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Leaderboards work because they make progress visible. People like knowing where they stand, what's next, and how they compare, even in low-stakes settings. Such visibility creates the impulse you need as a business because it turns repeat purchases, referrals, or challenges into something people want to keep up with.
In this article for loyalty program managers, you'll find examples of brands using leaderboards to drive engagement and loyalty. Each one applies it differently in apps, community hubs, or customer-facing challenges, but they all show how competition and progress tracking can keep people involved. Let's get down to it!
Leaderboards are ranking systems designed to show how individuals or teams perform against others, based on a specific set of criteria. This gamification mechanism makes progress visible and comparison instant.Â
You've probably seen leaderboards in video games, apps for fitness challenges, or sales dashboards. But they're becoming increasingly popular in customer engagement and loyalty programs, too! Let's break it down by context:
At their core, leaderboards create visibility. They answer the question: "Where do I stand compared to others?" That simple bit of context unlocks a whole cascade of motivation:
So, while it looks like a ranked list, a good leaderboard is a behavioral design tool. As you can see, it encourages the actions you want your users to take and makes it rewarding to keep going.
Now that we've covered how leaderboards work, it's time to see them in action. The following brands demonstrate how competitive rankings can significantly boost engagement. Let's explore them!
Duolingo is a leading EdTech company and the world's most popular language-learning app, with a mission to make education accessible and fun.
Duolingo uses weekly leaderboards, called Leagues, in its mobile app to rank users based on XP earned from language lessons. It's visible to every user once they reach a certain level of activity and is core to the app's gamified experience.
Each user is placed in a 30-person group and ranked based on total XP earned that week.
Users can see who's ahead of them and how many points they need to catch up. The leaderboard resets every Sunday night, which creates urgency. There's also a visible countdown and celebration animations for users who level up.
This setup taps into progress, competition, and habit-building:
Find out how Duolingo's gamification mechanics drive customer loyalty.
e.l.f. Cosmetics is a global beauty brand known for affordable, trend-driven makeup and strong digital-first marketing.
e.l.f. Cosmetics reimagined its Beauty Squad loyalty program with a full-on gamified layer inside the e.l.f. mobile app. One of the standout additions? A leaderboard tied to in-app games, where customers could compete, earn points, and unlock rewards, all while engaging with the brand in playful ways.
The app experience was branded as the e.l.f. Arcade, featuring games like e.l.f. Blast (a match-3 puzzle game), timed challenges, and point-earning missions. The more users played and interacted, the higher they moved up on the weekly leaderboard, and the more loyalty points they racked up.
The leaderboard is integrated directly with the loyalty program, so game performance translates into real rewards.
It was about giving users a reason to come back, engage more often, and feel like part of something. The leaderboard in this case:
Example of leaderboards in e.l.f. Source: https://www.elfcosmetics.com/en_PL/account/games?id=beauty-squad-gamesÂ
There's also a streak mechanic so that if users play daily, they earn even more. That's habit-building 101.
It's fun, rewarding, and built around consistency. And that's exactly where a leaderboard shines.
Samsung is one of the world's leading technology companies, best known for its Galaxy smartphones and wide range of consumer electronics.
Samsung's Global Goals app, developed with the UN, helps Galaxy users donate to 17 sustainable development causes. In 2023, Samsung added a Donation Leaderboard feature, turning charitable giving into a friendly, app-based competition.Â
While it's not a traditional loyalty program, it gamifies philanthropy by making donation activity visible and comparable across users.
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Inside the app's Donate section, the leaderboard ranks users by their total contributions. Rankings can be viewed globally or filtered by country, and the board updates as new donations are made. Top contributors are highlighted with visual markers like crowns or badges, and users can track their rank over time.Â
This setup creates a clear, ongoing measure of participation that encourages repeat donations.
Nike is one of the world's leading sports and lifestyle brands, known for blending training, community, and technology through apps like Nike Run Club.
Nike Run Club (NRC), available worldwide and used by millions, is a running community powered by gamification. Leaderboards are a core feature, driving friendly competition and retention in the app.
Users compete based on total distance, ranking among friends or in global challenges (e.g., “Run 50 km this month”). Boards update in real time and reset weekly or monthly. The one-clear-metric approach (distance) keeps rankings simple. Visual cues like badges, trophies, and celebratory animations reward milestones, making progress visible and motivating.
Leaderboards appear in more places than loyalty programs, like fitness apps or internal sales competitions. They've become a go-to way to drive engagement, create friendly rivalry, and make progress visible. Find out where else you can spot them.
These apps use leaderboards to keep users moving and motivated, and solo workouts become shared competitions.
Even small changes in ranking, like moving up a spot, staying ahead of a friend, or helping your team climb, make users more likely to stick with their goals and stay active day after day.
Leaderboards help turn office wellness efforts into team spirit games, boosting participation and morale.
They're useful in remote or hybrid workplaces, where shared progress and a little competition can create connection and accountability, even when teams aren't in the same room.
Leaderboards bring energy to sales teams and internal training, making everyday performance more visible and motivating.
A little public recognition, even just a rank on a dashboard, can push teams to stay sharp, celebrate wins, and stay engaged with the tools that drive performance.
Example of leaderboards in Ambition. Source: https://ambition.com/blog/entry/2019-11-19-3-updates-leaderboards-make-your-sales-coaching-even-more-impactful/Â
Learning platforms use leaderboards to boost participation, encourage repeat use, and recognize top performers.
They add just enough competition to keep learners engaged without making it feel like a test. It's about visibility, feedback, and turning progress into something students actually want to track.
Where it all started, leaderboards are core to how games create replayability and social bragging rights.
Global ladders, personal records, time trials… leaderboards give players something to chase and a reason to keep coming back.
