Where our numbers come from

How we measure it: We calculate the percentage of users in paid workspaces who either sent or received a taco on a given calendar day, averaged across a rolling 90-day window. "Active users" means anyone who has participated in their team's taco economy at least once in the past 30 days — we exclude users who were added but have never engaged.

What we're comparing it to: Industry benchmarks for employee recognition platforms typically land in the 35–45% daily active user range, based on published data from G2, HR tech analysts, and vendor-reported engagement figures. We don't pad our number by counting passive views or bot interactions — a taco has to actually be sent or received.

How we calculated it: We compared published pricing for the base tier of platforms our customers most commonly evaluate alongside HeyTaco: Bonusly, Nectar, Kudos, and Awardco. We used publicly available pricing pages and excluded platforms that don't publish pricing (since those typically skew higher). The 25% figure reflects the median difference at the time of our last review.

Important caveats: Software pricing changes. Some competitors charge separately for reward budgets on top of the platform fee — we don't. Some have minimum user counts or annual-only billing — we don't. The true cost difference may be larger or smaller depending on which platform you're comparing and how you structure rewards.

How we measure it: We count distinct paid workspaces — not individual users. A 500-person company counts as one team. We update this number when we cross meaningful thresholds.

Why 5: This is a design decision based on what actually drives consistent behavior. When we looked at engagement patterns across workspaces, teams with daily taco limits of 4–6 showed significantly more consistent participation than teams with unlimited allowances or very high limits. Too few and recognition feels scarce. Too many and it loses meaning. Five hits the sweet spot — intentional, but not stingy. Admins can adjust this per workspace, but 5 is what we recommend and what most teams stick with.

How we arrived at this: This is based on a combination of our own platform data and published research on behavioral economics and habit formation — specifically, how constraints drive consistent behavior. Unlimited systems tend to see a spike at launch followed by rapid drop-off. Daily-limit systems create a use-it-or-lose-it dynamic that sustains participation over time. The 4x figure reflects the difference in 90-day engagement retention between the two models.

Note: We're comparing structural approaches (limited vs. unlimited daily recognition), not specific named competitors.

How we know: This is based on user session data tracking time from install initiation to first taco sent, across new workspace installs. The median is under 3 minutes. We say "under a minute" for the taco-sending action itself (once the app is installed), and "5 minutes" for the full install-to-first-taco experience.

How we measure it: Based on workspace configuration data (timezone spread, team size relative to office count) and customer survey responses collected during onboarding and annual check-ins. This figure has grown steadily since 2020.