A field-tested breakdown of cost, failure modes, and what these tools actually deliver.

Quick note before we begin.

If you don’t have the attention span to sit still for 10 to 15 minutes and read something longer than a Discord message, this deep dive isn’t for you — and you probably shouldn’t be making campaign budget decisions in the first place. 

But if you’re actually trying to figure out whether Galxe or Zealy belong in your growth stack, whether they’re worth the cost, what they really deliver, and how to avoid lighting money on fire — buckle up, because I’ve done the heavy lifting for you and I’ve even included some pretty infographics for those of you who need picture books to understand data. 

Every data point in this breakdown is sourced and cited — no hallucinated AI slop stats, no “I heard on Crypto Twitter.” All cost estimates are based on real campaign metrics, platform pricing, and observable user behavior. They’re sane, realistic, and grounded, but obviously not guarantees. Your mileage will vary depending on setup quality, incentive logic, and how many bots you let in the front door.

Let’s get into it.

To Quest or Not to Quest: Galxe, Zealy, and Your Campaign Budget

Every week, a new campaign drops: XP sprints, task-based airdrops, leaderboard races, credential NFTs. They all look the same — social buzz, wallet connects, and a Discord full of tourists. Underneath it: Zealy or Galxe, the two most visible “growth platforms” in Web3. Founders plug them in hoping for traction. Most don’t know what they’re actually buying.

This guide breaks that open. We’ll dissect what Galxe and Zealy really offer, where they work, and when they waste your time. 

Trade offer: You get field-tested data, teardown logic, and an acerbic but honest framework for making these tools work. I get to prove I understand this domain better than most of the people selling you on it.

We’ll cover alternatives if you want to run your own system, plus teardown logic for matching the tool to your product stage. No bullshit, just what works, what breaks, and what’s worth paying for.

What Are Galxe and Zealy Used For?

Galxe and Zealy are Web3 loyalty platforms. You plug them into your growth campaign to:

• Reward users for tasks (follow, retweet, mint, bridge, etc.)

• Track participation via wallet or social account

• Gate access to rewards using tokens, NFTs, or on-chain behavior

They’re meant to drive engagement and “gamify” onboarding, but both are fundamentally built to optimize surface-level growth signals like XP, followers, and basic wallet actions.

Galxe: Identity Infrastructure for Web3 Campaigns

Galxe presents itself as a Web3 identity and credentialing platform, expanding far beyond simple quest tracking. Here's what they offer and what they promise to deliver:

What Galxe Promises:

Galxe advertises itself as a growth engine for Web3, providing interoperability across dApps through identity-powered campaigns, credential reuse, and measurable engagement. The pitch: connect identity once, run verifiable campaigns many times. Campaigns use on-chain + off-chain signals to prove ROI, so you pay only for real impact.

Galxe Core Products and Features

How Galxe Fits Into Campaign Logic

• Wallet-based segmentation & credential reuse: Once users hold Passport, you can build tiered campaigns without re-onboarding .

• On-chain conversion tracking: With Starboard, you can attribute campaign spend to deposits, swaps, and TVL changes.

• Automated token task payouts: Quest + Earndrop simplifies token drops — no manual distribution.

• Sybil defense by default — identity gating and scoring reduce bot/duplicate abuse.

Zealy: Gamified Community Engagement for Web3

Zealy (formerly Crew³) is a quest-based engagement platform designed to drive social and educational interaction in Web3. Projects use it to reward users for completing tasks like social shares, content creation, technical contributions, and community participation.

What Zealy Promises

Zealy claims to help projects build active, motivated communities by gamifying participation — users earn XP, climb leaderboards, and compete in “sprints.” The platform’s promise: increase user retention and engagement through structured incentives, while giving projects transparency through analytics and automation.

Zealy Core Products and Features

How Zealy Fits Into Campaign Logic

• Community activation & onboarding: Use quests and XP to educate and onboard users via gamified tasks.

• Incentivized participation: Rewards (tokens, NFTs, roles) can be tied to active engagement to motivate behavior.

• Event-driven engagement: Sprints focus user attention and bring burst activity to product launches or milestones.

• Metrics visibility: Leaderboards and analytics let teams monitor top contributors and campaign health.

• Manual reward control: Zealy supports manual distribution via token/API connectivity—projects decide who gets paid and how.

Galxe and Zealy approach growth from opposite ends of the Web3 spectrum — one through identity infrastructure and on-chain verifiability, the other through gamified social engagement. 

Galxe is built for teams that want to segment, credential, and measure real users across campaigns with wallet-based logic. Zealy is faster to launch, lighter to manage, and optimized for sparking community activity through tasks, sprints, and leaderboards. 

