At Merkl, one of the first questions we hear is: “Why wouldn’t a DeFi protocol or a chain just distribute its own incentives?”
At first glance, distributing tokens might seem simple. However, protocols or chains attempting to do it themselves quickly realize that incentive distribution is anything but simple.
The reason Merkl exists — and continues to grow — is because building an efficient, secure, and flexible system for incentives is much more complicated and resource-intensive than it appears.
Let’s explore why using Merkl makes far more sense than building your own system internally.
In-house incentives cost you focus — and money
Building an in-house incentive distribution system sounds logical until you look at the actual costs. It requires a dedicated team of developers — often full-time — to build, secure, and maintain the infrastructure. That’s not a one-time project; it’s a long-term commitment and operational burden.
These resources are far better spent where they matter most: on your core product.
Incentives are essential to user growth and ecosystem traction, but they are still secondary to your product's core functionality. Every week your team spends maintaining internal reward systems is a week not spent pushing your roadmap forward.
And let’s not forget the financial cost. Maintaining an in-house team is significantly more expensive than simply using Merkl, which offers a battle-tested incentive system — ready to go — with no need to build anything from scratch.
That’s why protocols that initially built internally, like ZeroLend, made the switch to Merkl. It’s more cost-effective, more reliable, and frees your team to stay focused on what really moves the needle.
Incentives are not just token transfers — they’re infrastructure
It’s easy to underestimate how complex incentive distribution becomes at scale.
Manually distributing tokens or using basic contracts might work for a small test, but real incentive programs require a robust and reliable infrastructure.
Merkl handles that complexity. It runs a secure, scalable backend that processes massive amounts of onchain and offchain data to calculate and distribute rewards accurately.
The platform deploys smart contracts, operates a dedicated and resilient cloud infrastructure supporting incentives campaigns across 40+ chains, and ensures that DeFi users can access and claim their rewards through a fully integrated frontend experience.
Merkl also provides an API that enables protocols and chains to easily integrate incentive campaigns directly into their own app for a seamless user experience.
In short, Merkl handles the technical burden so you don’t have to.
The most powerful and flexible incentive platform
Over time, Merkl has developed deep expertise in incentive design. It is now more than just a tool — it has become the most powerful and flexible incentive platform in the DeFi space.
Merkl supports features that go far beyond what most in-house systems can offer: cross-chain incentive distribution, boosted rewards, automated liquidity manager (ALM) support with reward forwarding, custom eligibility criteria such as token holding thresholds, and more.
This level of flexibility enables protocols and chains to design incentive campaigns that are precisely aligned with their objectives — whether that's driving liquidity, increasing token retention, stabilizing token price, expanding cross-chain presence, etc.
Merkl also offers optional frontend development for incentive programs and user support, removing the burden from internal teams and improving the overall experience for users.
Finally, by using Merkl, your incentive campaign gets seen by thousands of users on the Merkl App — where smart LPs managing millions go to earn rewards.
Why Reinvent the wheel?
Building your own incentive system might feel like being in control — but in reality, it means duplicating what already exists, with more risk, higher cost, and less efficiency.
Merkl gives you a secure, scalable, and cost-effective alternative already battle-tested by some of the most active and ambitious protocols in DeFi — Uniswap, Optimism, ZKsync, Aave, Euler, and many others.