Reddit announced on Wednesday that it is reintroducing its awards system after shutting down the program last year. The company said that most of the mechanisms related to awards will remain the same, with some new additions. For instance, there’s a new design for awards, a new award button under eligible posts, and a leaderboard showing top awards earned for a comment or a post.
Earlier this month, Reddit talked about bringing back its awards program during its first earnings call as a public company.
The company sunset its awards program last year along with the ability for users to purchase coins. At the same time, Reddit introduced “Golden Upvotes,” which were purchased directly through cash. In a new post, the company said the system wasn’t as expressive as awards.
“While the golden upvote was certainly simpler in theory, in practice, it missed the mark. It wasn’t as fun or expressive as legacy awards, and it was unclear how it benefited the recipient,” the social network said.
Users who want to give awards to posts and comments will need to buy “gold,” which kind of replaces coins. On a support page, the company mentioned that, on average, awards cost anywhere between 15 to 50 gold. Gold packages in Reddit’s mobile apps currently start at $1.99 for 100 gold. Users can buy as much as 2,750 gold for $49.99.
The company is also adding some safeguards to the awards system, such as disabling awards in NSFW subreddits, trauma and addiction support subreddits, and subreddits with mature content. Additionally, users will be able to report awards to avoid them being used for moderator removals.
Last year, Reddit introduced a community rewards program for users in the U.S. and started paying people for making useful contributions. With its latest announcement, the social media company has also expanded the program to 35 countries.