guide walks through everything you need to know to set up a successful rewards program.
When should I introduce rewards?
We recommend waiting until your team has been using HeyTaco for a little while before adding rewards. When people are already giving tacos regularly and the habit is established, rewards feel like a celebration of that culture rather than an incentive to participate. Introducing rewards too early can make recognition feel transactional.
Once tacos are flowing consistently, you're ready.
Step 1: Understand what your team values
Before creating rewards, think about what would be meaningful to your team. Common categories include work-related perks (desk accessories, headphones), wellness (fitness subscriptions, spa treatments), personal experiences (gift cards, travel), and collaborative rewards (team outings, charity donations). See "What are some reward ideas?" for a full list of ideas crowdsourced from HeyTaco teams.
Step 2: Choose your reward types
HeyTaco supports three types of rewards: custom rewards, collaborative rewards, and instant gift cards. Custom rewards are anything you create and fulfill yourself — a piece of swag, a lunch with leadership, an extra day off. Collaborative rewards are team goals where everyone pools tacos together toward a shared experience. Instant gift cards are automatically fulfilled by HeyTaco and sent directly to the recipient's email.
Step 3: Price your rewards
A good starting point is 4 tacos per $1 of value. This keeps rewards accessible without depleting too quickly. See "How should I price and budget for rewards?" for more guidance, including how to adjust pricing as your taco economy grows.
Step 4: Set up your Taco Shop
How to find the Taco Shop:
- In Slack: Open the HeyTaco app from your left sidebar → click the Home tab → you'll see a link to the Taco Shop ( which will open in a new browser)
- In Microsoft Teams: Open HeyTaco from the left sidebar → click the Taco Shop tab at the top.
- In a browser: Go to heytaco.chat/shop (you'll be prompted to sign in with Slack or Teams).
Once you have navigates to the Taco Shop page in HeyTaco and click "Add Reward" to create your first reward. Only admins can create rewards — if you don't see the button, you don't have admin permissions. See How do I create a custom reward?, How do I create a collaborative reward?, and Getting Started with Instant Gift Cards for setup guides for each reward type.
Step 5: Announce it to your team
Let your team know rewards are now available in the Taco Shop. Share what's there and how redemption works. Consider starting with just a few rewards and rotating them over time to keep the shop fresh and engaging.
A note for teams that have been using HeyTaco for over a year
If your team has accumulated a large number of redeemable tacos before rewards were introduced, you may want to reset redeemable taco balances before launching. This creates a fair starting point and avoids immediate depletion of your rewards. A reset does not affect given/received taco counts or leaderboard standings — only the redeemable balance. Admins can do this from Admin → Settings.