Virtualbadge.io VS Badgr - What's the Right Tool for You?

Today, we will explain everything about these two digital credentialing platforms and show what’s unique about each. They may look similar upon the first view since they handle similar tasks — but their use cases and platforms still differ significantly. 

To prevent your disappointment in either of these, we’ll go into great detail and compare their:

• Credential creation and issuing process;
• What you can use them for;
• How they impact the marketing side of your business - regarding social media sharing and your brand presence;
• Their secondary features and extras;
• Pricing plans.

If you’re in a hurry, skip to the end for the TL;DR section. 

But, if you need to know the details, keep reading and discover what makes each of these tools unique!

Virtualbadge.io - A Complete Digital Credential Solution

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We have built Virtualbadge to adjust to user needs, no matter the business size or individual requirements. 

Our digital credentialing platform scales to provide flexible, convenient, and aesthetically-pleasing digital certificates and badges.

Particular focus is put on turning the certificate/badge owners into your social media advocates naturally. Virtualbadge works for educators, companies, enterprises, and educational institutions.

The following YouTube video shows how Virtualbadge.io platform works:

VirtualBadge Review - Send Out Personalised Certificates & Badges for Events & Online Courses

Badgr - Skill-based Educational Journey
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Digital credentials by Badgr are made to emphasize career/education journey.

Stackable badges show the path individuals took to get where they’re currently standing regarding their position or learning. This makes Badgr convenient for internal use and employee recognition, and career path.

Badges are shareable, illustrative, and enriched with plenty of additional features.
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Virtualbadge.io VS Badgr - Creating Certificates and Badges
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Creating digital credentials with Virtualbadge is an easy process that takes little time.

Start by clicking the yellow “Create New” button. It will reveal professionally designed templates and many different backgrounds you can build upon:
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We’ll use a template for this comparison.

No learning curves or adjusting to a complex editor: it’s as easy as digital credentialing gets. 

After adding text, shapes, images, signatures, and recipient information (with CSV to automate the personalization process), take a look at the primary and social media preview, and save your certificate!
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In Campaign Setup, you’ll get to:

• Access the Email Editor and set up the Email Header, styling, text with hashtags that appear whenever recipients share the certificate, and validation/expiration options:
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• See the recipients’ browser view and customize certificate URL, your logo, certificate name, theme color, website, and contact person’s email;
• Add a CSV file with the email addresses of the recipients;
• Take a look at the certificate Overview:
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And that’s it!

• Pros: Ease of use, unified platform, straightforward platform.
• Cons: Limited Designs 

Now, let’s take a look at Badgr’s digital credential design process.

Badge design offers several modern-looking icons, shapes, and styles:
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Source: support.badgr.com 

Rich badge settings allow you to enter badge details; Earning Criteria is a nice touch, showing precisely what it takes to earn the desired badge:
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Source: support.badgr.com 

Add tags and state if your course complies with educational standards (Common Core, NGSS, or ISTE, for example) to complete the badges.
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Source: support.badgr.com 

The account we have created to test Badgr opened up a platform consisting of 3 parts.

First up: Badgr Backpack.

Backpack is a part that acts as badge storage, like a public credentials folder. Recipients get to organize their credentials and display a story about their knowledge, step by step and badge by badge. 

To put the badge into the Backpack, the recipient needs a badge image and web address. It is also possible to use Advanced settings and add the badges by pasting JSON codes.
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It is possible to add any badge compatible with the Open Badges platform. Badges earned on the Badgr platform are automatically added.

My Pathways is the second part of the Badgr platform — a feature reserved exclusively for Pro users.

Badgr Pathways puts the knowledge into perspective by stacking digital credentials in a way that shows on which stage of learning/career growth an individual is:
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The Issuer is the final part of the Badgr platform, intended for badge awarding.

You need to create the issuer first before you start creating and awarding badges. It’s in the form of an account belonging to a person in charge of handing out the badges:
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• Pros: Detailed badge creator, unique approach to badge storing.
• Cons: A bit too complex, taking too much time for what is essentially a simple task. Pathways are only available to Pro users.

Virtualbadge.io VS Badgr - Use Cases and Flexibility

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Badgr isn’t suited for individual educators and entrepreneurs who want to earn by selling access to their courses.

This platform is built in a way that helps different kinds of organizations, institutions, enterprises, and employers track the progress of their members, associates, and potential candidates. Internal use is where Badgr wins. 

Here are some of the best use cases for the Badgr platform:

Schools, colleges, and academies (or other educational/academic institutions) can use Badgr to award badges to their students. The platform will show everything they learned and got credit (badges) for in the Backpack, while Pathways will connect it and tell a story.

Companies that chose Badgr will have an insight into employees’ competencies. They can award them for completing job-relevant courses, successfully handling multiple projects, and use that knowledge to promote them or assign better roles.

HRs can track employee progress and award them accordingly or seek the best candidates for the job on the Badgr platform.

