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Caption Contest

You don't need immense amounts of talent to win the Caption Contest, just a loyal group of friends and a bit of luck! If you have both of those, you can win Neopoints, an item prize, a trophy, and even an avatar.

A Brief History

Originally, the contest ran twice per week, with new images releasing every Monday and Thursday. In April 2011 it transitioned to a weekly cadence, with new images releasing every Tuesday. This continued until March 2015, when it entered a prolonged hiatus, finally resuming in July 2017 at a cadence of one contest per month.

In the past, the Caption Contest was also run in multiple other languages. Each language used the same caption image. Users were only able to enter a caption in one language per round. This meant that, for example, you could have entered round 171 in Spanish and round 172 in English, but you could not have entered round 171 in both English and Spanish as that would potentially allow you to win more than once.

Publication Schedule

The current picture to be captioned (or voted on) can be found on the contest page. There is no official schedule published by TNT announcing submission windows, or when captions will be chosen and voting will commence. When voting begins, TNT will announce it in the New Features, and will also state when the voting will end, and the winners selected. There is additionally no official time of day when this occurs, although it typically happens between 8am-2pm: during business hours and before the New Features is posted for the day.

The voting period for contests only starts and end on business days, meaning it will not start or end on an official TNT holiday or a weekend. Voting periods are typically less than 7 calendar days in length, but can be as short as 24 hours. Shorter periods are generally those that fall around major holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That all being said, timing your submission is a bit of a guessing game. The first step is to identify when the winners may be announced. For example, January 2026's voting period should end as close as possible to February 1st. February 1, 2026 is a Sunday, so we can reasonably guess that the voting may end on Monday, February 2nd.

Knowing that the length of the voting period is almost always less than 1 week, and that periods do not begin on weekends, we can guess that January 2026's voting is likely to begin sometime between Tuesday January 27th and Friday January 30th.

A month such as December, though, would be an exception because TNT is often out of office for the holidays. For example, December 2025's contest was slated to run from December 16-19th.

Submitting Your Work

Captions must be at least 10 characters in length in order to be submitted. It's best to avoid clichés, overused jokes, current memes/internet trends, etc. as these are less likely to be selected. Captions do not necessarily have to be funny, although most are.

As of submissions for round 1503 beginning on January 30, 2026, users may only submit 1 caption per day. For the two rounds before that, users could submit 3 captions per day. Prior to that, players could submit as many captions as they could think of, with no daily limit.

There is no official rule stating you cannot submit a caption more than once, although repeatedly submitting the same caption may result in a warning from TNT.

You have received an official warning from the Neopets Team for violating the Neopets Terms and Conditions. Please keep in mind that you should only be submitting unique entries to the Caption Contest. Submitting the same caption multiple times doesn't improve your chances of being selected, in fact, it can slow down the process for everyone. This is your first warning - please do not spam the Caption Contest submission queue.

Timing Your Submission

The submission form is open at all times. Although it used to close for a short window while TNT selected the top captions for publication, it now remains open indefinitely. As such, there is no official submission window and no way to know for certain when the captions will be looked at, chosen, and published for voting.

Captions can be submitted as soon as the picture for the round is posted, although it is likely the most advantageous to wait until shortly before they will be chosen for voting, as the judges may not have time to read through the thousands of submissions that come through each month. As mentioned earlier, however, there is no official window or schedule for when they will be chosen, and users must simply make their best guess.

Once captions are published and able to be voted on, no more will be added. So although you can continue to submit, there is no point as any future submissions would not be up for consideration for the active contest.

Publication

Typically, 30 captions are selected for the public vote. The top 25 captions at the end of the contest will be considered winners and will remain published for permanent viewing. The prizes vary depending on the round number and your final ranking.

The voting may open as much as 8 hours before the New Features are published and the voting window is formally announced. To prevent losing out on valuable voting and advertising time, it's recommended to check the caption page throughout the day during the window in which you suspect the voting may begin.

Voting

Users can vote for one caption every four hours. You are permitted to vote for yourself. You cannot use your side account to cast votes, regardless of whether or not your caption is in the running.

Advertising

The Caption Contest is ultimately a popularity contest. Unfortunately, humour has very little role in the competition these days; the winners are essentially determined by who was able to hustle up the most votes. If you want a top-placing finish, advertising is a must.

The most important rules are that you are not allowed to advertise off-site (e.g. Discord, Reddit) and any approved advertising must use the generic caption link only (https://www.neopets.com/games/caption_browse.phtml). The unique link to your caption auto-votes when clicked and is therefore not allowed.

So, where can you advertise? Well, to start, check out the official FAQ. You can Neomail your friends, post on your guild's message board, and/or advertise on your userlookup, shop, or gallery. Again, you must provide the generic caption link only.

