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If IdeaScale is on your shortlist, you are probably evaluating idea management platforms for a mid-to-large organization that needs to collect ideas at scale. IdeaScale is one of the oldest and largest players in the space, with a particularly strong presence in government and public sector. Hives.co is a newer, Scandinavian-built alternative focused on simplicity, structured evaluation, and transparent pricing.
This comparison covers where each platform is strong, where each has limitations, and who each is best suited for.
Quick Summary
IdeaScale is a San Francisco-based innovation management platform founded in 2009. They claim 25,000+ customers and position themselves as a platform for "crowdsourcing innovation" across both internal and external communities. IdeaScale has a strong footprint in US government (NASA, White House, DoD have used the platform) and public sector organizations, as well as enterprise customers across multiple industries. They offer a free community edition and paid plans starting from their Professional tier.
Hives.co is a Copenhagen-based idea management platform focused on helping organizations systematically collect, evaluate, and act on employee ideas through structured challenges. Key customers include Volvo, Scania, Halfords, and VINCI Energies. Pricing starts at EUR 699/month with full feature access.
How Do They Compare on Core Capabilities?
- Idea collection: IdeaScale uses community-based collection where participants submit, vote on, and discuss ideas in a public forum-style interface. Ideas float to the top based on community engagement. Hives.co uses challenge-based collection where specific questions are asked, responses are gathered within a timeframe, and evaluation follows a structured workflow. Different philosophies: IdeaScale trusts the crowd to surface the best ideas. Hives.co trusts structured questions to produce focused, actionable responses.
- Evaluation: IdeaScale relies heavily on crowd voting and community discussion as primary evaluation mechanisms. Ideas with the most votes and engagement get attention. Hives.co uses custom scoring parameters where designated evaluators rate ideas against specific criteria (impact, feasibility, cost, strategic alignment).
- Community and engagement: IdeaScale is built around community dynamics. Gamification, leaderboards, reputation scores, and social features drive participation. Hives.co focuses on the feedback loop: ensuring every submitter gets a response and knows what happened to their idea.
- External vs. internal: IdeaScale supports both internal (employee) and external (customer, citizen, partner) idea communities. Hives.co focuses on internal employee idea management.
- Customization: IdeaScale offers extensive customization of community pages, workflows, and branding. Hives.co offers customizable challenges, evaluation parameters, and workflows with a simpler configuration approach.
Where Does IdeaScale Have the Edge?
- Scale and track record. IdeaScale has been in the market since 2009 and claims 25,000+ customers. That is a substantial install base that provides confidence for procurement teams. The platform has been used by very large organizations including government agencies where security and compliance requirements are stringent.
- Government and public sector. IdeaScale has a strong position in US federal government and public sector innovation. If you are a government agency or public institution, IdeaScale's compliance certifications, government references, and experience with public sector procurement processes are meaningful advantages.
- External community support. If you need to collect ideas from customers, citizens, partners, or other external stakeholders (not just employees), IdeaScale supports external-facing innovation communities. Hives.co is focused on internal employee idea management.
- Community and gamification. IdeaScale's community features (voting, commenting, leaderboards, reputation) create engagement through social dynamics. For organizations where participation is driven by social recognition and competitive motivation, this approach can sustain higher engagement volumes.
- Free tier. IdeaScale offers a free community edition that lets small teams test the platform before committing to a paid plan. Hives.co does not offer a free tier.
Where Does Hives.co Have the Edge?
- Structured evaluation over crowd voting. Crowd voting surfaces popular ideas. Structured evaluation surfaces impactful ideas. These are not always the same thing. The idea that gets the most votes is often the most universally relatable ("better coffee in the break room"), not the most strategically valuable ("redesign the changeover process on Line 2 to save 4 hours per shift"). Hives.co's scoring-based evaluation ensures ideas are assessed against criteria that matter to the business.
- Challenge-based focus. Asking specific questions produces specific answers. Hives.co's challenge model ("How might we reduce returns processing time?") generates more actionable ideas than an open community where anyone can post anything at any time. This is particularly important for organizations that struggle with too many unfocused ideas rather than too few ideas.
- Simplicity and speed to launch. Hives.co is live in days. IdeaScale's community-based model requires more configuration: setting up community pages, defining categories, configuring gamification rules, and establishing moderation policies. For organizations that need results quickly, Hives.co's focused approach gets you there faster.