Understanding what they offer — and where they stop short — sets the groundwork for deciding whether either belongs in your stack.

Proven Use Cases: Major Web3 Platforms on Galxe & Zealy

Galxe Deployments by Leading Protocols

When Galxe works, it works. These campaigns used it to move real users through credential flows:

Arbitrum Odyssey (June 2022)

Arbitrum ran a multi-phase onboarding campaign through Galxe that issued credentialed NFTs tied to protocol use. Over 1.6 million NFTs were minted by 623,000 unique users, driving $40M+ bridged volume into the Arbitrum network over several weeks. Campaign design rewarded real activity — bridging, interacting, completing tasks — anchored to ecosystem usage.

• 623K users, 1.67 million NFTs minted over two months (source)

• $40M+ bridged into the Arbitrum network throughout campaign phases (source)

• Users interacted with major dApps weekly (e.g. Uniswap, GMX), earning NFTs for active engagement

"March of the Beras" (Berachain, mid‑2024)

Berachain ran one of the largest growth pushes on Galxe to date. In 80 days, they pulled 8.5 million unique participants and 10.9 million page visits into their credential flow. Socials exploded to 930K followers and 470K Discord members. Staked token volume hit $64M, with total TVL spiking to $25B — a rare case where campaign traffic translated into deep protocol-level traction.

• 8.5 M participants, 10.9 M page visits in just 80 days

• Grew to 930K X followers and 470K Discord members

• TVL spiked to $25 B, with $64M staked tokens (BGT) (source)

Optimism Mainnet Quest (April 2023)

Optimism used Galxe for a campaign centered on on-chain usage of the OP Mainnet. The result: a ~2.9× increase in daily transactions, sustained after the quest ended. This wasn’t a social buzz campaign — it drove direct usage, reinforced behavior, and left a measurable footprint on protocol activity.

• 3.4 million NFTs minted across 18 dApps on the Optimism network (source)

• Doubled unique daily wallets — from ~11.7K to 25.1K post-campaign

• On-chain usage jumped ~50%, translating social quests into real activity

These are flagship examples from some of the top L2 ecosystems — all executing high-scale, credential-based onboarding funnels.

Zealy Campaigns from Web3 Projects

Zealy has a proven track record in fuelling community gamification. Not as high-scale as Galxe, but solid, quantifiable engagement loops — as far as their sales copy and case studies can tell us.

Kyoto Blockchain & Qorpo World (Apr 2024)

Kyoto and Qorpo used a joint Zealy quest hub to push coordinated growth across two ecosystems. The campaign stacked invite rewards, cross-community XP races, and gated social tasks. Short ramp, fast returns. Users moved between hubs in days, and numbers landed hard.

• 10,000 combined new users added in under one week (source)

• Shared quests across both hubs—invites, content creation, social follows 

• Gamified XP system kept engagement high with live leaderboard competition

Relative (Jun 2023)

Relative tied their Zealy campaign directly into beta rollout. The quest flow pushed users to connect wallets, try features, and loop back with feedback — all logged through XP. This campaign primed early testers and closed the gap between community and product.

• Connected over 7,500 wallets within one month of beta launch (source)

• Higher sustained engagement through educational and gamified quests

• Quests led to real on-chain activity and product feedback loops

NFT Paris Event (Mar 2024)

The Zealy questline for NFT Paris blended online and IRL actions. Attendees earned XP for booth visits, selfie uploads, and social activity tied to event moments. It kept the funnel warm pre-event and activated live during the show — moving casuals into contact.

• Attendee quests drove 35,000 views on event announcement tweets (source)

• Over 10% of attendees engaged during the two-day conference

• Quests mixed online and offline actions — booth visits, selfies, quiz answers

Are They Cost-Effective?

Neither Galxe nor Zealy comes with built-in ROI. What you get depends on how you run it.

Zealy pushes out social tasks and XP loops. It’s fast to deploy, cheap to run, and good for farming surface activity. Galxe, on the other hand, is heavier. It loads gas fees, credential steps, and token gating into the flow. You pay more, but you get wallet-level movement — if your setup tracks it.

Neither platform connects actions to deposits, usage, or retention without extra work. If you’re not tagging wallet behavior and calculating cost-per-conversion, you’re spending blind.

That said, these campaigns still get used for a reason. On VC decks, pitch calls, and ecosystem updates, they move numbers that look good: participant counts, social spikes, credential issuances, leaderboard screenshots. Investors see motion. Communities feel momentum. It buys attention.

