Own your raffle site
A hosted raffle service might not be what you actually want. Here’s the honest breakdown.
Most of this site is written for organizations that want a raffle website built and hosted for them. This page is for the ones that don’t. If your organization already has a website and somebody, staff or volunteer, who keeps it running, you may want to own the raffle site outright instead of paying for one every season.
A specific kind of organization
You already have a WordPress site, or something close enough to it. Somebody, a staff member, a volunteer web person, or a hired developer, keeps it updated. You run raffles often enough, or expect to, that owning the tool outright starts to make more sense than paying for a hosted one every time. If that’s not your situation, the rest of this site, and Chance2Win specifically, is probably the better fit, and there’s no downside to saying so plainly.
Hosted, self-run, or self-run with help
These aren’t ranked. They’re matched to different situations, and the honest answer is usually obvious once you see your own situation described.
Chance2Win
We build the raffle website, host it, and you run the raffle. The least technical burden, and the right call if you don’t have a dedicated web person or you want to be live in days rather than weeks.
WPRaffle
A WordPress plugin your organization installs on its own site. A one-time license rather than an ongoing charge, and your web person builds it out and runs it directly, season after season.
Custom raffle website builds
Some organizations want the self-hosted route WPRaffle offers, but their existing web help, a volunteer, a part-time contractor, doesn’t have the skill set to implement the plugin correctly. For that specific gap, we’ve built a number of custom raffle sites on WPRaffle directly for organizations in that position. It’s a supporting option for a real implementation problem, not our primary service, and it’s worth asking about only if the first two options genuinely don’t fit.
When hosted is the better call
No dedicated web person
If nobody on your team maintains a website regularly, a hosted service removes that requirement entirely.
Volunteer turnover between raffles
If whoever ran last year’s raffle isn’t running this one, a hosted service means the new volunteer doesn’t need to learn a plugin, just a raffle website.
You want to be live quickly
A hosted raffle can go live in days. A self-hosted build, even a straightforward one, takes real setup time.
You run one or two raffles a year
If ownership would mostly sit unused between campaigns, the ongoing cost of a hosted option is often the more efficient choice.
When owning it is the better call
Somebody on your team knows WordPress
If a staff member, volunteer, or contractor is already comfortable managing your site, adding a raffle plugin to it is a small step, not a new skill.
You want it folded into your own site
A raffle that lives at your own domain, in your own visual identity, rather than a separate hosted URL.
You run raffles often
Recurring raffles, several times a year or an ongoing Queen of Hearts, are where ownership pays for itself fastest.
You want full control
Owning the plugin outright means nothing about how your raffle works depends on a service relationship continuing.
Ready to look at WPRaffle
If the self-hosted path sounds like your organization, WPRaffle is where to go next.