The best BambooHR competitors & alternatives in 2024

1. Gusto - Best all-in-one alternative to BambooHR

Overview

Gusto takes the top spot for best BambooHR alternative with a wealth of easy-to-use, people-first features and fully integrated functionality. Their intuitive interface simplifies even the most complex tasks, and their suite of time tracking tools together with their robust reporting and team management elevate HR to enterprise level even for startups and small businesses. And unlike BambooHR, Gusto supports international hiring and payroll for both contractors and employees, right from within the platform.

Fully Integrated

Having a single system to handle hiring, time tracking, PTO, sick days, performance management, and benefits administration—that seamlessly syncs to payroll—reduces your admin burden and streamlines your tech stack while saving you money. While BambooHR does offer integrated payroll (it costs extra), they don’t integrate with popular accounting software like Quickbooks and Xero.

With Gusto, Every time you run payroll, all federal, state, and local taxes are automatically calculated, filed, and paid along with benefits deductions, workers’ comp, and PTO. Plus built-in compliance helps you stay one step ahead of changing regulations in everything from overtime and minimum wage to hiring and firing.

Benefits Administration

While BambooHR does offer integration with benefits providers, the feature can be clunky, and they charge fees on top of your premiums. With Gusto, benefits administration is included with all plans at no extra cost. In addition, Gusto offers a wealth of no-cost and low-cost benefits options in addition to traditional benefits like medical and dental. All-in-all they make it easier to build a benefits package your employees will love, no matter your budget. 

Time & Productivity Management

Gusto’s robust set of time and productivity tools go well beyond clocking in and out. Employees can easily request PTO and check their balances, and managers can review and approve timesheets and time off requests in just a few clicks.

In addition, Gusto’s powerful project tracking and AI-powered reporting options will help you easily leverage data to optimize labor costs and distribute your team’s time more wisely. They don’t offer native shift scheduling, but they provide seamless integration with all of the most popular shift scheduling tools like Workforce, Homebase 7Shifts, and more. 

Hiring & Team Management

With company org charts and handbooks, employee happiness surveys, and integrated learning and professional development options, Gusto’s people-first team management tools are built to keep teams engaged and on track. Performance reviews include both 1-on-1 and self-evaluations, and their suite of hiring and onboarding tools, including an ATS, help them stand out from Bamboo HR competitors who offer similar functionality with a bigger price tag.

Wrap-up

More than just an HR and payroll solution, Gusto is a full-service people platform. All of their tools feel designed with humans in mind, easily handling the entire employee lifecycle from recruiting and onboarding, to engagement and growth, to an employee’s last day. Gusto’s pricing is fully transparent, and the large majority of their powerful HR tools are available on their mid-range Plus plan. Overall, they offer more functionality at a better price, winning them the top spot.

Key Features

• Seamlessly integrated payroll, HR, time tracking, and benefits
• Robust time tracking tools
• Integrated recruiting, hiring, and onboarding
• AI-powered workforce and project cost reporting 
• Automated compliance and new-hire reporting in all 50 states
• Performance management suite
• Employee self-service portal
• Mobile app
• Support for international contractors in 120+ countries; global payroll currently being rolled out
• Dedicated support from certified HR experts available
• Hundreds of software integrations

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Gusto offers three pricing plans, with the Simple plan starting at $40 per month plus $6 per person per month. The Simple plan lacks the more powerful workforce management tools like time tracking and more advanced data and reporting, but it still comes loaded with basic support for hiring and onboarding, PTO, and benefits administration.  

Plus plans start at $80 per month plus $12 per person per month and include the full suite of time tracking, reporting, and team management tools along with the bulk of their advanced HR suite. Plus plans also come loaded with popular features like next-day direct deposit and multi-state payroll.  

Dedicated support from certified HR pros along with compliance alerts is available only with the Premium plan or through the HR add-on at $8 per person per month.  

Premium plans are priced exclusively, and include everything Gusto has to offer with no hidden monthly fees. For more info on Premium pricing, contact their sales team today. 

Free Trial? Yes, Gusto is free until you run your first payroll.

Free Version: No. 
See how Gusto stacks up to BambooHR to find the perfect fit for your HR & payroll needs. Explore now.

Transform your HR processes with Gusto, a platform that’s already the choice of over 300,000 businesses.

2. Workday – Best BambooHR alternative for workforce optimization

Overview

AI is changing the way we work, and Workday is leveraging its potential to boost productivity and keep your team happy, motivated, and on track. Their impressive human capital management (HCM) solution includes a native communication platform, a customizable dashboard for easy navigation and access to essential tasks and tools, and provides mobile apps for payroll, time tracking, and HR tasks. Workday is a BambooHR competitor that does almost everything they do, but better.

