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7 min read

Motivosity vs. Achievers: Which Platform Is Right for Your Organization?

Published on
May 13, 2026
Motivosity vs Achievers employee recognition software comparison blog header — platform comparison for HR technology and employee engagement tools

TL;DR

Choosing between recognition platforms comes down to one real question: which one will your people actually use, and which one will help your leaders act on what they learn? Motivosity and Achievers are both well-reviewed, but they're built for different organizations and different goals. This comparison breaks down where each platform wins, where it falls short, and how to know which is the right fit for your team.

Key Takeaways:

  • Motivosity is the stronger fit for mid-market and enterprise companies that want culture-first recognition — with peer-to-peer appreciation, manager enablement, and engagement visibility in one platform that's easy to adopt
  • Achievers is better suited for large global enterprises that need a broad international rewards catalog, deep enterprise-style analytics, and are comfortable with a more structured procurement and rollout process
  • Both platforms hold a 4.8/5.0 rating on Capterra, but Motivosity stands out on ease of use and culture-building while Achievers earns higher marks for enterprise scale and reward breadth
  • Motivosity's pricing is modular and transparent with most teams launching in 30–60 days; Achievers uses a custom quote process typical of enterprise software, which delays clarity early in the buying cycle
  • If manager enablement — not just recognition delivery — matters to your organization, Motivosity has a meaningfully stronger offering with coaching tools, one-on-ones, and succession planning built in

Most recognition platforms promise engagement, retention, and a better culture. Few actually change how employees experience work day to day. This distinction makes choosing between recognition platforms harder.

However, the real question is simpler: which one will your people actually use, and which one will help your leaders act on what they learn?

That's the lens that matters most in Motivosity vs Achievers. If you want a platform that keeps recognition visible, builds connections across teams, and gives managers better tools to lead, the right choice becomes clearer.

Motivosity is built around the everyday employee experience — the moments that actually shape engagement, retention, and performance. Achievers leans more toward structured, enterprise-scale programs and a larger global rewards footprint.