- Transparent pricing. Hives.co publishes pricing on its website: EUR 699/month for Kick-Start, EUR 1,499/month for Enterprise. IdeaScale offers multiple tiers with pricing that scales by community size and features, but enterprise pricing requires a sales conversation.
- EU data hosting. Hives.co hosts all data on Google Cloud Platform in Frankfurt, Germany, with GDPR compliance built in. IdeaScale is US-based (San Francisco) and while they serve European customers, EU-specific data residency is not their default configuration.
- Feedback loop by design. Hives.co structures the feedback loop into the evaluation workflow. Every submitter gets a response. IdeaScale's community model provides feedback through crowd engagement (votes, comments), but structured one-to-one feedback from evaluators to submitters is not the platform's primary mechanism.
- Manufacturing and industrial fit. Hives.co's QR code submission, anonymous participation, and challenge-based approach work well in environments where not everyone sits at a desk or participates in community-style online forums. IdeaScale's community model works best when participants are comfortable engaging in a social, forum-like environment.
- Innovation intelligence. Through the merger with Findest, Hives.co connects internal ideas with external technology scouting. IdeaScale does not offer technology scouting or external innovation intelligence.
How Does Pricing Compare?
- Hives.co Kick-Start: EUR 699/month (billed annually). 2 managers, unlimited participants, unlimited idea collections, AI-powered analysis, SSO.
- Hives.co Enterprise: EUR 1,499/month (billed annually). 10 managers, priority support, everything in Kick-Start.
- IdeaScale Free: Community edition with limited features. Good for testing.
- IdeaScale Paid Tiers: Multiple tiers (Professional, Business, Enterprise) with pricing based on community size and feature requirements. Enterprise pricing requires a sales conversation.
Who Should Choose Hives.co?
- Organizations focused on internal employee idea management with structured evaluation
- Teams that want actionable ideas (not just volume) through challenge-based collection
- Manufacturing, retail, and industrial companies with frontline workers
- European organizations that need EU data hosting and GDPR compliance by default
- Companies that want transparent, predictable pricing
- R&D teams interested in connecting internal ideas with external technology scouting (via Findest)
Who Should Choose IdeaScale?
- Government agencies and public sector organizations with established procurement requirements for IdeaScale's certifications
- Organizations that need both internal and external innovation communities (customers, citizens, partners)
- Companies where gamification and social engagement are primary drivers of participation
- Teams that want a free tier to test the concept before committing budget
- US-based organizations where IdeaScale's domestic hosting and government compliance credentials simplify procurement
Common Questions
Is crowd voting a good way to evaluate ideas? It depends on what you are evaluating for. Crowd voting is excellent at identifying ideas with broad appeal and measuring employee sentiment. It is less effective at identifying ideas with high strategic value but narrow appeal. The best approach often combines both: use crowd engagement to gauge interest and structured evaluation to assess impact. Hives.co focuses on the structured evaluation side.
Can IdeaScale work for manufacturing environments? IdeaScale can work in manufacturing, but its community-based model assumes participants are comfortable engaging in a forum-style online environment. For factory floor workers who primarily need a quick, low-friction way to submit an improvement idea, a challenge-based approach with QR codes (like Hives.co) may drive higher participation.
Does the number of customers indicate a better product? Not necessarily. IdeaScale's 25,000+ customer claim includes their free community edition users. A large install base indicates market acceptance, but the relevant question is whether the platform fits your specific use case, organization size, and industry. A tool used by NASA and the White House is validated for public sector innovation. A tool used by Volvo and Scania is validated for manufacturing and industrial innovation.
The Bottom Line
IdeaScale and Hives.co represent different philosophies about how to manage ideas. IdeaScale believes in the wisdom of crowds: let people submit, vote, and discuss, and the best ideas will emerge. Hives.co believes in the power of the right question: ask something specific, evaluate responses systematically, and act on the results.
If you are a public sector organization or need external innovation communities with gamification, IdeaScale has the deeper track record and feature set for that. If you are a European enterprise that needs structured internal idea management with transparent pricing, fast setup, and a platform that frontline workers will actually use, Hives.co is the more direct path.
Try Hives.co and see what focused idea management looks like.
