# Zealy alternatives for rewarding real holders

> Zealy, Galxe, Layer3, Guild and Streamflow compared with eligibility-gated payouts on Cherry: what each rewards, who pays the claim, and 2026 prices.


You go looking for a Zealy alternative after the first campaign settles: the leaderboard filled up, the rewards went out, and half the wallets at the top were never seen again. That is what a quest board is built to do, and it does it well. This roundup covers six ways a token team can pay people in September 2026, from task boards that score completions to payouts that go only to wallets already passing an on-chain check. Cherry (cherry.fun) is one of the six and we build it: a wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app where you sign in with a wallet, DM any address, and join or create token-gated, NFT-gated, and paid group chats.

## How we picked

Six questions, asked from the point of view of a team with a token and a budget. What does the tool actually reward, a task or a holding? How does it decide who is eligible? Where do the people you paid end up afterwards? Who covers the cost of a claim? Does it reach Solana as well as EVM chains? And what does a month of it cost?

## Zealy

Zealy is the quest board most crypto teams meet first. Its front page reads "Make a living from Web3" and invites people to "Complete quests and earn cryptocurrency, tokens, and digital rewards", which tells you whose side of the market it is written for.

A quest can pay several things at once. Zealy's documentation lists XP, which "will make the users level up, and rank higher in the leaderboard and the sprint"; a Discord role; tokens, which "need to be distributed manually after winners have been decided"; Zaps, described as "our internal points system"; and USDC, where "the reward is managed and guaranteed by Zealy". Rewards go out by one of five methods: all claimants, first come first served, raffle, top of the board, or a community vote.

Pricing in September 2026: a free tier with 1,000 claim credits a month, unlimited members, leaderboards and sprints; Standard from $149 a month billed annually with 10,000 credits, extra credits at $15 per 1,000; Plus from $359 a month billed annually with 50,000 credits and a member CRM; Enterprise priced on request. Zealy defines the unit plainly: "A claim credit is spent each time a member completes a quest."

Fit: strong when the behaviour you want is a task, such as a testnet transaction, a bridge, or a piece of content. You are buying completions, and the price scales with them.

## Galxe

Galxe is the enterprise version of the same idea, wrapped in an identity layer. The site calls itself "Your Web3 Growth Engine". The Quest product page adds: "Galxe Quest is the leading platform for building web3 communities."

The reward menu is wider than Zealy's. On-chain: OATs (on-chain achievement tokens), NFTs, mystery boxes, token raffles and loyalty points, with up to 1,000 points per task group. Off-chain: custom rewards, first-come-first-served token drops and Discord roles. Galxe also sells Passport, Score and an identity protocol around the quest board, plus its own Gravity chain.

Two costs matter here. Participants pay a claim fee: Galxe's help centre, updated 10 August 2026, says "When claiming quest rewards, such as Loyalty Points, OATs, or NFTs, a claim fee is required to process the transaction", with a base of $0.08 per claim and discounts of up to 75% at the higher loyalty levels. Teams pay for Business+, which as of September 2026 lists Essentials at $999 a month billed annually ($11,988 a year) and Growth at $1,699 a month billed annually ($20,388 a year), with monthly gas credits that "are distributed monthly and expire if not used within 30 days".

Fit: pick Galxe when the campaign needs scale, sybil screening and a credential that survives the campaign. Budget for a four-figure monthly line item.

## Layer3

Layer3 started as a quest aggregator and has moved toward being a consumer app. Its front page now reads "Discover onchain finance with one app" and leads with the Layer3 Wallet; CUBEs are the achievement people mint, with the pitch "Every CUBE you mint brings you closer to rewards", alongside streaks and L3 staking. The site claims 3M+ users, 500M+ transactions, 40+ chains and 500+ apps in September 2026, and Layer3 Builder is the side teams use to automate tasks and distribute rewards.

Fit: distribution, more than tooling. You are renting an audience that already opens the app every day, which is a different purchase from running your own board.

