For decades, employee benefits promised happiness but delivered hassle.
Between forms, receipts, and reimbursement delays, perks meant to motivate teams often turned into paperwork headaches.
That’s the problem the Perk set out to solve. Co-founded by Dallas Fontaine, The Perk aimed to reimagine how companies deliver rewards to their employees, moving away from slow, outdated reimbursement systems toward instant, flexible, and personal benefits.
When ScaleLabs joined the project, the goal was clear but ambitious:
Build a two-sided portal that connects employers and employees through embedded FinTech infrastructure, delivering real-time access to personalized perks.
In other words, take something traditionally painful, benefits administration, and turn it into a frictionless, enjoyable, and measurable experience for everyone involved.
The Challenge: Why Traditional Benefits Models Failed
Before The Perk, HR departments struggled with the same issues across every company size: great perks on paper, poor usage in reality.
Three problems drove this disconnect:
1. Reimbursement friction killed utilization.
Employees had to pay first, keep receipts, fill out forms, and wait weeks for reimbursements. The result? Benefits sat unused. Some companies saw participation rates as low as 10–30%, wasting budget and missing the morale boost those perks were meant to deliver.
2. One-size-fits-all benefits didn’t fit anyone.
Traditional programs gave everyone the same set of perks, gym memberships, meal stipends, and wellness credits, without considering individual needs. A 23-year-old developer and a 42-year-old parent have very different ideas of what a “benefit” looks like. Yet both received the same generic package, creating disengagement and low satisfaction.
3. FinTech complexity overwhelmed HR.
Behind every great idea for a flexible perks program sat an ocean of technical challenges: managing budgets, tax compliance, fraud prevention, payment processing, and merchant integrations. Most HR platforms weren’t built for that. The finance side required deep FinTech engineering, while the HR side demanded simplicity; two worlds rarely connected smoothly.
This was more than just a product challenge. It was a structural one. The Perk needed to combine financial infrastructure, HR workflows, and a seamless UX. All under one portal that felt effortless to use.
Strategy: Building a Portal People Actually Want to Use
To bridge those gaps, the ScaleLabs team began with deep discovery. We interviewed HR administrators, surveyed employees, and dissected competing products to understand one simple question: Why do people stop using benefits they actually want?
Through those conversations, three design principles emerged that would guide the entire build:
Instant access replaces reimbursement friction
Employees shouldn’t have to wait weeks to enjoy a benefit. The solution was to pre-fund virtual accounts tied to each employee’s category: food, wellness, professional growth, and more. This FinTech infrastructure lets employees use their perks instantly with one tap, while the system handles payment processing and merchant settlement in the background.
Personalization within guardrails
Instead of dictating what employees could spend on, The Perk gave them a choice within defined categories. HR teams could set budgets and categories, but employees picked what mattered most: gym passes, language courses, meditation apps, or meal subscriptions. This made benefits feel personal without breaking company policy or compliance rules.
Simplicity for HR, power behind the scenes
Even the smartest system fails if HR can’t use it. ScaleLabs built The Perk’s employer portal so simple that an HR manager could configure a full program in minutes, without needing IT support. Behind that simplicity lived complex automation: fund allocation, payment routing, fraud prevention, and real-time analytics, all invisible to the user.
Together, these principles became the backbone of The Perk’s success. What started as an employee perks app evolved into a two-sided FinTech platform, one that let companies offer flexible, compliant benefits at scale, while giving employees the immediate satisfaction of using them without waiting or paperwork.
The Build: Dual Portals, One Seamless Experience
Turning the idea into reality meant building two connected systems that worked as one — an employer portal for HR teams and an employee portal for everyday users. Both needed to be simple, fast, and fully automated.
Employer Portal (Web)
The admin side became the command center for HR. It included tools to create and manage benefit programs, track usage, and control budgets - all without needing technical help. HR teams could set up categories like “Wellness,” “Food,” or “Learning,” assign monthly budgets, add employees, and monitor spending in real time. They could see which benefits people used most and which ones needed adjustment. Everything was visual, clean, and instant.
