The short answer
Almost every award seal you see on a children's product was applied for, and the application cost money. That is not the scandal it sounds like — it is simply how the category works, and the better programmes are open about it. But it does mean a seal is not the same thing as an independent review, and parents are rarely told the difference.
We hold two of these seals. Below is what each one cost us, who judged it, and what it does and does not tell you about the product. We have published the fees because a seal you cannot price is a seal you cannot weigh.
| NAPPA Awards | Mom's Choice Awards | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry cost | $434 for a single 2026 submission, falling to $329 each at five or more | $500 per Level One application; $1,500 for Level Two |
| What you send | Two physical samples in retail packaging, with tags and instructions | The product, with supporting materials |
| Who judges | Expert judges plus parent and child testers | Multiple independent evaluators, who volunteer their time |
| How long | Roughly 6–8 weeks of testing after samples arrive | Scored against set criteria for the category |
| Judged on | Quality, safety, design, and whether testers would buy it themselves | Production quality, design, educational value, entertainment value, originality, appeal, cost |
| Guaranteed? | No. NAPPA states it is "not a 'Pay-to-Play' program and an award designation is not guaranteed" | No. The fee buys the evaluation, not the outcome |
| What the fee includes | The evaluation | The evaluation, plus a lifetime licence to use the seal in marketing |
The part that is usually left out
An entry fee does not make an award meaningless. It does change what the award is evidence of.
Think of it as the difference between a restaurant that invited a critic and a critic who walked in unannounced. Both meals can be genuinely good. Only one of them tells you how the kitchen performs when nobody is watching.
Three things follow from that, and they are worth holding on to:
- The pool is self-selected. A winner beat the other products that entered, not every product on the market. A small brand that cannot spare $434 per item is simply absent from the comparison.
- Brands enter their best work. Nobody submits the item they have doubts about. A seal tells you about one product on one occasion, not about a company's range or its consistency.
- The seal usually outlives the test. Mom's Choice includes a lifetime licence with a Level One application, so a seal printed today can refer to an evaluation from years ago, on a version of the product that has since changed.
None of this is hidden. NAPPA publishes its fee schedule on its entry form and states plainly that winning is not guaranteed; Mom's Choice publishes its application levels and prices. We are repeating it here because the seal ends up on a product page and the fee schedule does not.
What our two seals are
NAPPA 2025 winner. Our Mother Daughter Matching Dresses with Dots was named a winner in the 2025 NAPPA Awards, and the listing is on NAPPA's own site rather than only on ours. NAPPA's testers file written feedback, and theirs ran to the fabric weight and the print. One wrote: "These dresses are so adorable! I love the color and the print, and it's a lighter fabric/material."
Mom's Choice Gold, Level One. Our Matching Christmas Pajamas in the gingerbread print received a Gold award at Level One, listed in the Mom's Choice Awards store. Level One is the $500 tier.
Two seals, two products. We sell thousands of items. That ratio is the honest context for any award badge you see on any children's brand, ours included.
What an award cannot tell you
This is the part that matters most, because it is where parents are most often misled — not by any one programme, but by the accumulated impression that a wall of seals equals safety.
| Question | Does an award answer it? | What actually answers it |
|---|---|---|
| Is it legal to sell to children? | No | Mandatory regulation. In the US that is the CPSIA and CPSC rules; compliance is not optional and not an achievement |
| Is the sleepwear flame-safe? | No | A specific federal standard, and a snug fit. We cover this in detail separately |
| Will it survive forty washes? | Rarely | Fibre content and construction. Testing periods are weeks, not seasons |
| Does it fit true to size? | No | Measurements, and knowing that size labels are not standardised |
| Is the fabric what the label claims? | No | Fibre-content law and, for chemical safety, a mill-level certification |
Safety compliance is the clearest case. Meeting the CPSC's requirements for children's products is the price of being allowed on the shelf at all. A brand that advertises compliance as if it were a distinction is telling you something about its marketing, not its manufacturing. The same logic applies to the flammability rules for sleepwear, which are covered in our guide to children's sleepwear flammability rules.
Seals that work differently
Not every mark on a garment is an award. Some are tests, and the distinction is more useful than the prestige ranking parents are usually offered.
- Product awards (NAPPA, Mom's Choice) are judged on appeal, design and value by people who handled the item. They are a considered opinion, paid for by the brand that entered.
- Chemical testing certifications (such as OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100) test the finished material in a laboratory against a list of restricted substances. They are also paid for by the company, but the output is a pass or a fail against a published threshold, not a judgement.
- Fibre and supply-chain standards (GOTS, FSC) certify how the material was produced and are limited in what they cover. Which of them answers which question is set out in our guide to bamboo fabric certifications.