In good setups, that attention gets converted. Galxe campaigns can prime userbases with verified wallets, gated rewards, or airdrop eligibility. Zealy can surface contributors early, build Discord velocity, or trigger micro-virality through share-to-earn loops.

But none of that sticks without a backend. Without downstream tracking and post-campaign capture, you’re left with noise. Most campaigns optimize for vanity: likes, retweets, XP. Not deposits, not trades, not DAU retention. And most teams never look past the quest.

How Much Does a Galxe Campaign Cost?

Galxe campaigns aren’t free, and they’re not simple. You’re paying for infrastructure, not just reach. Costs fall into three functional blocks: setup, execution, and incentive delivery. The more credentialed and wallet-based your campaign, the higher the baseline cost. Here’s what that actually means.

Setup & Verification

Before your campaign can go live, Galxe requires you to set up a verified “Space” — this acts as your project’s environment inside their ecosystem. Without it, you can’t launch quests or distribute rewards. If you want to gate by identity (e.g. KYC, region lock, one-account-per-user), you’ll also need to integrate Galxe Passport.

• Space creation and verification: ~300 USDC deposit per chain, non-refundable

• Galxe Passport (optional): requires Galxe+ tier or paid add-on for KYC integration via Sumsub

Gas & Transaction Fees

Every time a user completes a task that triggers an on-chain action, such as claiming an NFT, minting a credential, verifying identify, someone has to pay gas. Galxe offers a “Gas Station” that lets projects cover this upfront. If you skip this, users pay gas themselves, which kills participation rates fast, especially on L2s with cost-sensitive user bases.

• Galxe Gas Station: ~$0.10 in ETH per claim on Optimism/Arbitrum at time of writing

• Without it: User covers the fee, often resulting in drop-off mid-quest

Token Rewards & Airdrops

This is where real money moves. If your campaign offers token rewards, NFTs, or airdrop eligibility, you fund it directly. You define the pool, handle the distribution (Earndrop, OAT, Merkle drop), and price it per user. The bigger your reach or the more complex the reward logic, the higher the cost.

This is also where most of the budget goes in large-scale campaigns.

• Arbitrum Odyssey: 1.6M NFTs minted, $40M bridged with a reward pool likely well into six figures. Pure speculation here but based in reality.
  
  
  

• Berachain’s March of the Beras: 8.5M users across identity-linked flows — staked rewards + token gating likely passed $100K

Example breakdown for mid-size Galxe campaign:

First, let’s define mid-size:

You’re a DeFi or gaming protocol running a credential-linked Galxe campaign targeting 10K–20K users. You want wallet-based participation, on-chain actions, and token or NFT rewards. Think: more structured than Ambire Wallet, smaller scale than Arbitrum Odyssey.

• Space creation deposit: 300 USDC (non-refundable, per chain)

• Gas Station buffer: 1,000–2,000 USDC (covers ~10K–20K on-chain claims at ~$0.10/claim)

• Token/NFT reward pool: 7,500–10,000 USDC (assuming ~$0.50–$1.00 value per qualified user)

• Total estimated cost: ~9,000–12,000 USDC

This budget covers full execution: verified Space setup, gas for credential claims, and meaningful reward value per participant. Attribution isn’t included — you’ll still need your own tracking layer to link task completions to protocol outcomes.

How Much Does a Zealy Campaign Cost?

Zealy campaigns are structured around XP systems, task flows, and a reward pool that you fund. Unlike Galxe, there’s no on-chain component by default — this keeps base costs lower, but also disconnects participation from product usage unless you build that link yourself.

Costs fall into two buckets: platform fees (optional, depending on plan), and reward budget (mandatory if you want participation). Zealy doesn’t charge per user or quest, but your cost-per-conversion depends entirely on how competitive your reward logic is and how clean your funnel is.

Platform & Subscription Fees

Zealy operates on a tiered model. On the free plan, you get unlimited users and quests, but no advanced promotion or automation tools. Paid plans unlock deeper analytics, quest promotion boosts, and API integrations.

• Free plan: unlimited users, no direct cost

• Standard/Plus tiers: range from ~$200–$600/month depending on campaign volume and feature access

• Enterprise: custom pricing for larger teams or integrations

Most small-to-mid campaigns run entirely on the free plan.

Reward Pool & Cost per Acquisition (CAC)

You define the rewards, such as tokens, NFTs, roles, or raffle entries. Zealy doesn’t enforce distribution, but if the reward isn’t real, users won’t stay. CAC depends on how many users you're rewarding and how well your quests convert effort into value.