• Pros: All sorts of establishments will love Badgr’s capacity to keep track of student/employee learning paths.
• Cons: Not the best solution for individual educators.

Virtualbadge has more variety, and it can be used both by individuals and organizations of many sorts. The platform is scalable, so it doesn’t matter whether you’re acting on behalf of a vast enterprise or you’re working solo.

Some of the use cases include:

Online academies and educational institutions can award certificates and badges to their students without a hassle. Teachers/professors won’t need initial onboarding to use Virtualbadge. In fact, one person can easily do it instead with their input and no micromanagement.

Individual education providers, coaches, and trainers will find Virtualbadge an apt solution for talent recognition. 

Businesses and enterprises can use Virtualbadge in the same way we described Badgr, with a bonus: awarding employees digital credentials can replace the need for physical workplace validation and make it digital.

• Pros: Covers all use bases, versatile and adjustable.
• Cons: It is not as rich as Badgr in terms of internal use.

Virtualbadge.io VS Badgr - Social Media Presence

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Both Virtualbadge and Badgr have unlimited badge sharing on social media that turn badge recipient into brand ambassadors. 

However, Virtualbadge has a robust social sharing component, especially for LinkedIn — where it outstrips Badgr:
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• Pros: Shareable badges, powerful LinkedIn integration.
• Cons: Pre-made sharing integrations are only available for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

There’s nothing wrong with Badgr’s social sharing aspect, but it is more inward-oriented as a whole. The badge-sharing process signals recipients’ achievement to the people within a tight-knit group of professionals, educators, and colleagues. 

• Pros: Shareable badges.
• Cons: It is better for internal use. No social media integrations are available.

Virtualbadge.io VS Badgr - Additional Features

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Both of these platforms include the following features as a bonus:

• Exhaustive data analytics;
• Labor market insights;
• White labeling;
• Printable certificate/badge forms;
• QR codes to validate digital credentials.

And now for the differences.

Virtualbadge has a completely code-free platform, built-in tutorials, and LinkedIn integration, while Badgr has a separate knowledge base, advanced badge storing with JSON, and Pathways.

There’s not a lot of difference between Virtualbadge and Badgr feature-wise. As we explained in the chapters above, they perform the task in different ways and cater to separate audiences — with similar functionalities.

Virtualbadge.io VS Badgr - Price Comparison

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Virtualbadge has transparent pricing and plans that work out for multiple user categories. Here’s what they include:

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There’s a free 7-day trial for each plan, allowing you to test Virtualbadge to the fullest: all the features included!

With Virtualbadge, you also get free:

• LinkedIn Certificates Generator;
• 4 Steps to create Social Referrals — eBook for coaches and trainers;
• Templates for Virtual Badges.

• Pros: Scalable pricing plans, loads of free resources, ability to test the tool for a week for free.
• Cons: No free plans.

Badgr has a free plan, but you need to reach out and ask personally for anything more.

Here’s what’s publicly available for Badgr pricing:

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To see Badgr Pro in action, you can access their knowledge base for in-depth feature description, but can’t try it yourself.

• Pros: A solid free plan.
• Cons: You cannot test all the features before subscribing to a Pro plan, and there is no pricing available — you need to request a quote.

Virtualbadge.io VS Badgr: Our Final Verdict — Which One You Should Use?

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Both Virtualbadge and Badgr can be used to award digital credentials, and both are good. Still, they aren’t interchangeable.

Here’s a more detailed yet condensed comparison of these two digital credential platforms:

• Creating certificates and badges is easier with Virtualbadge, as the process is straightforward. The designer is instantly ready to be deployed, and requires no previous knowledge. Handling JSON isn’t for everyone, and the Badgr platform isn’t an instant solution: a platform tour is needed to clear things up. On the other hand, Badgr’s complexity allows more profound insights into individuals’ knowledge path by looking at their Backpack.
• Use cases and flexibility of these platforms come with considerable differences. It pays off to learn how to manage Badgr if you need a comprehensive platform for internal use: to track academic achievements and employee career progress - with a particular focus on learning. Virtualbadge, on the other hand, is more flexible and suitable for individuals and organizations alike. While it doesn’t go into such detail on the individual-recipient level, Virtualbadge covers more use cases, is more agile, and provides a fast solution when you need to award badges “yesterday”.
• Social media presence of your brand will undoubtedly be stronger with Virtualbadge. It has LinkedIn integration, to spread the word about your business on a social media platform where it matters the most.
• Additional features are quite similar for both of these tools. Badgr is slightly more detailed, but it comes with the expense of being more difficult to use. Virtualbadge gets the job done faster.
• Price comparison reveals very little about Badgr; it does offer a free (yet limited) plan, but you need to contact them to learn how much you’ll be charged for a Pro account. Virtualbadge provides full pricing transparency, along with plenty of free resources and a week-long free trial that covers all features.

You be the final judge of this battle — explore everything we have to offer and let us know who takes the cake!