- Independent reviews are the only category on this list a brand cannot apply for. That is exactly what makes them harder to earn and more useful to read.
If you only take one habit from this article: when you see a seal, ask what it tested. "Liked by testers" and "passed a chemical threshold" are both worth something, and they are not the same something.
How to read any award badge in about a minute
- Find the programme's own listing. A real award has a page on the awarding body's site naming the brand and product. If the seal exists only on the seller's page, that is the whole finding.
- Check the year, and check it against the product. Children's ranges change every season. A 2023 seal on a 2026 item may be accurate and still not describe what arrives.
- Read what the category was. "Best for Family" and "Best in Safety" are not interchangeable, and programmes name their categories precisely.
- Look for the fee schedule. The better programmes publish it. A programme that will not tell you what entry costs is the one to discount.
- Ask what it did not test. Fit, shrinkage, and how the seams hold after a season are almost never in scope.
Why we published the prices
We could have written the usual announcement post. We have written two of them before, and they said what those posts always say.
The reason not to do that again is simple: a parent comparing two brands cannot tell a paid-entry award from an independent one, because nobody in the industry explains the difference. That gap is not in our interest to maintain. If the only thing you take from this page is a sharper question to ask the next brand you look at, the page has done its job, and we will take the trade.
The seals we hold are real, the testers' feedback is real, and we paid to be considered. All three of those things are true at once, and a parent is better served knowing all three than knowing only the first.
What this article does not claim
We hold two seals and describe two programmes; this is not a survey of the awards industry, and other programmes work differently from both.
Fees change. The figures here are the ones the two programmes published at the time of writing, and both list their current prices on their own sites — check there rather than relying on this page a year from now.
We are not suggesting NAPPA or Mom's Choice are not worth entering, or that their evaluations are not genuine. We entered both. The argument is narrower: an entry fee changes what a seal is evidence of, and parents deserve to be told that by the brands displaying them.
Frequently asked questions
Do brands pay to win parenting awards? Brands pay to be evaluated, not to win. Both programmes here charge an entry fee and both state that the fee does not guarantee an award.
How much does it cost to enter? Expect several hundred dollars per product. NAPPA listed $434 for a single 2026 entry and Mom's Choice lists $500 for Level One.
Does that make the awards meaningless? No, but it narrows what they prove. A winner beat the products that entered, not every product on the market.
Who actually judges these? Real people who handle the product, in both cases. NAPPA uses expert judges alongside parent and child testers; Mom's Choice uses independent evaluators who volunteer their time.
Do the judges use the product? With NAPPA, yes — entrants send two samples in retail packaging and testing runs about six to eight weeks.
What did PatPat win? Two things: a 2025 NAPPA award for the Mother Daughter Matching Dresses with Dots, and a Mom's Choice Gold award at Level One for the gingerbread Matching Christmas Pajamas.
Does an award mean the product is safe? No — safety is set by mandatory regulation that every children's product must meet before it is sold. An award sits on top of that and does not replace it.
How do I check an award is genuine? Look for the product on the awarding body's own website. Both of ours are listed on NAPPA's and Mom's Choice's sites, not only on ours.
Why do old seals stay on products? Because some licences are permanent. A Mom's Choice Level One application includes a lifetime licence to use the seal, so the date matters more than the badge.
Is OEKO-TEX an award? No. It is laboratory testing of the material against a list of restricted substances, with a pass or fail result, rather than a judgement of appeal or design.
Which is more useful to a parent, an award or a certification? They answer different questions. A certification tells you a threshold was met; an award tells you people who handled it liked it.
Should I ignore awards entirely? No — just read them as one informed opinion among several, and weight independent reviews more heavily, since those are the only kind a brand cannot apply for.
Why publish your own entry fees? Because a seal you cannot price is a seal you cannot weigh, and no one else in the category was going to print the number.
About this article
Written and checked by the PatPat Editorial Team. How we research, source and review what we publish is described on our editorial standards page.
Method. Fees, judging processes and guarantees were taken from each awarding body's own published pages rather than from our records, so that a reader can check them at source. Our two award listings are linked to the awarding bodies' sites rather than to our own product pages. Nothing here is ranked.
Sources. Entry fees, sample requirements and testing timeline: NAPPA, entry form and NAPPA, FAQ. Application tiers, pricing and licence terms: Mom's Choice Awards, application levels. Mandatory requirements for children's products: US CPSC.
Related. What certifications do and do not cover is in bamboo fabric certifications; the mandatory standard behind sleepwear is in children's sleepwear flammability rules; how to judge fabric quality without any seal at all is in identifying quality bamboo fabric; and the limits of customer testimony, which has the same selection problem, are set out in five families on matching outfits.
Last updated 18 September 2026 · Next review September 2027
