BambooHR® vs. Bonusly

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR®
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an cloud-based human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$10
per month per user
Bonusly
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
Bonusly is an employee recognition and rewards platform designed to make peer recognition easy and fun, giving employees and managers real-time visibility into the everyday wins that often go overlooked. Core Capabilities Peer Recognition & Rewards: Value-tagged shout-outs with points redeemable for global gift cards, curated physical items, and nonprofit donations An AI agent named Bizy: an AI agent that helps everyone on a team show up better for each other, every…
$0
per month (up to 8 users)
Pricing
BambooHR®Bonusly
Editions & Modules
Core
$10
per month per user
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
Free
$0
per month for up to 8 users
Team
$5
per month per seat
Organization
Custom Pricing
per month per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHR®Bonusly
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional DetailsBonusly offers three tiers: Free (free forever): Supports core rituals like peer recognition and structured 1:1s. Team: $5 per seat/month (or $30 per seat/year with annual billing). Built for managers and teams who want to stay connected, build trust, and improve every day. Unlocks habit-building features across recognition, guidance, 1:1s, and check-ins. Organization: Custom pricing upon request. Designed for companies that need scale, security, and analytics. Connect everyday culture to performance and engagement patterns, surface organizational insights, and prove impact with advanced reporting. A free trial is available for eligible tiers.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHR®Bonusly
Considered Both Products
BambooHR®
Chose BambooHR®
We have BambooHR because of its great interface and user-friendly design. It meets our employees' needs as well as our employer's needs. We have integrations with some programs where Bonusly isn't able to cover.
Chose BambooHR®
Lattice is much more oriented towards performance management. It includes many more advanced performance management features from building actual assessments to also performance development planning. BambooHR® for us was a place to centralize our data and build from within as …
Bonusly
Chose Bonusly
I think it's because of the cost.
Features
BambooHR®Bonusly
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
329 Ratings
3% below category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data8.3289 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history8.1290 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.1300 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.7272 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting7.8305 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.1290 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.4172 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.6
223 Ratings
7% below category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Pay calculation8.1164 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors7.0118 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment7.4117 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.1169 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.3161 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.9177 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.5108 Ratings00 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.8
285 Ratings
8% above category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Approval workflow8.7281 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details8.5267 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment9.2129 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.5
318 Ratings
4% above category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information8.5211 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information8.9314 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.4270 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition7.9192 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history8.8285 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
74 Ratings
12% above category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets9.174 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.3
243 Ratings
3% below category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Report builder7.4235 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.5233 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.9173 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.2
266 Ratings
3% above category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
New hire portal8.4252 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.9229 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
185 Ratings
2% below category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting7.0136 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.9179 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility9.169 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking7.6171 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
207 Ratings
1% below category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Performance plans7.3191 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.3163 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking8.697 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.1101 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.7181 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
81 Ratings
14% above category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools8.946 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.067 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search9.068 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development9.359 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
216 Ratings
1% above category average
Bonusly
-
Ratings
Job Requisition Management7.7162 Ratings00 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.6175 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media9.291 Ratings00 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.4170 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.588 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.0193 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.1205 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BambooHR®Bonusly
Small Businesses
UZIO
UZIO
Score 9.4 out of 10
BrightHR
BrightHR
Score 7.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.1 out of 10
Worktango
Worktango
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
Achievers
Achievers
Score 9.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BambooHR®Bonusly
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(341 ratings)
9.4
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(17 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(268 ratings)
9.4
(5 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(159 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.4
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHR®Bonusly
Likelihood to Recommend
BambooHR
The best use of it is for employee tracking and vacation requests. It can also be used for payroll; however, my company uses a separate program for that. The best use for it, in my opinion, is staff performance management. All the notes and documents can be added/attached to the employee. You can click on an employee's profile and see what days they have been off, how close they are to achieving goals, etc.
Read full review
Bonusly
Bonusly has provided us a formal space to post recognition. While face to face recognition still occurs, this is a place where staff can post publicly or privately, but a majority choose public. It has been incredibly popular since our implementation. Staff love the ability to earn time off through recognition. That customized redemption is our most popular reward.
Read full review
Pros
BambooHR
  • Ease of use for established staff and admins, all the way down to brand new hires.
  • Integrations, especially for posting and managing jobs during the hiring process.
  • Making regularly occurring things like meetings and assessments easy to customize and to action easily.
  • Being able to assign out tasks for onboarding and offboarding.
Read full review
Bonusly
  • Fosters a culture of appreciation for one another
  • Allows for each staff to select reinforcers of meaning to them specifically
  • Can help tomato sure celebratory dates aren’t forgotten (birthdays, work anniversaries)
  • Increases employee engagement
  • Connects distance employees and employees who don’t have a department team around them to remain engaged and connected to others
  • Allows for specific hashtags that can be tied into company values, to reiterate core values of the organization.
Read full review
Cons
BambooHR
  • No file viewer (need to download the attachments).
  • No option to enable notifications if certain people are out (you can just check, but it would be nice to have).
  • No customization of my personal view (f.e., i can't have the PTO page be my default).
Read full review
Bonusly
  • Moderation. The freedom to post anything for recognition can get out of hand depending on your tolerance/company culture. There are very little to no tools around better this.
  • Bonusly has not done much in the way of adding features. Hard to call it a con but other similar platforms have extended into allowing more directed involvement from the organization. In other words: Bonusly is a little TOO hands-off in some ways.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
BambooHR
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
Read full review
Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Usability
BambooHR
I had never used BambooHR® before and when I was hired the company already had the software but no one truly owned it (no HR previous to me) so I had to simply log in and figure things out for myself. Extremely intuitive! If there was anything I wanted to figure out or learn more about, the resources, step-by-step instructions and videos were there for support.
Read full review
Bonusly
Bonusly is easy to use and intuitive for anyone familiar with technology and using websites. There is a page where posts are made, and a page where rewards are redeemed. It is very straightforward.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
BambooHR
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
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Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Performance
BambooHR
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
Read full review
Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
BambooHR
Support has always been excellent. I was skeptical about not having a dedicated account manager at first, but my concerns were quickly eased. I love the different options for communication. Being able to chat, send emails or call a representative are great so that my workflow isn't disrupted by having to complete a call. I have never had an issue reaching anyone and the email follow up is great!
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Bonusly
I never had any issues with support. It's especially nice to be able to add location-specific rewards.
Read full review
In-Person Training
BambooHR
I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
Read full review
Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Online Training
BambooHR
Overall this training was great and our implementation specialist was wonderful and very helpful. We felt really prepared once our training was completed, But we could get additional help immediately even when we were live. The continuation Support heros after implementation are wonderful and you can always get a LIVE person each time you call into their office.
Read full review
Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
BambooHR
We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.
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Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
BambooHR
BambooHR® was a great fit for our organization of 75-100 people. We became too big for our small custom MS Access system but not big enough for Workday. Lattice was more of an employee engagement and performance management system and didn't have some of the HR management and API integration we wanted. BambooHR® was robust enough to scale with us and provided the features and functionality we needed.
Read full review
Bonusly
the cost was [the] main factor for us. I think the platforms are very similar. Bonusly is one focused on just employee recognition which is great and concise. BlueBoard offers a lot more by way of experiences and gift-giving for recognition but on the pricier side.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BambooHR
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
Read full review
Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Scalability
BambooHR
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
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Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
BambooHR
VERY professional!
Read full review
Bonusly
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
BambooHR
  • HR team members have been saved thousands of hours over the 3.5 years we've had BambooHR®. It saved me personally several hours a day once BambooHR® was set up. Specifically, onboarding, offboarding, and a formal Hiring system are the major time savers.
  • Employee Information is much easier to access and is all centralized. Employees are empowered to update their information when applicable, and we have designed custom access levels for different positions and managers to ensure every individual is seeing the appropriate types of information about employees.
  • We saved significant money by switching from Lattice to BambooHR®'s Performance Management solution. This solution is less advanced, but the simplicity meets our needs perfectly fine, and it even saves time for managers and employees by BambooHR®'s standard questions, carefully designed to get to the heart of performance and improvement.
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Bonusly
  • Employees put forth extra effort and take on additional responsibility.
  • More creative ideas from employees to improve business processes and solve problems.
Read full review
ScreenShots