Workday offers integrated recruiting, hiring, and onboarding along with a full suite of AI-powered time and scheduling tools. Employees can easily clock in and out, swap shifts, and scheduling is both automated and compliant. 

But where Workday really shines is their AI-powered, data-driven decision making. For hiring, they provide robust data on skills gaps and compensation, along with impressive workforce optimization insights. From an employee management perspective, they help keep employees engaged through tailored professional development and personalized HR experiences. 

While Workday does offer integrated payroll, it’s somewhat limited and is more of an add-on to their core employee management software. Additionally, their global payroll solution is limited to the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and France, though they do offer integrations with a handful of global payroll providers.

If you’re a midsize company looking to jumpstart productivity, discover efficiencies, and ramp up employee engagement, Workday is a great tool for the job. But if you’re a smaller business looking for a simpler alternative to BambooHR, there are more affordable options out there.

Key Features

• Integrated payroll, benefits, and HR
• Robust, AI-powered analytics and reporting
• Financial, workforce, and operational optimization 
• Employee management portal
• Native communication tool
• Customized employee experiences
• Scheduling & shift swapping capability

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Workday’s pricing is not transparent, and you’ll need to contact them for a custom quote. However, according to Forbes, users have reported pricing around $99 per user month.

Free Trial? No.

Free Plan: No. Learn more about Workday

3. Remote – Best alternative to BambooHR for global payroll & compliance

Overview

If you’re looking for an alternative to BambooHR because your company is expanding internationally, Remote makes it easy to hire, pay, and manage your team in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. Their impressive suite of international support includes global payroll, contractors, time tracking, hiring, self-service onboarding, compliance, and benefits. The best part is you can pay all of your team members around the world—whether contractor, full-time, or EOR—with a single payment. 

Remote understands the local markets, keeping you competitive with local employers, and they handle all of the compliance as an employer of record (EOR). They don’t contract with outside entities, which means better, faster support.   

Remote’s time and attendance tools allow you to track hours worked for both employees and contractors, and easily manage PTO, all while ensuring compliance with local labor laws wherever your team members call home. In addition to providing compliant contracts for international contractors, they also offer a ‘contractor misclassification risk tool’ to make sure you’re not hiring contractors that should be considered employees. This can save your business from facing devastating penalties down the line.

One downside is that Remote doesn’t offer the same workforce and project cost reporting that many Bamboo HR competitors do. While they make it easy to manage and pay teams across borders, they don’t have a suite of tools to help you optimize staffing or automate scheduling. 

Key Features

• Contractor payments in 200+ countries and territories
• Global payroll and EOR in 80+ countries
• Fully integrated payroll, benefits, and HR
• Time-tracking, PTO, and expense management for both employees and contractors
• Seamless onboarding and employee self-service portal
• 100+ currencies supported with no conversion fees
• Localized compliance, contracts, and benefits administration including stock options
• Contractor misclassification risk assessment included
• One-click or autopay contractor invoices

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Remote prices their services based on which kind of global hiring you need. For their EOR service, it costs $599 per employee per month (on an annual plan), which is in line with industry standards. To go month-to-month it increases to $699. Their international contractor payments are reasonable at $29 per month, but if you only have international contractors and not full-time employees (or if you are operating 100% within the US), there are more affordable solutions out there. 

For global payroll in countries where you operate your own entity, you have to contact sales for pricing.

Free Trial? You can set up an account and explore features including hiring and onboarding at no cost for 30 days. You’ll only be charged when you pay global workers.

Free Plan: No. Learn more about Remote

4. UKG Ready - Best alternative to BambooHR for reporting & analytics

Overview

UKG Ready is a solid alternative to BambooHR for larger businesses that integrates time and attendance, scheduling, talent management, workforce optimization, HR, and payroll into one powerful platform. All of their tools are designed with efficiency in mind—from real-time analytics to optimize staffing to employee engagement monitoring to increase retention. 

UKG boasts a modern, intuitive user interface that is relatively easy to navigate, though there is a learning curve for new users. The dashboard provides an overview of key metrics and tasks, and employee self-service saves time and reduces errors. Where UKG differentiates themselves, however, is their robust reporting and analytics. While BambooHR does offer a wide variety of pre-built reports and user-friendly dashboards, UKG allows you to build custom reports on nearly any data housed in their system. And that’s in addition to hundreds of pre-built metrics and data. UKG is focused on helping medium-sized businesses understand the metrics to optimize their workforces from day one. 