• Recommended reward pool: $300–$1,000 for 2,000–5,000 users

• Target CAC (well-run): $0.50–$1.00 per user

• Realistic CAC (average setup): $1.50–$1.80 per user based on reward dilution and farming behavior

• Example 1: Kyoto & Qorpo onboarded 10K users with an estimated $1.5K total campaign cost → ~$0.15 CAC

• Example 2: Relative drove 7.5K wallets with an estimated $1K total spend → ~$0.13 CAC

• Example 3: NFT Paris activated 3.5K users onsite with an estimated $2K campaign cost → ~$0.57 CAC

Cheap traction is possible but only if reward logic is tight and Sybil activity is filtered early.

Example: What Does a Mid-Size Zealy Campaign Cost?

Let’s define mid-size:

You’re a Web3 product with a pre-launch or early-stage community. You want to onboard ~5,000 users, build social reach, and reward top participants with tokens or merch. Think: Ambire Wallet or Epiko-tier campaign.

• Reward pool: ~1,000 USDT (split between top contributors and raffles)

• Platform fees: likely zero (most stay on free tier), or ~$300 for Plus plan

• Total estimated cost: ~1,300–1,500 USD

• Estimated CAC: as low as $0.30/user if well-optimized, higher if left unfiltered

You’ll still need someone reviewing submissions, approving winners, and tracking outcomes—Zealy won’t automate that for you. Without tight control, you’ll pay for volume without signal.

What Can Go Wrong with Galxe and Zealy?

These platforms promise low-friction engagement, but the structure of how they operate creates real failure points. Most campaigns look fine on the surface until you inspect who’s participating, what they’re getting, and what you’re actually buying.

You Attract Extractors, Not Users

Campaigns incentivize behavior with XP, points, or token rewards. But the reward mechanics, especially for Zealy, invite Sybil actors and “campaign tourists.” These are wallets created to:

• Farm quests across dozens of projects

• Extract rewards or NFTs

• Immediately leave once the incentives stop

If you don’t build deep product-linked incentives, the outcome is predictable: inflated metrics, no retention, and dead wallets.

Tasks Are Too Shallow to Mean Anything

Most default tasks are surface-level:

• “Follow on X”

• “Join Discord”

• “Retweet a post”

These actions can be botted, spoofed, or completed with no real user intent. They simulate traction without any downstream conversion unless you add your own funnel infrastructure.

Rewards Are Not Enforced

Neither Galxe nor Zealy distributes actual rewards. They only track participation.

• Galxe gives out OATs, identity badges, and NFTs , but these are only valuable if you, the project, tie them to something real (airdrop, access, future unlocks). Otherwise, they’re worthless.

• Zealy uses XP and leaderboards. You decide if rewards exist, who gets them, and how they're distributed. If your payout is vague, late, or reserved for just the top few users, most participants walk away with nothing.

This structure creates a gap between user expectation and project delivery which can lead to backlash, distrust, and community churn.

No Conversion Tracking by Default

Both platforms stop at task completion. You don’t get:

• Wallet-level attribution

• Cost-per-conversion

• Drop-off rates

• LTV or product usage

Unless you build a parallel system (Zapier, Sheets, analytics backend), you’re paying for engagement with zero downstream insight. That makes campaign ROI hard to calculate and easy to fake.

Campaigns Can Be Exploited

There are real failure modes on both platforms:

• Phishing links injected into task flows (e.g. Discord or website redirects)
  Unpaid contributors in Zealy campaigns where hundreds do the work, only a handful get paid

• Reputation loss when rewards don’t match expectations or when winners game the system

Both platforms shift all responsibility onto the project. If anything breaks — fraud, spam, legal risk — you own it.

Are Galxe and Zealy Worth It—and How Do You Make Them Work?

It depends who you are, what you’re measuring, and how tight your funnel is. These tools are not plug-and-play growth solutions. Both Galxe and Zealy function as wrappers around tasks, wallets, and surface metrics. Used with discipline, they can drive specific outcomes. Used lazily, they’ll bleed budget for nothing.

1. Early-Stage Project (No Product, Building Community)

Use if: You need visibility, prelaunch hype, and basic follower acquisition.
Don’t use if: You’re trying to validate product–market fit or get real user feedback.

What you should get:
A temporary spike in social proof; followers, Discord/Telegram members, a mailing list. Enough to look alive and attract partners, not enough to validate the product.

How to run it right:

• Run a capped campaign (e.g. first 500–1000 users max)

• Offer specific rewards: early access, testnet spots, WL slots

• Track wallets manually or through Galxe credential snapshots

• Avoid promising tokens unless distribution is guaranteed

Goal: Use once to establish surface credibility. Then shut it down and build real traction.