Quick Comparison: Motivosity vs. Achievers at a Glance

Criteria

Motivosity

Built for connection

Achievers

Core Recognition Features
Industry-leading peer-to-peer (multi-directional) social recognition tied to company values, with a company-wide social feed. Milestone celebrations (service awards and birthdays), manager spot bonuses, awards and nominations, achievement awards, and service shoutouts from customers, built to make recognition a daily social habit employees form on their own, instead of a once or twice per year initiative.
Monetary and non-monetary recognition with nomination awards and enterprise program controls. Comprehensive but designed primarily for HR-administered top-down programs rather than organic, grassroots peer participation and engagement.
Ease of Use
Consumer-grade UX with a 4–6 week average time-to-launch, guided onboarding, white-glove integration support, and no heavy IT lift required.
Enterprise-grade configuration with layered setup; typical implementation runs 12–16 weeks and commonly requires dedicated IT resources and formal change management support.
Rewards Flexibility
The largest zero-markup global rewards marketplace: 500M+ options across 170+ countries with lower shipping costs through our Shopify partnership. Includes Amazon Prime (2-day shipping on appreciation), the ThanksMatters™ Visa card, 800+ gift cards, Venmo, PayPal, swag, charitable donations, pre-paid cards, and custom catalogs. Rewards tie directly to employee spending accounts, with no logging in to move points to a gift card. Every program is fully configurable: physical items, custom catalogs, dollars, points, or any combination.
Large catalog (3M+ items, 190 countries), but G2 and TrustRadius reviewers consistently report overpriced or low-quality items, confusing navigation, and frustrating redemption experiences. Markups on rewards on the Achievers platform mean employees get less value for every dollar spent compared to Motivosity.
Culture-Building Capabilities
The only platform built around human connection: Employee Spaces (digital community hubs by team, location, or interest), multi-directional peer recognition driving 4.7 avg appreciations per employee per month, MVTV (built for engaging deskless and frontline workers), manager tools, engagement and eNPS surveys, and internal communications in one social experience employees visit daily, not just at review time.
Recognition, rewards, surveys, and employee listening tools available, but modules function as separate products rather than a unified social experience. The platform skews toward HR administration over grassroots culture-building.
Reporting & Analytics
Real-time, actionable dashboards built for HR teams, including recognition frequency, manager participation rates, engagement trends, retention signals, eNPS over time, and spend visibility. Designed for HR teams to spot what's working and what's at risk before problems compound.
Broad analytics suite with Voice of Employee reporting and enterprise dashboards, but complexity can obscure actionable insights, and customers have noted real-time data latency in reviews.
Integrations
Broad HRIS/SSO support, Slack, Teams, open API, and a growing integration ecosystem with white-glove integration support and no surprise fees for setup. No single-vendor dependency; works well across any HR tech stack.
Strong Workday and Microsoft ecosystem integrations, but the integration advantage narrows significantly for organizations that aren't running Workday as their primary HCM, and implementation fees have been reported by buyers.
Customer Support
Dedicated implementation team, guided onboarding, and a 4–6 week rollout path built to drive adoption, not just a configured system, but a successful launch with high participation from day one.
Enterprise CSM model for large accounts but custom-quote-only pricing, a demo-first sales process, and complex implementations frequently delay time-to-value by months.
Mobile App & Deskless Worker Support
A 100% native mobile app with proven daily use: full access to all Motivosity functionality on iOS and Android, not a stripped-down version. Motivosity TV rotates recognition, milestones, and announcements on shared displays in break rooms and common areas with no login required, reaching every shift and role. ThanksCards deliver physical recognition for employees without device access. Service Shoutouts let customers recognize frontline staff via QR code in real time. Push notifications and mobile alerts ensure no employee is left out, ending the two-tiered culture experience between desk and deskless workers.
Mobile app available but consistently flagged in customer reviews as not smooth or feature-rich, and no dedicated deskless-first tools to bridge the gap for frontline, manufacturing, or distributed workforces.
AI-Powered Recognition
Appreciation Intelligence™ embeds AI where it drives real outcomes for HR teams and people managers. AI-powered survey insights surface turnover hotspots and sentiment shifts before they become retention problems. "Last Thanked" nudges flag employees who haven't been recognized recently so no one falls through the cracks. The Meaningful Meter scores the quality of every recognition in real time and helps managers go beyond a generic "great job" to specific, meaningful appreciation that actually lands. An AI Tax Navigator provides conversational compliance guidance across 63 countries, informed by Deloitte and other leading advisors, with no manual tax burden for global programs. AI content moderation keeps the recognition feed safe and on-brand automatically.
Achievers Intelligence offers AI recognition writing prompts, inclusive language checks, and a personalized feed. Useful UX enhancements, but primarily surface-level features rather than AI that predicts or prevents engagement and retention problems.
AI Usage
Appreciation Intelligence™ is a full AI and data layer purpose-built for appreciation, program, and people data. It includes an API for direct access to Motivosity data and an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that lets customers connect Motivosity data to Claude, ChatGPT, and any other LLM-powered workflow. Insights AI handles plain-language queries of platform data. An AI Assistant surfaces answers, drives workflows, and flags retention risks inside the product. AI Agents act on behalf of HR administrators to handle work like program setup. Customers own their data and can plug it into their own AI stack to get more out of the platform, make better decisions, and see real business impact.
Achievers Intelligence offers recognition writing prompts, inclusive language checks, and a personalized feed. No published MCP server, no customer-accessible AI/data API for recognition data, and no agentic AI assistant. The AI features available are primarily UX enhancements rather than a forward-looking and holistic AI solution with process automation and deep insights.
Global Capabilities
Rewards in 170+ countries, AI Tax Navigator covering 63 countries (informed by Deloitte and other leading advisors), multi-currency support, and localized rewards catalogs. Built for distributed and international workforces without manual tax or compliance burden on HR.
Catalog reaches 190 countries, but tax and compliance support for global recognition programs is not productized at the same level. International rollouts often require more manual program administration.
Security & Compliance
SOC 2 Type II, GDPR-compliant, SSO via SAML, role-based permissions, and AI content moderation that keeps recognition data and the public feed safe by default.
SOC 2 Type II and enterprise-grade security. Comparable on baseline certifications.

Criteria

Core Recognition Features

Motivosity

Industry-leading peer-to-peer (multi-directional) social recognition tied to company values, with a company-wide social feed. Milestone celebrations (service awards and birthdays), manager spot bonuses, awards and nominations, achievement awards, and service shoutouts from customers, built to make recognition a daily social habit employees form on their own, instead of a once or twice per year initiative.

