Brandmovers BLOYL™ vs Annex Cloud: How the Two Platforms Compare

Which is best for running loyalty in-house?

Annex Cloud, for teams that want to configure and operate a loyalty program themselves. Its self-service flexibility and loyalty-only breadth suit in-house ownership.

If your marketing team wants to build, test and adjust a loyalty program without a development cycle or an external partner, Annex Cloud is designed for that: a configurable, loyalty-only platform with a wide capability set.

BLOYL is typically delivered as a managed or co-managed service, though its rules engine lets marketing teams configure earning and redemption rules without engineering.

Which is best for loyalty delivered as a managed service?

BLOYL, for brands that want a partner to design and run the program (and the promotions around it) rather than configure software themselves.

BLOYL is delivered by Brandmovers as a full-service engagement: strategy, creative, program management and technology, with consumer promotions handled by the same team.

That suits brands that prefer to hand the program to a partner rather than staff and run a platform internally.

How do they compare on promotions?

BLOYL adds full consumer promotions (sweepstakes, instant-win and rebates with prize fulfillment) alongside loyalty.

Annex Cloud offers in-loyalty engagement such as contests, quizzes and challenges.

Both can gamify loyalty: Annex Cloud with contests, quizzes and challenges, and BLOYL with modules including scratch-offs, gameboards, instant wins, bingo, auctions, challenges and badges. Brandmovers goes further by running standalone consumer promotions (sweepstakes, instant-win and rebate campaigns with prize fulfillment and receipt validation) as managed campaigns for CPG brands, unified with the loyalty program.

Who is not the right fit for either?

Annex Cloud fits less well for brands that want a fully done-for-you partner; BLOYL fits less well for brands that want pure self-service software to run entirely in-house.

If you want to hand the whole program to an agency, a self-service platform adds operating burden.

If you want full in-house control of a loyalty-only platform with no external delivery team, a managed service is more than you need. The mismatch is usually about delivery model, not capability.

How do BLOYL and Annex Cloud compare on pricing?

Neither publishes public pricing. Both are custom, enterprise quote-based, scoped to program size, integrations and (for BLOYL) the level of managed service included.

Annex Cloud is priced as enterprise software scoped to modules and member volume; BLOYL is priced as a managed engagement that includes services.

Request a scoped quote from each for a like-for-like comparison.

How do migration and switching costs compare?

Switching means migrating member data, transferring outstanding points liability and rebuilding integrations. Treat migration as a priced workstream in either direction. Ask each provider what its contract says about termination rights and how long it keeps your data after the program ends.

Scope member and transaction history, points-liability reconciliation and integration rebuild. Annex Cloud publishes a guided path of connect in week 1, migrate in week 4 and launch in week 10; Brandmovers puts mid-market BLOYL builds with standard integrations at six to twelve weeks from brief to launch, and enterprise builds at 90 to 120 days (disclosed by Brandmovers). Ask each provider for a documented migration approach and timeline.

How do they compare on compliance and security?

Both maintain SOC 2 Type II and support receipt scanning. Annex Cloud states it holds ISO 27001; Brandmovers adds PCI DSS, which matters for payment-adjacent programs.

Annex Cloud states it has held ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certification since 2019. Brandmovers holds SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS (auditor: Hancock Askew & Co., LLP) and GDPR. Both can validate scanned receipts: Annex Cloud documents OCR with confidence thresholds and human verification, and Brandmovers' ValidSpend adds fraud controls including CAPTCHA, IP rate limiting, domain checks and manual moderation. PCI DSS is the Brandmovers distinction for payment-adjacent and receipt-driven promotional programs.

Ask each vendor for current attestation reports during due diligence.

BLOYL differentiators

Where BLOYL is most clearly distinct from Annex Cloud, with the evidence behind each claim:

• Managed full-service delivery: Brandmovers delivers BLOYL as a managed engagement (strategy, creative, program management and technology) via its Crawl/Walk/Run methodology, while marketing teams can still configure rules without engineering. Brandmovers reports 94% client retention (disclosed by Brandmovers).
• Loyalty unified with standalone promotions: Brandmovers runs BLOYL loyalty alongside standalone consumer promotions (sweepstakes, instant-win, rebates) with prize fulfillment, with CPG clients including Nestlé, PepsiCo and Johnsonville. That goes beyond the in-loyalty contests and quizzes a configurable platform provides.
• PCI DSS compliance for payment-adjacent programs: alongside SOC 2 Type II, Brandmovers maintains PCI DSS. Both platforms support receipt scanning; PCI DSS is the added certification that matters for receipt-driven and payment-adjacent programs.
• Proven in regulated and non-traditional categories: the Idaho Lottery's BLOYL loyalty program, where traffic to the site increased over 6X compared with previous years (disclosed by Brandmovers), and Metrolink's consumer transit loyalty program, with +15% average monthly transactions among members (disclosed by Brandmovers).