2. Mid-Sized Protocol (Live Product, Needs Usage Growth)

Use if: You have a working dApp, L2, or platform and want to trigger first use cases or new wallet activity.
Don’t use if: You lack analytics to track what users do post-quest.

What you should get:
A burst of top-funnel users completing one real action: staking, bridging, swapping, connecting. Enough to populate dashboards, demo usage, and learn drop-off points.

How to run it right:

• Galxe for credential-based tasking (e.g. “bridge $50+,” “mint once”)

• Pair with your own wallet-linked reward system (Merkle, PoAP)

• Zealy only if you’ve pre-filtered users (e.g. holders, past participants)

• Measure cost-per-wallet and post-campaign decay

Goal: Controlled wallet activation around a specific product feature. Real traction, not noise.

3. Large DAO or Exchange (Multi-Campaign, Global Audience)

Use if: You want structured credentialing, campaign infrastructure, and scalable social loops.
Don’t use if: You can’t dedicate ops or analytics to audit outcomes.

What you should get:
A persistent reward layer — ID-gated access to features, events, or roles. Campaign history that users can reference. Structured contributor attribution.

How to run it right:

• Use Galxe Passport, OAT, or SBT flows to build a credential graph

• Zealy only for broad social quests with no monetary rewards

• Automate tracking (Dune/Mixpanel) and expose campaign data transparently

• Enforce public reward logic: snapshots, vesting, full disclosure

Goal: Institutionalize contributor recognition and access without flooding your ecosystem with mercenaries.

Alternatives: Build Your Own Loyalty Engine

What if you don’t want Galxe or Zealy?

If you’ve got minimal budget, custom needs, or don’t want to feed your funnel into someone else’s metrics layer, you can roll your own. Most on-chain or community campaigns don’t need full platform bloat—they need task gating, proof capture, and reliable reward logic. That’s it.

Galxe Alternatives – For Wallet Gating & On-Chain Credentials

You can recreate Galxe’s core functions with a modular setup:

• Wallet Connection
  Use any open WalletConnect SDK or Telegram wallet bots like WalletBot or BlockWalletBot for user auth.

• Credential Logic
  Snapshot balances, NFT ownership, token holdings, or prior tx history with tools like Covalent, Dune, or Zapper API.

• Reward Delivery
  Push rewards via Merkle drops (e.g. MerkleDistributor), Guild.xyz for access gating, or just mint NFTs directly using your own contract or tools like Manifold.

• Gas Buffering
  Optional: preload wallet gas via services like Biconomy, Gelato Relay, or run manual top-ups for trusted users.

This gets you on-chain credentialing, reward logic, and gated flows without Galxe’s baked-in UX and costs.

Zealy Alternatives – For XP Loops & Community Tasks

If you’re trying to gamify Discord, create XP systems, or track community tasks without Zealy’s structure:

• Task Management
  Use Sesh or Typeform to collect entries, Zapier/Make to validate tweets, posts, or link submissions, and Google Sheets as your tracking DB. If you’d like to create an autopilot solution, lean into n8n to automate database management.

• XP & Leaderboards
  Run your own point system inside Discord with bots like Arcane, MEE6, or AmariBot. Pair with Airtable to track quest completions manually.

• Sprints & Quests
  Run time-boxed challenges in Discord channels or Google Forms. Collect wallet or Telegram IDs for reward routing later.

• Manual Distribution
  Token or merch payouts can go out via simple CSV uploads, wallet dApps, or POAP delivery based on form submissions.

You lose Zealy’s built-in UI and automation, but you gain full control, zero fees, and flexibility.

So — Should You Even Use Galxe or Zealy?

Ultimately, Galxe and Zealy are just tools. They don’t fix your growth problems, they amplify them. If your funnel sucks, if your targeting’s lazy, if you’ve got no post-campaign capture, these platforms will magnify the waste. All they do is surface motion. Whether it’s signal or noise is on you.

Here’s the punchline: When you’re paying for Zealy or Galxe campaigns, you’re not paying for growth — you’re paying for the illusion of it, unless you build the system underneath.

If you’ve got the ops, the structure, and the strategy, these tools can stack wins. If not, you’ll be another case study in leaderboard churn and airdrop regret. This guide gave you the blueprint, the failure points, and the cost math. You’ve got no excuse to run blind.

Want help mapping your stack, tightening your funnel, or figuring out if these platforms are even worth it for your stage? I run deep-dive growth diagnostics and campaign teardown sessions. Book, and I’ll help you turn noise into traction.