Achievers

Monetary and non-monetary recognition with nomination awards and enterprise program controls. Comprehensive but designed primarily for HR-administered top-down programs rather than organic, grassroots peer participation and engagement.

Criteria

Ease of Use

Motivosity

Consumer-grade UX with a 4–6 week average time-to-launch, guided onboarding, white-glove integration support, and no heavy IT lift required.

Achievers

Enterprise-grade configuration with layered setup; typical implementation runs 12–16 weeks and commonly requires dedicated IT resources and formal change management support.

Criteria

Rewards Flexibility

Motivosity

The largest zero-markup global rewards marketplace: 500M+ options across 170+ countries with lower shipping costs through our Shopify partnership. Includes Amazon Prime (2-day shipping on appreciation), the ThanksMatters™ Visa card, 800+ gift cards, Venmo, PayPal, swag, charitable donations, pre-paid cards, and custom catalogs. Rewards tie directly to employee spending accounts, with no logging in to move points to a gift card. Every program is fully configurable: physical items, custom catalogs, dollars, points, or any combination.

Achievers

Large catalog (3M+ items, 190 countries), but G2 and TrustRadius reviewers consistently report overpriced or low-quality items, confusing navigation, and frustrating redemption experiences. Markups on rewards on the Achievers platform mean employees get less value for every dollar spent compared to Motivosity.

Criteria

Culture-Building Capabilities

Motivosity

The only platform built around human connection: Employee Spaces (digital community hubs by team, location, or interest), multi-directional peer recognition driving 4.7 avg appreciations per employee per month, MVTV (built for engaging deskless and frontline workers), manager tools, engagement and eNPS surveys, and internal communications in one social experience employees visit daily, not just at review time.

Achievers

Recognition, rewards, surveys, and employee listening tools available, but modules function as separate products rather than a unified social experience. The platform skews toward HR administration over grassroots culture-building.

Criteria

Reporting & Analytics

Motivosity

Real-time, actionable dashboards built for HR teams, including recognition frequency, manager participation rates, engagement trends, retention signals, eNPS over time, and spend visibility. Designed for HR teams to spot what's working and what's at risk before problems compound.

Achievers

Broad analytics suite with Voice of Employee reporting and enterprise dashboards, but complexity can obscure actionable insights, and customers have noted real-time data latency in reviews.

Criteria

Integrations

Motivosity

Broad HRIS/SSO support, Slack, Teams, open API, and a growing integration ecosystem with white-glove integration support and no surprise fees for setup. No single-vendor dependency; works well across any HR tech stack.

Achievers

Strong Workday and Microsoft ecosystem integrations, but the integration advantage narrows significantly for organizations that aren't running Workday as their primary HCM, and implementation fees have been reported by buyers.

Criteria

Customer Support

Motivosity

Dedicated implementation team, guided onboarding, and a 4–6 week rollout path built to drive adoption, not just a configured system, but a successful launch with high participation from day one.

Achievers

Enterprise CSM model for large accounts but custom-quote-only pricing, a demo-first sales process, and complex implementations frequently delay time-to-value by months.

Criteria

Mobile App & Deskless Worker Support

Motivosity

A 100% native mobile app with proven daily use: full access to all Motivosity functionality on iOS and Android, not a stripped-down version. Motivosity TV rotates recognition, milestones, and announcements on shared displays in break rooms and common areas with no login required, reaching every shift and role. ThanksCards deliver physical recognition for employees without device access. Service Shoutouts let customers recognize frontline staff via QR code in real time. Push notifications and mobile alerts ensure no employee is left out, ending the two-tiered culture experience between desk and deskless workers.

Achievers

Mobile app available but consistently flagged in customer reviews as not smooth or feature-rich, and no dedicated deskless-first tools to bridge the gap for frontline, manufacturing, or distributed workforces.