BambooHR® Screenshots

Screenshot of the Job Info tabScreenshot of Onboarding TasksScreenshot of a New Hire PacketScreenshot of an Employee Performance ReportScreenshot of Employee Satisfaction (eNPS®)Screenshot of Open Enrollment

Bonusly Screenshots

Screenshot of Bonusly’s home screen, which brings recognition to life with a social, real-time feed. Employees celebrate contributions with value-tagged messages, images, and emojis, while points accumulate toward meaningful rewards. This hub makes appreciation easier, and keeps the habits that drive culture right in front of everyone.Screenshot of Bonusly’s rewards experience, that gives employees access to a global catalog of gift cards, curated physical products, and nonprofit donations—all with instant fulfillment. Its categories and clear point ranges help people find rewards. With no markups and full visibility into spend, teams get a richer rewards experience without added admin work.Screenshot of Bonusly’s insights dashboard, which helps managers understand team health at a glance. Recognition trends, participation patterns, and value alignment reveal where the team excels and where support might be needed. With simple filters and export options, leaders can make data-driven decisions and run more informed performance reviews.Screenshot of Bonusly’s 1:1 workspace, which brings structure, shared notes, discussion topics, and past highlights into a collaborative view. Managers and employees stay aligned on priorities, celebrate wins, and address blockers early, with context from recognition and feedback woven in.Screenshot of where Bonusly automatically pulls together recognition, feedback, and work highlights into an organized performance recap. Managers get a clear storyline of contributions across months, and employees see their impact reflected accurately. This supports more fair, consistent, and insightful performance conversations.Screenshot of how Bonusly integrates natively with both Slack and Microsoft Teams so recognition happens in the flow of work. Employees can give, receive, and react to recognition directly in their chat channels, boosting participation and making appreciation feel immediate and natural. With updates and celebrations surfacing where conversations already happen, recognition becomes a daily habit—not another tool to remember.