Pick Giveaway Winner
This plugin randomly selects a winner or winners from the comments of a giveaway post. It only lists the 100 most recent posts to reduce strain on your server. You can disqualify people who’ve entered more than once…
Consider an alternative
Pick Giveaway Winner shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 100+ sites, is rated 4.3/5 and was last updated 5 years ago, and scores 34/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (100+ active installs)
- No update in 5 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 5.8 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Pick Giveaway Winner stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| contest | #89 |
| give-away | >100 |
| giveaway | >100 |
| winner | #100 |
| winners | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 from 6 reviews
About Pick Giveaway Winner
From the official readme · v1.3Description
This plugin randomly selects a winner or winners from the comments of a giveaway post. It only lists the 100 most recent posts to reduce strain on your server. You can disqualify people who’ve entered more than once (determined by email), or reduce their entries to only one. The plugin uses MySQL’s random function RAND() to randomly select the winners directly from the database.
Installation
- Upload the folder ‘pick-giveaway-winner’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory.
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Go to Tools -> Pick Giveaway Winner.
- Select the giveaway post from the drop-down menu.
- Select how many winners you want.
- Choose how to handle duplicate entries (determined by email).
- Press the “Pick Winner!” button to randomly draw your winners.
Frequently asked questions
How are the winners randomly selected?
The plugin uses MySQL’s RAND() function to pick the winners directly from the database.
Why does it take so long to choose a winner?
The more comments your post has, the longer it will take to parse the data and determine a winner. Also, if you choose to “Discard multiple entries, but allow the entrant a single entry” the plugin has to do an additional database query to get your results, which takes more time. Be patient and your results will be returned as soon as possible.
This isn’t random! I ran the plugin twice in a row and got the same winner.
It may seem counterintuitive, but if you re-run the plugin on the same post and occasionally get the same winner, this proves that the plugin actually is random. For example, if you roll a dice several times you will eventually get the same number twice in a row. The same thing happens with the plugin. However, if you run the plugin several times in a row and keep getting the same winner, that could indicate a problem.
Why can I only run this plugin on the 100 most recent posts?
This is done to reduce strain on the server and avoid problems that occurred when people had more than a thousand posts. Most giveaways should be done by the time you’ve posted 100 more posts, so this shouldn’t cause problems for most people.
This is awesome! Can I send you money?
Sure! Go to my plugin page at https://www.makeworthymedia.com/plugins/ to donate.
Would you like to thank anyone?
Yes, I would! Thanks to Roni Noone at http://www.roninoone.com/ for beta testing this plugin.
Changelog
Removed wpdb::prepare() errors you might see when running the plugin in Wordpress 3.5 and up. Updated FAQ.
1.3
- Changed the way the dropdown list of posts is generated and limited it to the most recent 100 posts to avoid trouble people were having if they had more than a thousand posts.
1.1
- Removed wpdb::prepare() errors you might see when running the plugin in WordPress 3.5 and up.
- Added label tags to radio button options so you can select an option by clicking on the text next to it and not just directly on the radio button.
- Updated the FAQ to answer a frequent question about the randomness of the plugin.
1.0
- Original version of the plugin.
Screenshots
For developers
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Best Pick Giveaway Winner alternatives
All contest plugins →
FAQ
Pick Giveaway Winner: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 30, 2026
Is Pick Giveaway Winner free?
Yes. Pick Giveaway Winner is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Pick Giveaway Winner safe to use in 2026?
Pick Giveaway Winner shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 100+ sites, is rated 4.3/5 and was last updated 5 years ago, and scores 34/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Pick Giveaway Winner?
Pick Giveaway Winner is active on 100+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 17,458 times since it launched in January 2011. It was downloaded 59 times in the last 30 days.
Does Pick Giveaway Winner work with WordPress 7.1?
Pick Giveaway Winner is officially tested up to WordPress 5.8.17, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Pick Giveaway Winner last updated?
The latest version, 1.3, was released on July 23, 2021 (5 years ago).
Who makes Pick Giveaway Winner?
Pick Giveaway Winner is developed and maintained by Makeworthy Media.
What are the best alternatives to Pick Giveaway Winner?
The most popular alternatives to Pick Giveaway Winner are TotalPoll for Polls and Con… (1K+ installs), ePoll (1K+ installs) and Contest Gallery (1K+ installs).
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