Criteria

AI-Powered Recognition

Motivosity

Appreciation Intelligence™ embeds AI where it drives real outcomes for HR teams and people managers. AI-powered survey insights surface turnover hotspots and sentiment shifts before they become retention problems. "Last Thanked" nudges flag employees who haven't been recognized recently so no one falls through the cracks. The Meaningful Meter scores the quality of every recognition in real time and helps managers go beyond a generic "great job" to specific, meaningful appreciation that actually lands. An AI Tax Navigator provides conversational compliance guidance across 63 countries, informed by Deloitte and other leading advisors, with no manual tax burden for global programs. AI content moderation keeps the recognition feed safe and on-brand automatically.

Achievers

Achievers Intelligence offers AI recognition writing prompts, inclusive language checks, and a personalized feed. Useful UX enhancements, but primarily surface-level features rather than AI that predicts or prevents engagement and retention problems.

Criteria

AI Usage

Motivosity

Appreciation Intelligence™ is a full AI and data layer purpose-built for appreciation, program, and people data. It includes an API for direct access to Motivosity data and an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that lets customers connect Motivosity data to Claude, ChatGPT, and any other LLM-powered workflow. Insights AI handles plain-language queries of platform data. An AI Assistant surfaces answers, drives workflows, and flags retention risks inside the product. AI Agents act on behalf of HR administrators to handle work like program setup. Customers own their data and can plug it into their own AI stack to get more out of the platform, make better decisions, and see real business impact.

Achievers

Achievers Intelligence offers recognition writing prompts, inclusive language checks, and a personalized feed. No published MCP server, no customer-accessible AI/data API for recognition data, and no agentic AI assistant. The AI features available are primarily UX enhancements rather than a forward-looking and holistic AI solution with process automation and deep insights.

Criteria

Global Capabilities

Motivosity

Rewards in 170+ countries, AI Tax Navigator covering 63 countries (informed by Deloitte and other leading advisors), multi-currency support, and localized rewards catalogs. Built for distributed and international workforces without manual tax or compliance burden on HR.

Achievers

Catalog reaches 190 countries, but tax and compliance support for global recognition programs is not productized at the same level. International rollouts often require more manual program administration.

Criteria

Security & Compliance

Motivosity

SOC 2 Type II, GDPR-compliant, SSO via SAML, role-based permissions, and AI content moderation that keeps recognition data and the public feed safe by default.

Achievers

SOC 2 Type II and enterprise-grade security. Comparable on baseline certifications.

What Is Motivosity?

Motivosity is a people-first recognition and engagement platform built to help you create a more connected culture.

Motivosity is designed for organizations that want recognition to feel visible, frequent, and meaningful across teams. Plus, it gives HR and leaders better insight into engagement and retention.

Motivosity's biggest strengths sit in a few connected areas:

  • Peer-to-peer recognition
  • Manager enablement
  • Community and social connection
  • Meaningful rewards
  • Engagement and culture visibility

Motivosity is ideal for organizations with 75 to 10,000+ employees, especially with remote, hybrid, and multilocation teams.

What makes it stand out is how it brings recognition, connection, communication, and rewards into one place. That combination gives you more than a recognition program. It gives you a central home for culture, somewhere your people actually want to be.

What Is Achievers?

Achievers is an enterprise-focused recognition and rewards platform with a strong global footprint. Its positioning centers on large-scale recognition, a broad international rewards marketplace, and built-in analytics for organizations that want more structure and scale.

Achievers emphasizes:

  • Global rewards
  • Enterprise deployments
  • Incentive and award programs
  • Recognition tied to analytics and feedback
  • Broad integrations across enterprise tools

If you’re running a large global organization and want a platform built for scale, Achievers makes a strong case. It also gives enterprise teams more depth in rewards coverage and reporting.

At the same time, the experience is more procurement-led, and the platform is more likely to appeal to teams comfortable with a larger rollout process.

Motivosity vs Achievers: Feature Comparison

Peer-to-Peer Recognition

Recognition is where the difference between Motivosity vs Achievers becomes immediately clear.

Motivosity is built around a company-wide social feed and values-based appreciation that employees can use every day:

  • Teams can award peers points or dollars along with their thanks.
  • Leaders can provide monthly recognition budgets to managers and employees.

That visibility is what turns recognition into a habit. It reinforces the behaviors that drive performance and connection. Peer-to-peer recognition is one of the clearest examples of how Motivosity turns recognition into connection.

Achievers offers strong peer recognition, but the experience leans more toward structured enterprise programs. Its recognition product includes monetary and non-monetary recognition, nomination-based awards, and built-in analytics.