You are permitted to advertise your vote in your NeoSignature with a few exceptions:

• Your signature can contain a link to the generic caption page but cannot contain your direct voting link
• You cannot request votes in the body of your Neoboard post, or suggest in any way that users look at/interact with your Neosignature
• You cannot create a Neoboard for the sake of soliciting votes. Your board must have a clear purpose and be on-topic
• You cannot post on the Neoboards for the sake of soliciting votes. Your posts must have a clear purpose and be on-topic
• You cannot advertise on behalf of another user (per editorial 972)

So, what does that look like? Real-world examples include:

• You cannot "bump" boards or make comments that do not contribute to the conversation such as "good luck!" while using a Neosignature advertising your caption (per editorials 873 and 887)
• You cannot offer a service (such as an item or pet lend, or Super Shop Wizard searches) in exchange for votes (per editorial 972)
• You cannot create a Neoboard offering a giveaway or other incentives designed to attract users to your board for the purpose of noticing your Neosignature (per editorial 972)
• You cannot exchange votes. Aka do not comment "voted!" on a Beauty Contest board while using a signature advertising your caption

You may note the above rules create some grey areas. Conventionally speaking, it is alright to comment in a way that is contributory to the conversation, and you should avoid creating Neoboards that can be seen as "spammy" or are clearly created simply for votes.

Boards and posts that violate the rules may be taken down and users may receive an official warning from TNT, which states you could be banned from future contests for repeat violations.

Prizes

Once the contest officially ends captions will no longer be able to be voted on. The top 25 captions will remain displayed on the page in ranked order meaning the first listed will have won first place, and so on. The bottom 5 captions will no longer be visible.

If your caption wins, aka places in the top 25, you will earn at least 10,000 NP, a prize, an avatar, and a trophy for your cabinet.

Active Creative Contest Prizes »

Your prize depends on your ranking:

• Places 1-5: A gold trophy, an unknown amount of NP, an item prize, and an avatar
• Places 6-12: A silver trophy, 10,000 NP, an item prize, and an avatar
• Places 13-25: A bronze trophy, 10,000 NP, an item prize, and an avatar**
• Places 26-30: No prize. This placement is considered a loss.

**Places 13-25 only receive an avatar on rounds ending in the number 0 (aka every 10th round).

Prior to December 2025, the NP reward was 10,000 NP for places 1-5 and 5,000 NP for places 6-25.

From rounds 1478 through 1499 (February 2024-October 2025) no item prizes were awarded. This was intentional by TNT per the New Features, despite it still being listed in the official on-site help page.

If you have won before, and place higher, your trophy will be upgraded to a new colour. If you win gold multiple times, your trophy will update on your userlookup to include a multiplier beneath it, indicating your total number of gold-qualifying wins.

Caption Competition
10xCHAMPION!!!

Milestone Prizes

Users who are lucky enough to win a milestone issue (every 10th contest) will receive a different avatar than the standard one, as discussed in the next section.

Additionally, winners of every 100th contest (e.g. 1400, 1500) receive an exclusive prize—the Ghostkerchief Pen. This prize is awarded in place of your regular prize from the shared creative contests prize pool.

Avatars

There are two avatars available for the Caption Contest, depending on which round is active. The placement requirements are different for each. The avatars are awarded manually and thus may be on a slight time delay relative to when the contest closes.

Funny Avatar

The "Funny" avatar, colloquially known as the "Grundo" avatar, is currently awarded to the top 25 captions in every 10th round, aka all rounds ending in the number 0 (e.g. 1500, 1510).

This avatar was originally awarded from every 100th round prior to round 1400, after which it changed to being awarded every 10th round. Additionally, the winners of round 1401 received this avatar, likely unintentionally.

Hilarious Avatar

The "Hilarious" avatar, colloquially known as the "Aisha" avatar, is currently awarded to the top 12 captions in rounds ending in numbers 1-9 (e.g. 1499, 1501, 1502).

This avatar was introduced with round 1407 and was originally awarded only to the top 5 captions, before being changed in February 2024 (with round 1478) to the top 12.

There have been multiple instances of the Aisha avatar awarding incorrectly over the years, most notably awarding multiple times from milestone contests in addition to the Caption Contest - Funny avatar, when the likely design was for the avatars to be 'either or' versus simultaneously available. This list may not be comprehensive.

• Round 1407: Awarded to the top 25 captions, instead of the top 5
• Rounds 1420 & 1430: Awarded to the top 25 captions only if they did not already have the "Funny/Grundo" avatar
• Round 1470: Awarded to the top 5 captions in addition to the "Funny/Grundo" avatar
• Rounds 1480 & 1490: Awarded to the top 12 captions in addition to the "Funny/Grundo" avatar

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This game guide was written by noileh and last updated on February 8, 2026.