## Guild.xyz

Guild is a gate with gamification bolted on, which makes it the crossover option. It describes itself as a way to "Grow, curate, and reward your community in a gamified way", and points and leaderboards ship in its cheapest tier. Requirements combine on-chain holdings across 60+ EVM chains with social connections, then grant Discord roles and Telegram access. Pricing in September 2026: Starter $29 a month, Pro $99 a month adding a member CRM and points and leaderboard exports, Growth $399 a month adding admin access for your own tooling.

Fit: the cheapest way to keep a points table next to a real holdings check, if your chains are EVM and your chat stays on Discord. Guild lists no Solana support. [Guild.xyz alternatives](https://cherry.fun/learn/compare/guild-xyz-alternatives/) goes deeper on the gating side.

## Streamflow

Streamflow is the option with no engagement layer at all. It bills itself as a "Solana Token Distribution Platform" and argues that "Token distribution on Solana shouldn't rely on spreadsheets and one-off transfers". Airdrops are one product beside vesting, locks, staking and payroll: you upload a list, publish a claim portal, and claims are settled on-chain, vested or not. It is Solana only, and in September 2026 the site claims $365M+ in total value locked, 1.3M+ users and 40K+ projects.

Fit: the right tool for a large, list-based distribution where eligibility was decided by a snapshot you ran yourself. It does not host a community, and it does not pretend to.

## Cherry

Cherry takes the opposite approach to all five: there is no quest board, no points and no XP. Nobody earns their way into a payout by completing tasks. The campaign asks the chain a question about the wallet, and every wallet that answers correctly can claim once.

An [airdrop campaign](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/airdrops-and-quests/) starts with a funded treasury and pays SOL or an SPL token. You choose the shape: the first N claimants, or open for a time window. One claim per wallet, enforced across the campaign. Eligibility is a check, or several: a minimum balance of a token, an NFT from a collection, a domain such as `.sol` or `.skr`, a whitelist you supply, or a check of your own that answers pass or fail for a wallet. A campaign that sets more than one check decides whether all of them must pass or any one is enough.

The claim flow is built so a slow signature costs nobody their place. The claim is recorded before the wallet window opens, then the claimant signs the payout and pays the Solana network fee while Cherry co-signs from the treasury. A wallet that wins and walks away can come back for the transfer later.

What makes this different from a snapshot-and-send is where it happens. The campaign runs inside the room, and the room already holds the same kind of rule: Cherry's [token-gated chats](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/token-gated-chat/) and [NFT-gated chats](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/nft-gated-chat/) check holdings when a member joins and re-check them in the background, so a wallet that sold has already lost the room before the campaign opens. The people who claim are the people still in the chat the next morning. For teams without a room of their own, Cherry runs targeted campaigns across its communities, including verified Seeker audiences, with in-app promotion and launch support.

Cherry hosts 200+ communities and 1M+ messages as of September 2026, and 10K+ Seeker owners as of the same month. The largest Seeker owners community, Seeker Club, is gated by a `.skr` domain, which is the kind of audience a campaign check can name directly.

[Seeker Club on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@seekerclub)

Honest limits. Cherry verifies wallets, so it cannot verify a retweet, a Discord join, or a form submission: if your campaign needs social task tracking, a quest board does that work and Cherry does not. Airdrop payouts are SOL and SPL tokens on Solana, while gating rules also reach Base, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain and Robinhood Chain. Cherry grants no Discord roles. Group chats are not end-to-end encrypted, by design, so moderators and bots can work, while DMs are encrypted with keys derived from your wallet. [Running an airdrop for your community](https://cherry.fun/learn/guides/run-an-airdrop-for-your-community/) walks through the setup, and [reaching token holders](https://cherry.fun/learn/guides/reach-token-holders/) covers the announcement side.

Fit: pick Cherry when the reward should land on current holders and the conversation should keep going after the campaign ends.