If your goal is more organic, daily recognition habits, Motivosity feels more natural and easier to sustain.

Rewards and Incentives

How the platform handles employee rewards is where the difference between flexibility and complexity becomes clear.

Motivosity gives you flexible rewards with simpler redemption and clearer day-to-day value. Its rewards options include gift cards, online retailers, digital payments, Visa card access, donations, swag, and milestone gifting.

Motivosity also highlights funded or unfunded programs, dollar- or points-based options, dynamic currency controls, and no service fees on gifts in its culture-focused bundles. That gives you meaningful rewards without forcing you into enterprise-level complexity. An employee rewards system is a good fit when you want flexibility and budget control.

Achievers rewards marketplace spans many countries and offers rewards such as gift cards, merchandise, swag, travel, experiences, donations, and cash. The tradeoff is that Achievers is more enterprise-oriented, which may be more than some mid-market teams need.

If you need a large, enterprise-oriented global rewards network, Achievers has real strength in that area. But for mid-market organizations, Motivosity is a better fit.

Connection and Community

Recognition only sticks when it feels like part of something bigger. That's where Motivosity's approach to connection comes in, and it's the area where the two platforms are most different.

Motivosity is built around a company-wide social feed, employee profiles, an interactive org chart, and Employee Spaces. Spaces are community hubs organized by team, location, or shared interest, giving people a real place to connect across departments instead of staying inside their team. For deskless and frontline employees, Motivosity TV brings recognition and announcements to shared displays in break rooms, lobbies, and on-site screens. Culture reaches everyone, including the people who aren't on Slack all day.

"Spaces is what I got most excited about with Motivosity. Finally, a tool that could help me build remote culture and connect people." Colton Richins, Head of People, Blueberry Pediatrics

Achievers focuses primarily on the recognition transaction itself, with support for nominations, awards programs, and structured campaigns. Both approaches work. But if your goal is to build a connected culture instead of running a recognition program, the difference between a transactional platform and one built around community shows up fast.

Integrations

Both platforms integrate with common workplace systems:

  • Human resources information systems (HRIS) like Workday and BambooHR
  • Collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams
  • Single sign-on (SSO) systems

But the difference shows up in how quickly teams can get value from those integrations.

Motivosity supports HRIS, SSO, Slack, Teams, and an open API. Its help center and integration pages call out BambooHR, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and broader HRIS and SSO support. And Motivosity’s implementation guidance frames these integrations as part of a smoother rollout.

Achievers also integrates with major workplace tools, including Workday, Outlook, Teams, and Slack. It clearly supports enterprise environments well. The difference is less about whether the integrations exist and more about how much simplicity you want in deployment.

For many teams, Motivosity feels faster to get live and easier to manage.

Motivosity vs Achievers: Pricing Comparison

Motivosity Pricing

Motivosity’s pricing is custom and transparent. Motivosity serves companies with 75 to 10,000+ employees, offering modular bundles and annual plans for small businesses, mid-market organizations, and enterprises.

With Motivosity, most teams launch within 30 to 60 days, with only 5 to 10 hours of admin time, guided by a dedicated onboarding manager. That clarity makes it easier to understand the total cost of ownership and rollout effort before you buy. Motivosity pricing makes that easier.

Achievers Pricing

Achievers uses custom pricing and a quote-based sales process. Its pricing page directs buyers to get a tailored quote based on goals, team size, and engagement priorities. That model is typical for enterprise software, but it delays clarity for buyers.

It usually means more demos, more negotiation, and less visibility into costs early in the buying process. If your organization is comfortable with a more enterprise-style procurement flow, that may be fine. If you prefer clearer pricing signals earlier, Motivosity is easier to navigate.

Motivosity vs Achievers: User Feedback and Market Reputation

Both platforms are well reviewed. So the decision is less about which one is “good” and more about how they impact adoption and culture.

Motivosity Best Overall Achievers
Capterra Score 4.8/5.0 ★★★★★ 4.8/5.0 ★★★★★
Profile Highlights Best Ease of Use badges Large rewards catalog and engagement features
Customer Review Highlights Ease of use, cross-departmental recognition visibility, community engagement, culture-building, and manager recognition Rewards catalog, values-based recognition, enterprise-ready analytics, and support for large organizations

If you look closely at reviewer patterns, the difference becomes clearer. Motivosity tends to win on adoption, culture impact, and usability. Achievers tends to stand out in enterprise scale and reward breadth.

