Giveaway Rules Generator

Describe your giveaway in the field above the way you would explain it to a friend, in any language. The more precise the description, the fewer corrections you will make. The six things that matter:

1. Who is running it: the brand or account name, and any partner.
2. The prize: what the winner gets, in one sentence, with an approximate retail value if you know it.
3. How to enter: follow the account, comment, tag a friend, or a combination.
4. The dates: start, end of entries, and the date of the drawing.
5. How many winners, and how they are notified.
6. Who can enter: countries or states, minimum age, one entry per person.

The generator returns a text organised in numbered sections. Copy it, fix what does not sound like you, and publish it where entrants will find it: a pinned comment, a link in your bio, or a page on your site.

Complete rules answer every question an entrant, or a lawyer, could ask. In reading order:

• The sponsor: legal name and address, and a contact for questions.
• The promotion period: start and end dates and times, with the time zone.
• Eligibility: age, countries or states of residence, exclusion of the sponsor's employees and their families, one entry per person.
• How to enter: exactly what to do, and what disqualifies an entry (private accounts, deleted comments, fake accounts, bots).
• No purchase necessary, and a free method of entry if any entry route involves a purchase.
• The prize: description, approximate retail value, no cash substitution, and who pays taxes on it.
• Winner selection: by random drawing, on what date, with what tool, and how long the winner has to respond before an alternate is drawn. State the odds: they depend on the number of eligible entries.
• Prize delivery: how, within what time, and who pays shipping.
• Personal data: what you collect, why, for how long, and how to ask for its deletion.
• Platform release: the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with Instagram, Facebook or Meta.
• Governing law, and "void where prohibited".

Three ingredients make a lottery in the United States: a prize, chance, and consideration. A lottery is illegal unless the state runs it. Remove any one ingredient and it is legal: remove consideration and you have a sweepstakes, remove chance and you have a contest judged on skill. A social media giveaway is a sweepstakes, which is why the rules say no purchase necessary and why an entry that requires buying something also needs a free alternative.

Some states add paperwork. In Florida and New York, a sweepstakes whose total prize value exceeds $5,000 has to be registered and bonded before it starts; Rhode Island requires registration for retail promotions over $500. If your prize is that large, the rules are not enough on their own.

Meta's promotion guidelines apply on top: you are responsible for the lawful operation of the promotion, the rules must include a release of Instagram or Facebook and an acknowledgment that the platform has nothing to do with it, and you may not ask people to tag themselves in content they are not in. Facebook also forbids requiring a share on a personal timeline as a condition of entry. Our guide to contest rules and engagement goes into the detail.

If you run the giveaway from the European Union or the United Kingdom, the personal data section is not optional: the GDPR applies the moment you collect a name and an address to ship the prize.

A sufficient description fits in three lines: "Giveaway run by @mystore from December 1 to December 15. Prize: a gift box worth $80. To enter, follow the account and comment tagging a friend. One winner drawn at random on December 16, US residents 18 and over."

The generator turns it into about ten sections: sponsor, period, eligibility, how to enter, prize, winner selection, delivery, data, Meta release, governing law. What you still have to add yourself: your legal name and address, which the tool does not know.

Rules promise a random drawing; you still have to prove one happened. Lukky reads the comments on the post, removes duplicates and entries that break the rules, draws at random and issues a public certificate your entrants can check. It is the app more than 2.5 million draws have already been run from.

For a drawing with no social network involved, among colleagues or family, the Secret Santa generator does it in a minute.