An honest guide from a medal maker
We make bespoke medals and nothing else, so we will be straight with you: there are events where a trophy is the right call. Here is how clubs and organisers actually decide, and where each award earns its budget.
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Trophies suit one winner. Medals suit everyone. If your event has a single champion and a presentation photo to take, a trophy earns its place. If your event has heats, age groups, divisions or a field of finishers, medals are the only award that scales without the budget falling over.
Most clubs end up doing both: one perpetual trophy that lives in the clubhouse and gets re-engraved each year, and a run of medals so every competitor takes something home.
A trophy is priced as an individual object, and the price climbs steeply with height and material. Medals are priced across a production run, so the more you order the less each one costs. That single fact decides most club budgets.
It also changes what you can promise entrants. Awarding every finisher is a genuine selling point for an event, and with medals it is affordable. With trophies it is not.
Trophies get kept when they are perpetual and live at the club. Individual trophies handed to juniors tend to end up on a shelf, then in a cupboard, then gone.
Medals get worn on the day, photographed, hung on a rack and kept for years. Rosettes are the cheapest option and the least kept, which makes them fine for very large participation events and poor for anything you want remembered.
Anything with volume: galas, opens, races, tournaments, sports days, gradings, presentation nights. Anything where every participant should walk away with something. Anything you want branded properly, because a bespoke medal carries your crest, your colours and your event name far better than an engraved plate on a plastic column.
And anything you will repeat. Once your design and tooling exist, next year's order is a quick reorder rather than a fresh decision.
A rough guide based on how the clubs and organisers we work with actually use each award.
The pattern we see most often across the clubs and organisers we design for.
Medals for every placing across every age group and event, plus one perpetual trophy for the overall club champion. The trophy handles the history, the medals handle the day.
Finisher medals for everyone, no exceptions. Podium places get the same medal in a different finish, or a slightly larger version. Trophies are almost never the right call at a mass-participation race.
Medals for winners, runners-up and ideally every entrant. If you want a headline piece for the winning team, one trophy alongside the medals does the job without multiplying cost.
Medals throughout. Multiple apparatus, belts, weights and age groups make per-piece trophies unworkable, while one strong medal design covers everything through finish and ribbon changes.
Medals in house colours for participation and placings, with the perpetual house shield staying at school. Every child takes something home; the school keeps the history.
Send us the event and the numbers. If a medal is the wrong answer for what you are running, we will tell you, and it costs you nothing to ask. If it is the right answer, you get a free visual concept back within 24 hours.
The medal gallery
Shapes, finishes, cut-outs, colours and ribbons are all yours to choose.
Volleyball · UK
Running · USA
Running · USA
Running · USA
Sumo Wrestling · USA
Running · Canada
Running · UK
Swimming · UK
Swimming · USA
Swimming · UK
Swimming · UK
Running · USA
Gymnastics · UK
Swimming · UK
Swimming · UK
Swimming · UK
Swimming · UK
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Almost always, per person. Trophies are priced as individual pieces and rise steeply with size, while medals are priced per unit across a run, so the cost per athlete drops as quantity rises. Most clubs find they can award every competitor a medal for less than a handful of trophies would cost.
Medals, in most cases. Every child gets to take something home and wear it, which is what juniors actually care about. A single perpetual trophy for the overall winner alongside medals for everyone else is the combination most clubs settle on.
Rosettes are cheap and light, which suits very large participation events and equestrian or school settings. The trade-off is that they rarely get kept. If you want the award still on a wall in five years, a medal wins.
No. GoPodium makes bespoke medals only, and we would rather tell you that plainly than sell you something we are not good at. If a trophy is genuinely the right call for your headline award, buy that locally and let us handle the medals for everyone else.
Yes, if it is designed properly. Diameter, thickness, sculpted 3D relief, antique or two-tone finishes and a printed ribbon in your colours make a medal feel like a serious award rather than a giveaway. That is the entire point of designing one from scratch instead of buying a stock disc.