In loyalty programs, leaderboards typically display top-performing members based on key engagement metrics like:
The leaderboard can be global, tiered, or segment-based, for example, showing the top 10 users in a geographic region, among loyalty program newcomers, or within a specific tier (Silver, Gold, Platinum).
Many programs reset leaderboards weekly or monthly to give everyone a fresh shot at climbing up, which helps keep things fair and motivating.
Some leaderboards are purely for recognition (bragging rights), while others are tied to rewards, like bonus points, limited-time perks, or exclusive access for the top X participants.
The mission? To turn everyday customer actions into something more engaging and rewarding, so it's a game you want to win. Using a platform like Open Loyalty, businesses can create customized loyalty leaderboard mechanics tailored to their business goals (like driving more purchases, referrals, or even community engagement).
Leaderboards work because they tap into core psychological drivers:
That's why leaderboards make things fun and make them sticky. When paired with other gamification elements (like badges or progress bars), they create a loop of motivation that keeps users coming back.
In a well-designed loyalty program, leaderboards help:
In short, leaderboards are a strategic loyalty tool that builds consistency, community, and connection.
Leaderboards and competitive rankings give users a great reason to show up, stay engaged, and do more. Across industries, adding visible rankings leads to better participation, habit formation, and long-term loyalty. Browse some stats on B2C and B2B markets related to leaderboards.Â
Leaderboards can create a spike in engagement, but that effect fades quickly if the design never changes. Loyalty programs that last build in mechanics that refresh the competition, keep rankings fair, and give participants a reason to come back. Use the following approaches to extend the lifespan of leaderboard-driven engagement.
Fresh starts = fresh motivation. Weekly or monthly resets give more people a shot at the top and prevent leaderboard fatigue.
đź’ˇ Duolingo's weekly leagues and Strava's monthly challenges are perfect examples. Users stay engaged because every week feels winnable.
Not everyone should compete on the same board. Breaking users into skill levels, experience groups, or regions keeps friendly competition fair.
đź’ˇ Think Bronze/Silver/Gold tiers in loyalty programs or effort-based categories in fitness apps.
A leaderboard works better when users see how close they are to the next rank. Add progress bars, points-to-go, or personal bests.
đź’ˇ Sephora's status tracker and Nike's badge milestones are great at showing how small actions lead to visible progress.
Leaderboards shouldn't just be a scoreboard, and they should celebrate participation.
đź’ˇ Starbucks has done this internally with store-level sales contests, where recognition goes beyond the single top seller. Shout-outs for high-performing teams and consistent improvement keep more people motivated.
In gaming, leaderboards rank players based on scores or performance, like fastest time, most wins, and highest level. It's built mostly for bragging rights and competition.
In loyalty programs, leaderboards track customer activity like purchases, referrals, or challenges. It's still competitive, but the goal is to get people to engage more often.
The mechanics are similar, but the outcome is stronger brand loyalty and sticker interaction.
It shows people where they stand.Â
That's often all it takes to make someone care a little more, do a little more, and come back tomorrow to check their rank. It creates a loop: act, then track progress, and want more. Amazing for habit building!
Leaderboards help people stay involved. They turn quiet participation into visible progress.Â
That might look like customers coming back to complete group challenges or a sales team chasing their next badges. They work because people like knowing where they stand when they can move up.
Not always. Some are open to everyone. Others are private or segmented, like only showing you the people just ahead or behind you. That's useful if you're running customizable challenges for new users or want to avoid big gaps between top and bottom. The goal is to keep it fair and fun, not overwhelming.
Optional bonus: build in teams or themed challenges because it keeps things fresh.
Yes, they can if they never change or always favor the same people.
A few ways to keep that from happening:
That way, more people have a chance to show up and stick around.
You can build one using Open Loyalty. You decide what gets tracked (points, referrals, anything else), how often it updates, who sees what, and what top spots earn. It can live in your app, web portal, or wherever people already engage. It's flexible and fits seamlessly into your program's existing workflow.
Leaderboards aggregate step counts, activity minutes, or other health metrics from various fitness trackers.Â
This lets participants see both personal progress and where they stand in a group, creating a transparent view of activity levels over a set date range.
Clear rules, visible leaderboards, and defined rewards keep employees motivated. When staff can invite participants across teams and see rankings update in real time, the program shifts from a one-off event to an ongoing wellness challenge.
Rather than focusing only on individual step counts, team-based leaderboards highlight collective progress. This builds team dynamics, makes walking challenges more inclusive across fitness levels, and turns fitness activities into shared team-building activities.
Yes, it is! Step challenge apps with engaging step challenges, virtual races, and healthy competition add a playful element that keeps employee engagement high.Â
The competitive element motivates users to stay active while making physical activity feel like a game.
The competitive element is all about motivating users across fitness levels.Â
Regular resets, progress tiers, and recognition for "most improved" keep competition balanced while still driving participation.
Leaderboards can be integrated into corporate wellness programs as part of loyalty-style initiatives.Â
Tracking step counts, hosting a walking challenge, or running virtual races within a set date range makes physical activity measurable, repeatable, and rewarding for employees' health. This turns standard wellness efforts into ongoing engagement, encouraging employees to stay active together.
Leaderboards work best when they give people a reason to check in, do a little more, and see where they stand. Ranking systems can turn low-effort actions into something people track, revisit, and even talk about.
They're showing up across loyalty programs, CRMs, referral campaigns, fitness apps, and employee challenges, not because they're flashy, but because they give structure to progress. A small nudge, a visible goal, and a sense of movement are often enough to keep people involved.
When used with some care, tiering, resets, and fair visibility, leaderboards can drive repeat use in almost any context.
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