Motivosity

On Capterra, Motivosity has a 4.8 rating based on 1,173 reviews. Its profile highlights “Best ease of use” badges and strong sentiment around appreciation and peer-driven recognition.

Motivosity is often praised for:

  • Ease of use
  • Visible appreciation across teams
  • Stronger sense of community
  • Support for culture-building and manager recognition

Achievers

Achievers has a 4.8 rating based on 2,905 reviews. Its profile points to a large rewards catalog, employee recognition, and engagement features.

Achievers is often praised for:

  • A strong rewards catalog
  • Recognition tied to company values
  • Enterprise-ready analytics
  • Broad program support for large organizations

Which Platform Is Best for Your Organization?

Choose Motivosity If You:

  • Want to build a connected culture across teams
  • Need employees to adopt the platform quickly
  • Want recognition to feel visible and natural every day
  • Care about manager enablement, not just rewards
  • Prefer more transparency around rollout and pricing
  • Want one platform to support connection, recognition, engagement, and retention

Choose Achievers If You:

  • Are a large global enterprise
  • Need a very broad international rewards catalog
  • Want deeper enterprise-style analytics
  • Are comfortable with a more structured procurement and rollout process
  • Need a platform designed around large-scale recognition operations

Why Many Organizations Choose Motivosity Over Achievers

When teams choose Motivosity, they're choosing a more human employee experience. They want:

  • Recognition that employees will actually use
  • Leaders to see what's happening across the company
  • Managers to have better tools
  • Culture to feel visible, not abstract

That's where Motivosity continues to stand out, compared to Achievers.

It brings together recognition, connection, communication, rewards, and engagement insights in one place. It's easier to roll out. It's easier to explain internally. And it gives you a clearer path from appreciation to business impact, measured in retention, engagement, and a workforce that actually wants to show up.

See Motivosity in Action

If you're deciding between Motivosity and Achievers, start with the platform your people are more likely to embrace and your leaders are more likely to use well.

Motivosity helps mid-market and enterprise companies turn employee recognition into connection, engagement, and measurable business outcomes.

If you want a platform that supports culture as it's lived every day — not just managed from a dashboard — Motivosity is worth a closer look. Get a demo.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Motivosity cheaper than Achievers?

Motivosity uses transparent, modular pricing for companies with 75 to 10,000+ employees. Achievers uses custom enterprise pricing that requires a quote-based sales process. For most mid-market teams, Motivosity is more cost-efficient because you only pay for the modules you use. And unlike many rewards platforms, Motivosity doesn't mark up rewards or take a cut of program spend, so more of your budget reaches employees.

How long does it take to implement Motivosity vs. Achievers?

Most Motivosity customers go live in 4 to 6 weeks with just 5 to 10 hours of admin time, supported by a dedicated success manager. Achievers' enterprise implementation timelines are typically longer due to the depth of configuration involved in their enterprise programs.

Which platform is better for global teams?

Both platforms support global teams. Achievers operates across 190+ countries. Motivosity offers 500M+ rewards across 170+ countries, supports 70+ languages with native translation in the social feed, and includes AI Tax Navigator for compliance guidance in 63 countries. That's useful for HR teams managing global recognition programs without a dedicated finance team to navigate tax rules.

Does Motivosity work for deskless and frontline employees?

Yes. Motivosity includes a 4.9-star native mobile app and Motivosity TV, which uses digital displays to bring recognition, milestones, and announcements to break rooms, lobbies, and shared screens. This is one of the clearest functional differences between Motivosity and most enterprise recognition platforms, which often default to desk-and-Slack-based experiences.

Article written by
Alexa Kirkland
Lifecycle Marketing Specialist
Alexa Kirkland is the Lifecycle & Customer Marketing Specialist at Motivosity, with four years of experience in the rewards and recognition industry, helping organizations build people-first, results-driven engagement strategies. Originally from Seattle, she now lives in Utah with her husband and dog and loves traveling, exploring the outdoors, and planning her next adventure.
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