Employee Portal (Mobile Web + App)
On the employee side, ScaleLabs designed an interface that felt more like a lifestyle app than an HR tool. It showed available balances, suggested benefits based on past use, and allowed instant redemption at partnered merchants. Employees didn’t have to submit receipts or wait for approval. When they chose a benefit, the payment was processed immediately, and the balance was updated automatically.
The two sides of the portal worked in sync - every employer decision reflected instantly in the employee experience. This connected design helped remove the invisible delay that made most traditional benefit systems feel slow and outdated.
Results: From 10% to 83% Utilization
The change was massive. Companies using The Perk went from low engagement to employees actively using their benefits every month.
The results were clear:
Utilization jumped from as low as 10% to over 80%.
HR teams saved hours each week by removing manual reimbursement tasks.
Employees rated satisfaction higher than ever, saying benefits finally felt useful and personal.
Employers saved money by shifting budgets toward benefits that were actually used.
The platform’s success didn’t go unnoticed. The Perk’s rapid adoption and strong technology led to its acquisition in 2022, proving that solving a real-world pain point with smart automation creates measurable business value.
The biggest win, however, wasn’t just numbers; it was behavior. Employees stopped thinking of benefits as something to “claim later.” They became part of daily life. Lunch orders, gym passes, or online learning subscriptions, everything was instant, seamless, and stress-free.
Voices from the Field
The best measure of success came from the people using it. HR managers, employees, and small business owners all shared how The Perk changed their experience.
HR Director, Tech Company
“Before The Perk, we offered gym reimbursements, but only 15% of our staff used them. The paperwork was too much. Now, with instant wellness credits, over 75% of the team actively uses them. Same budget, way better results.”
Benefits Administrator, Mid-Size Company
“The admin side is ridiculously simple. I set everything up in one afternoon - added employees, set categories, funded the account, and it just runs. No constant checking or fixing.”
Employee User
“I love that I don’t have to pay first and wait anymore. When I want to use my food credit for lunch, I just open The Perk and order. It’s paid instantly. That small change makes a big difference.”
Small Business Owner
“We couldn’t afford a traditional benefits program. The Perk gave my team real perks that fit their lives, without the extra cost or admin work.”
These stories made one thing clear: The Perk didn’t just build new software. It changed how people felt about workplace perks, turning benefits from a chore into something everyone actually enjoys.
Lessons Learned and Future Vision
The biggest lesson from The Perk project was that benefits only create value when people actually use them. The old reimbursement model made things slow and frustrating, so employees stopped claiming perks altogether. Once we made benefits instant and simple, everything changed: usage went up, satisfaction grew, and HR teams got their time back.
It also showed how powerful it is when finance and user experience work together. Instant funding and easy interfaces turned complex systems into something people enjoyed using daily.
Looking ahead, The Perk’s model could grow into more categories like childcare, home services, and peer-to-peer gifting. The idea stays the same: keep it flexible, keep it personal, and keep it simple.
Why This Matters: How ScaleLabs Builds Industry-Changing Portals
The Perk case study is proof of what happens when complex systems are simplified through smart engineering. It shows how a portal can do more than connect two sides of a marketplace; it can fix an entire broken process.
At ScaleLabs, we build platforms that do exactly that. From vendor portals to client onboarding systems to benefits platforms like The Perk, our focus stays the same: connect people, automate the hard parts, and make every interaction feel effortless. We combine the precision of FinTech with the usability of modern UX so our clients can deliver tools that people actually enjoy using.
Projects like this remind us that innovation doesn’t start with technology; it starts with frustration. When you spot the friction that slows people down, and you design a system that removes it complete
ly, you don’t just improve efficiency. You create change that lasts.
If your company is ready to build a portal that works as smoothly as The Perk. Connecting teams, clients, or partners in real time, ScaleLabs can help you make it happen.
