How much does HeyTaco cost compared with Evergreen?

HeyTaco is $3 per user per month on Classic and $5 on Deluxe, billed monthly with no contract, and only people who have given or received a taco are billed. Evergreen is $3.99 per active user per month on a single plan. Both offer a trial without a credit card: 30 days for HeyTaco, 14 for Evergreen.

What can tacos be exchanged for in HeyTaco?

Whatever the team sets up in its Taco Shop: gift cards, swag, extra time off or charity donations at a rate the admin chooses, commonly one taco to $0.50, or on Deluxe instant gift cards in 200+ countries. Tacos can also be used purely for recognition with no rewards. Evergreen seeds are not exchanged; three received seeds become one planted tree.

Does HeyTaco work in Google Chat?

The current HeyTaco site describes the product as recognition software for Slack and Microsoft Teams, and its former Google pages redirect to the homepage. Evergreen also supports Slack and Microsoft Teams.

Which is better for a competitive team, HeyTaco or Evergreen?

HeyTaco. It has leaderboards, levels and a Taco TV view, and five tacos a day keeps the pace up. Evergreen has no leaderboard by design and a weekly allowance, because it is trying to produce better messages rather than more of them.

Alternatives

HeyTaco Alternative: Evergreen vs HeyTaco

For teams choosing between two chat-native recognition tools. HeyTaco and Evergreen are the closest pair in this series: both live in Slack and Microsoft Teams and bill for active users. The difference is what the currency becomes.

HeyTaco at a glance

Pricing: Classic is $3 per user per month and Deluxe $5 per user per month, billed monthly with no contracts, a 30-day trial without a credit card, custom pricing for teams of 200+, and users are added to the bill when they give or receive their first taco; rewards are funded separately and optional. (as read on 7 September 2026)
Best for: HeyTaco is the right choice for a small or mid-size team that wants playful daily recognition with leaderboards and levels, and either a self-funded reward shop or instant gift cards.
Website: heytaco.com

What HeyTaco is

HeyTaco is recognition as a game inside Slack and Microsoft Teams. Everyone gets five tacos a day; you tag a colleague, add a short note and drop a taco emoji. Unused tacos reset at midnight, received tacos accumulate, and leaderboards show top givers and receivers, with stickers, levels and a Taco TV view for the office screen. Taco Tags map recognition to company values and appear in reports. Teams can build a Taco Shop where tacos buy gift cards, swag, time off or charity donations at a rate the admin sets, and the $5 Deluxe plan adds instant gift cards in 200+ countries plus automated birthdays and anniversaries.

Billing is the fairest in the category: $3 or $5 per user per month, billed monthly, no contract, no minimum, a 30-day trial without a card, and people are added only when they give or receive a first taco.

Who it suits

Small and mid-size teams who want recognition to be quick and fun. HeyTaco says the highest engagement comes from teams of 5 to 50, and that fits the design: a daily allowance and a leaderboard create a habit fast, and the taco emoji lowers the bar for saying thanks. If your culture enjoys a bit of competition and somebody is happy to run the shop, it works.

How the two products approach recognition

Evergreen shares the chat-native model and the active-user billing, then goes the other way on almost every design choice. Seeds come as a small weekly allowance rather than five a day. There is no leaderboard. Every seed is given with a message and optional value tags and posted to a public channel, and every three seeds a person receives are planted as one real tree through a reforestation partner. The company gets a reporting dashboard, a monthly team recap and a public impact page it can use in ESG reporting.

The reasoning is that volume and quality pull against each other. Five tacos a day is a lot of thank-yous to write well, and a leaderboard rewards the people who write the most. A weekly allowance and a public channel push towards the message that names what somebody did; the recognition messages pages are about how to write that. Whether that trade is right for your team depends on whether you want energy or precision, and there are teams for whom HeyTaco’s answer is correct.

The tree replaces the shop. With HeyTaco you either fund gift cards and deal with the tax, or you leave tacos as points with nowhere to go. With Evergreen the accumulation has an end: it becomes a tree, and the count is public.

On price the two are close: $3 or $5 for HeyTaco, $3.99 per active user per month for Evergreen, with everything included and a 14-day trial without a card.

What switching involves

The move is easy because the habit is the same. Announce a last day for tacos, let people spend what is in the shop, then install Evergreen in the same channel and set up your Taco Tags as value tags. The daily rhythm becomes a weekly one, which takes a couple of weeks to feel natural, and the first planted trees usually arrive before that.

Where HeyTaco is strong

Chat-native in Slack and Microsoft Teams with no separate platform to log into; tag someone, add a note, drop a taco.
Fair billing: monthly, no contracts, no minimums, a 30-day trial without a card, and people are only added when they give or receive their first taco.
Taco Tags map recognition to company values and are trackable in reports.
Leaderboards, levels, stickers and a Taco TV view for office screens give it a game feel that some teams love.
Rewards are optional and self-set; the Deluxe plan adds instant gift cards in 200+ countries and automated milestone celebrations.

Where it falls short

Rewards, when used, are a budget on top of the subscription and gift cards are a taxable benefit; without rewards, tacos accumulate with nowhere to go.
Leaderboards reward volume; a team that games the daily five tacos ends up recognising the loudest people most.
Gift cards and automated milestones need the $5 Deluxe plan, and Slack and Teams workspaces are tracked separately.
No HRIS integrations are named on the site.

How Evergreen differs

A tree, not a taco shop: Every three seeds a person receives are planted as one real tree through a reforestation partner. There is nothing to redeem, no shop to stock and no taxable benefit, and the outcome is visible on a public impact page.
Weekly allowance, not daily: Evergreen gives a small weekly allowance of seeds rather than five tacos a day, and there is no leaderboard. The design favours a considered message over a quick tap.
One price for everything: Evergreen is $3.99 per active user per month with reminders, monthly recap, value tags and reporting included. HeyTaco splits features across $3 and $5 plans.
Values and ESG reporting: Value tags feed a reporting dashboard, and planted trees feed a public impact page that companies use in ESG reporting.

Verdict

HeyTaco is the better choice if your team wants recognition to be fast, frequent and a little competitive, and you are happy to run a small reward shop or gift cards on top. Evergreen is the better choice if you want fewer, better messages, no rewards budget at all, and something to show for it that outlasts the quarter: a count of trees with your company’s name on it.

Questions people ask

How much does HeyTaco cost compared with Evergreen?: HeyTaco is $3 per user per month on Classic and $5 on Deluxe, billed monthly with no contract, and only people who have given or received a taco are billed. Evergreen is $3.99 per active user per month on a single plan. Both offer a trial without a credit card: 30 days for HeyTaco, 14 for Evergreen.
What can tacos be exchanged for in HeyTaco?: Whatever the team sets up in its Taco Shop: gift cards, swag, extra time off or charity donations at a rate the admin chooses, commonly one taco to $0.50, or on Deluxe instant gift cards in 200+ countries. Tacos can also be used purely for recognition with no rewards. Evergreen seeds are not exchanged; three received seeds become one planted tree.
Does HeyTaco work in Google Chat?: The current HeyTaco site describes the product as recognition software for Slack and Microsoft Teams, and its former Google pages redirect to the homepage. Evergreen also supports Slack and Microsoft Teams.
Which is better for a competitive team, HeyTaco or Evergreen?: HeyTaco. It has leaderboards, levels and a Taco TV view, and five tacos a day keeps the pace up. Evergreen has no leaderboard by design and a weekly allowance, because it is trying to produce better messages rather than more of them.