The platform offers a high degree of customization, enabling businesses to tailor it to their specific needs and workflows. This flexibility, combined with its scalability, makes UKG Ready an attractive option for growing, white-collar businesses looking to manage an expanding workforce without the need for significant system changes. For smaller businesses, shift-based businesses, or businesses with complex payroll needs, however, UKG Ready is not the ideal solution.

Key Features

• Time tracking and time-off management
• Talent management & nurturing
• Hiring & onboarding tools
• Automated labor-law compliance
• Integrated payroll & tax services
• Over 150 standard reports + endless customization
• Employee self-service portal
• Mobile app

Pros and Cons

Pricing

UKG Ready does not offer any pricing information on their site. You’ll need to reach out for a custom quote. Their enterprise solution, UKG Pro is quoted at $600 per year for every 5 employees, however it’s unclear how that translates into their solution for small- and midsize businesses. 

Free Trial? No.

Free Plan: No.

Learn more about UKG Ready

5. ADP – Best BambooHR alternative for learning and development

Overview

ADP is a behemoth in the space and offers two payroll and HR solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses: ADP Run for businesses with fewer than 50 employees and ADP Workforce Now for businesses with 50–999. ADP Run includes payroll, onboarding, and reporting features, while ADP Workforce Now also includes retention tools like employee engagement and development. 

While ADP Run is a highly rated platform, and includes hiring and onboarding tools, its lack of employee engagement and retention tools puts them at a significant disadvantage. It’s primarily a payroll tool with a few extra HR functions, and their pricing puts them out of reach for many. For this reason, we don’t recommend it as a BambooHR alternative for startups or smaller businesses. 

For businesses with more than 50 employees, however, ADP Workforce Now consistently ranks as one of the best all-in-one HR solutions, likely because their list of features is so long. Workforce Now offers everything any team might need to manage HR, payroll, benefits, and more, along with over 700 integrations. They have time tracking, PTO, accruals, performance management, compensation management, and advanced reporting and analytics. 

For learning and development in particular, ADP comes loaded with the largest library of a-la-carte courses on the market. From safety and sexual harassment to sales and skills training, chances are they’ve got both the courses you need to stay compliant and the courses to help your team members grow in their careers. 

Unfortunately, many of their best employee and performance management tools, including their LMS, are only available as add-ons to an already expensive base price. Finding out how much it will cost requires reaching out for a custom quote.

Key Features

• Fully integrated HR, payroll, benefits, and time tracking
• Flexible and mobile time collection
• Robust employee scheduling capabilities
• Employee self-service
• PTO / Time-off accruals
• Time-off requests and processing
• Comprehensive analytics and reporting, including overtime
• Over 700 software integrations available
• Large professional learning library
• Mobile app
• Every HR, time, and people tool imaginable

Pros and Cons

Pricing

ADP’s pricing tiers are confusing at best. For businesses with fewer than 50 employees, they offer 4 pricing tiers: Essential Payroll, Enhanced Payroll that includes wage garnishment, unemployment, background checks and job postings, Complete Payroll and HR+ that adds on some HR tools like employee handbooks, proactive compliance alerts, a job description wizard, and access to the HR help desk, and HR Pro Payroll and HR, that includes an applicant tracking system, onboarding tools, and an LMS. 

Where ADP stands out is their Workforce Now packages for medium-sized businesses from 50–999 employees. They offer three tiers: Select, Plus, and Premium. Select is a basic suite of HR and payroll tools. Plus includes benefits administration, and Premium adds on their suite of employee management tools including time tracking, scheduling, and PTO management. 

With any of the Workforce Now packages, you can add on modules for Talent Acquisition, Performance Management, Compensation Management, HR Assist, Analytics and Enhanced Insights, and Learning Management.

According to Forbes, users reported pricing starts from $62 per month, but the average business should expect to spend a lot more than that. For example, the ADP support team quoted payroll only for 50 employees at $400 per month.    

Free Trial? Yes, three months free on select products. 

Free Plan: No.

Learn more about ADP

6. TriNet HR – Best budget alternative to Bamboo HR

Overview

TriNet used to operate solely as a PEO, before they merged with Zenefits. Their product became TriNet Zenefits for a time, and now Zenefits has been dropped entirely. Their standalone HRIS is now called TriNet HR and their PEO is branded as TriNet PEO. The recommendation here is for the standalone HR software, not for their PEO. 

All of TriNet HR’s packages include automated self-onboarding with offer letters and background checks, employee self-service, digital docs and signatures, and account provisioning. They also come loaded with employee scheduling, time off tracking, PTO, data and document management, company directories and org charts, software integrations, mobile app access, and their basic analytics dashboard. For most companies looking for an HRIS to manage employee data, this is more than enough. And at just $8 per employee with no base package fee, it’s incredibly affordable.

