The tier system

GlazeTrain has five tiers. You climb them by earning Glaze Score, which you get for sending and receiving compliments. Higher Hype Level Glazes earn more. Glaze Trains and Battle wins multiply your gains. There are no shortcuts and no purchases — the only way up is hyping people up.

The five tiers

How Glaze Score works

You earn Score for two things: sending Glazes and receiving Glazes. Roughly speaking:

• Send a Glaze: 1–5 points based on the Hype Level the system scored it at. Specific, sincere Glazes = more points.
• Receive a Glaze: 1–3 points (less than sending, because the platform rewards effort over reception).
• Send a Glaze that contributes to a completed Glaze Train: standard score + a multiplier. Conductors (the first sender) get a slightly bigger bonus.
• Win a Glaze Battle: standard score + winner's bonus.
• Lose a Glaze Battle: standard score + smaller participation bonus.
• Daily streak bonus: a small bump for every day you send at least one Glaze.

What each tier unlocks

Spark (everyone starts here)

Full app access. Send and receive Glazes. Hop on Glaze Trains started by others. Default features.

Flame (50+)

Start your own Glaze Trains (instead of just joining). Send Glaze Battle challenges. Add a tier badge to your profile.

Bonfire (150+)

Custom profile colors. Send "boosted" Glazes that show up larger in the recipient's notifications.

Inferno (500+)

Battle hosting privileges (you can host community battles featuring other people). Inferno badge with a flame animation.

Supernova (1000+)

Supernova ring around your avatar. Featured on the community spotlight rotation. Early access to new features.

None of these are paywalled. The whole tier system is earned through actual platform use. No tier requires payment, no tier is faster with money. Read why GlazeTrain is fully free →

What doesn't earn Score

A few specific things worth calling out:

• Just signing up. No completion bonuses for filling in your profile. Make a friend, send a Glaze, then we'll talk.
• Hype Level 1 Glazes. A bare "you're great" technically passes the positivity check but scores minimum points. The platform nudges you toward specificity.
• Rejected Glazes. If a Glaze fails the positivity check, it doesn't earn anything. (And the rejection message tells you why.)
• Reciprocal-Glaze farming. If two accounts start exclusively trading Glazes back and forth, the system detects the pattern and dampens the Score earnings. Trade with the community, not in a sealed two-person loop.

Can you go down a tier?

No. Tiers are permanent. Once you hit Bonfire, you're Bonfire forever, even if you go quiet for six months. Glaze Score itself doesn't decay either — it's a cumulative lifetime stat.

This is deliberate. We don't want the app to feel like a Duolingo widow situation where missing a day costs you progress. Streaks are the only mechanic with daily pressure, and those are opt-in and visible.

Leaderboards: there aren't any

You won't find a global leaderboard on GlazeTrain. We considered it. We decided against it.

Leaderboards make the top of the platform feel like a race. The people most likely to grind for #1 are not always the people best at sincere compliments — they're the people best at gaming systems. We don't want that to be the optimization target.

What we have instead: your friends' tiers are visible to you. The community spotlight rotates through Supernova users. Your own profile shows your tier and score. That's the social proof — no race.