## Zealy alternatives side by side

September 2026 prices and product claims. "Not stated" means there is no public answer either way.

| Tool | What it rewards | Eligibility | Where members land | Who pays the claim | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zealy | Task completion: XP, levels, Zaps, USDC, Discord roles | Quest tasks, bot protection, Proof of Humanity | Your Discord or Telegram | Team, via claim credits | Free tier 1,000 credits/mo; Standard from $149/mo; Plus from $359/mo |
| Galxe | Task completion: points, OATs, NFTs, raffles, Discord roles | Quest tasks and on-chain credentials, sybil screening | Galxe Quest page and your socials | Participant pays a claim fee, base $0.08 | Free to run basic quests; Business+ Essentials $999/mo, Growth $1,699/mo, annual billing |
| Layer3 | Task completion: CUBEs, streaks, L3 rewards | Activations inside the Layer3 app | The Layer3 app | Not stated | Not stated |
| Guild.xyz | Access plus points and leaderboards | Holdings on 60+ EVM chains and social connections | Your Discord or Telegram | Team, by subscription | Starter $29/mo, Pro $99/mo, Growth $399/mo |
| Streamflow | Token distribution: airdrops, vesting, locks | A list you upload | Your own channels | Claimant, on-chain | Not stated on the home page |
| Cherry | Holding: SOL or SPL payouts, no points, no XP | Token balance, NFT, domain, whitelist, or your own check, under all or any | A gated Cherry room that keeps re-checking | Claimant pays the Solana network fee | Free |

## Which one to pick

Choose a quest platform, Zealy or Galxe or Layer3, if the thing you need is a behaviour that has not happened yet: a first swap, a bridge, a testnet run, a piece of content. Tasks are the only way to pay for an action, and these three are good at scoring them. Accept the trade that comes with it, which is that a leaderboard attracts people who are good at leaderboards.

Choose eligibility-gated payouts, on Cherry or through a Streamflow claim portal, if the behaviour already happened and you want to pay for it: holding through a drawdown, keeping an NFT, owning the domain, being on a list you trust. Cherry adds the part a distribution tool cannot, which is the room the payout happens in, still gated and still re-checking the next week. Many teams run both, one to acquire and one to keep, and that is a reasonable answer too.

Create a group at [chat.cherry.fun](https://chat.cherry.fun) and set its rule to your token, then run the campaign to the wallets that pass.

## FAQ

### What is the best Zealy alternative?

It depends on what you are replacing. For the same job with more on-chain credential types, Galxe Quest is the closest swap. For gamified access rules on EVM chains, Guild.xyz covers it from $29 per month. For a Solana claim portal with vesting, Streamflow. If what you want is the reward without the task board, run an eligibility-gated payout on Cherry and skip quests entirely.

### Is there a free alternative to Zealy and Galxe?

Cherry is free: running a community and an airdrop campaign in it costs nothing, and the claimant pays only the Solana network fee on the payout. Zealy has a free tier of 1,000 claim credits per month as of September 2026. Galxe Quest is free to take part in, but a claim fee applies, with a base of $0.08 per claim before loyalty discounts.

### Does Cherry have quests, points or XP?

No. Cherry has no quest board, no points and no XP. Rewards are paid by airdrop campaigns whose eligibility is a check on the wallet: a token balance, an NFT from a collection, a domain, a whitelist, or a check of your own that answers pass or fail.

### How do I reward token holders without a quest platform?

Fund a campaign treasury with SOL or an SPL token, set the eligibility rule to a minimum balance of your token, and cap it at the first N claimants or a time window. Every wallet that passes claims once. Nobody earns their way in by completing tasks, so the payout lands on people who already hold.

### Who pays the cost of an airdrop claim on Cherry?

The claimant signs the payout and pays the Solana network fee for it, and Cherry co-signs from the campaign treasury. The claim itself is recorded before the wallet opens, so a slow signature or a closed wallet window cannot cost someone their place.

## Sources

- [Zealy pricing](https://zealy.io/pricing)
- [Zealy documentation on quest rewards](https://zealy.io/docs/quest-properties/rewards)
- [Galxe Quest](https://galxe.com/quest)
- [Galxe Business+ overview](https://help.galxe.com/en/articles/11568587-business-overview)
- [Galxe on claim fees](https://help.galxe.com/en/articles/12829115-understanding-claim-fees)
- [Guild.xyz pricing](https://guild.xyz/pricing)
- [Layer3](https://layer3.xyz)
- [Streamflow](https://streamflow.finance)
- [Seeker Club on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@seekerclub)