However, if you’re looking for benefits administration, recruiting tools, or learning management, these are available only as add-on modules to their packages at a per-employee-per-month rate. Payroll is only included in their highest-tier package, though it does come with automated federal and state tax filing, as well as new-hire reporting.

At the end of the day, TriNet HR isn’t the best HRIS on the block, but their affordable pricing makes it possible to access the HR tools you need for much cheaper than most competitors in the space.

Key Features

• Affordable base plan
• Time tracking, PTO, and scheduling tools 
• Paperless employee self-onboarding
• Payroll add-on available with automated tax filings
• Robust, native communication tools
• Mobile app
• Employee happiness surveys and retention tools

Pros and Cons

Pricing

TriNet’s HR Platform starts with the “Essentials” plan at $8 per employee per month, and then offers two higher-tier plans, “Growth” at $16 and “Zen” at $27 per employee per month. But these prices are only available if you make an annual commitment. For month-to-month packages, the prices go up to $10, $20, and $33 per employee per month, respectively. 

The Essentials plan comes loaded with all of the basic HR functionality you need including onboarding and offboarding and employee and data management, but it lacks more robust reporting and analytics. 

For their full suite of reporting, analytics, data, compensation, and performance management, you’ll need to upgrade to their Growth plan. Payroll can be added to either of these plans for $6 per employee per month.

Finally, the Zen plan adds on retention tools like employee engagement, a “People Hub” to facilitate communication, and payroll at no extra cost. However payroll is only included for select industries.

Benefits administration, recruiting tools (powered by JazzHR), and HR advisory services aren’t included in any plans. The benefits administration fee is waived only if you choose a benefits broker referred by TriNet.

It’s also worth noting that Zenefits isn’t built for start-ups and very small businesses. They have a minimum requirement of 5 employees for any of their pricing plans. You can still use their service if you only have two or three employees on payroll, but you’ll still have to pay for all five. 

Free Trial? No.

Free Plan: No.

Learn more about TriNet HR

7. Homebase – Best BambooHR alternative for shift-based businesses

Overview

Homebase is an all-in-one scheduling, time tracking, payroll, and HR solution created specifically for shift-based businesses. HR needs for restaurants, retail, and other hourly businesses differ significantly from traditional white collar offices. But a lot of BambooHR competitors are targeted toward salary-based businesses and lack even basic scheduling functionality (Bamboo included). 

Homebase lets you auto-schedule by availability or using sales and labor forecasts. You can further optimize your workforce with team management tools like collecting shift feedback to take employee pulses, team ‘shouts’ to give kudos to fellow employees, and powerful shift swapping tools to save time on schedule changes with minimal involvement from management. 

While Homebase is more of a time-tracking tool with an HR add-on, they’ve got everything hourly-based businesses need to manage their teams. Their HR suite includes hiring and onboarding with automated job postings across multiple job boards, employee happiness surveys, no-cost benefit options, and secure document storage and compliance designed with shift-based businesses in mind. Sick leave, PTO, and vacation time are easy to manage and track, and a team of HR pros is available to answer your compliance questions. 

While there are more powerful HR-focused platforms on the market, and more robust, AI-powered scheduling tools, they often come with a hefty price tag. Homebase is the easy winner for small, shift-based businesses looking for BambooHR alternatives to streamline their tech stack while still accessing all the tools and functionality they need—at a price that won’t break the bank.

Key Features

• Designed specifically for shift-based businesses 
• Powerful time and scheduling tools 
• Recruiting, hiring, and paperless onboarding
• Payroll add-on available with automated tax filings
• Track employee certifications
• Built-in compliance for meal time, breaks, and minimum wage
• Integrations with popular POS, recruiting, accounting, and payroll software
• Robust, native communication tools
• Employee happiness surveys and retention tools
• Mobile app

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Homebase offers four pricing tiers. Their Basic plan is free and includes basic scheduling and time tracking and POS integration for up to 20 employees at a single location. 

The Essentials plan is $20 a month per location and includes advanced scheduling and time tracking and team communication tools.  

At $48 per location per month (billed annually), the Plus plan adds on hiring, performance management, and PTO, as well as permissions and policies. The All-in-One plan adds the HR tools you need to thrive including new-hire onboarding, employee document storage, labor cost reporting, and their full HR and compliance suite at $80 per month. 

For the payroll add-on, it’s $39 a month + $6 per employee paid per month.

Homebase offers no-commitment monthly plans at slightly higher prices than listed above. 

Free Trial? Yes, 14 days.

Free Plan: Yes, basic scheduling, time, and hiring features for up to 20 employees at a single location.

Learn more about Homebase