BambooHR is a popular and highly customizable human resources (HR) software ideal for small to midsize businesses because it is an all-in-one, easy-to-use HR software. It has features to track applicants, manage employee information, monitor paid time off (PTO) requests, measure staff engagement, and conduct performance analysis.
In our review of BambooHR, we evaluated it against our other recommended HRIS for small businesses, where it scored 3.93 out of 5.
BambooHR Overview
Pros
- It is easy to use with customization options.
- It has performance management tools.
- It has a centralized employee database.
- It offers more than 150 integration options.
Cons
- Pricing isn’t transparent.
- Time tracking and performance management tools are paid add-ons.
Deciding Factors
- Pricing All pricing listed is based on a quote received. :
- Features: Strong reporting tools, user-friendly interface, and a wide array of integration partners
- Implementation time:
- Around 4-6 weeks, depending on the number of employees
- Awards: Finalist for various software awards given by review websites, such as G2, Software Advice, and TrustRadius
With BambooHR, you get a user-friendly platform and suite of cloud-based solutions for managing day-to-day HR processes—from tracking applicants to monitoring performance appraisals. Its HR management module lets you capture and store employee information and provides access levels and workflows for approving requests, such as paid time off (PTO), employee information changes, and customer service.
In short, BambooHR is best for the following:
- Small businesses (SMBs) that need an all-in-one, easy-to-use HR software: One of our best HR software for small businesses, it provides companies with a simple and affordable platform to manage employee HR processes. There are many canned reports you can run so that you don’t have to create from scratch. It also has a range of HR services, including payroll, onboarding, recruitment, time tracking, and performance appraisals.
- Office managers or executive assistants handling HR and payroll: It streamlines HR processes and integrates the different systems it offers, so you don’t have to enter the same data twice. It also gives each employee access to its mobile app, allowing them to view their employee information without going through you.
- Companies that need supplemental HR tools: BambooHR integrates with more than 50 third-party applications, most of which are HR solutions like recruitment, time tracking, training, and compensation systems. It also connects with communication and identity management tools, such as Slack, Idaptive, OneLogin, and Okta. In addition, it has an open API.
- HR managers who primarily work via mobile: Not all employee management systems come with a mobile app—but BambooHR does, and earns a spot in our best HR app guide. The mobile app allows users to access the company calendar, track employee progress, approve time off requests, and view the employee directory. Both managers and employees can use the mobile app to ensure communication and access to essential information anywhere.
- Mom-and-pop companies looking for payroll software: Although BambooHR now includes payroll, its Core and Pro pricing may not be affordable for small shops. If payroll is your main concern, consider using one of the partners found in our best free payroll software buyer’s guide.
- Businesses with contractors, freelancers, and global or remote workers: BambooHR doesn’t have tools to simplify working with contractors, freelancers, or temporary employees. Also, although BambooHR is excellent for companies with US and Canadian employees, it’s not designed to cover global employee management needs. In this case, consider our best international payroll buyer’s guide.
- Startups looking for a free HR tool: BambooHR doesn’t offer a free plan. Therefore, you may instead want to consider one of our free HR software options.
Looking for a top payroll provider? Check out our guide to the best payroll services for small businesses if payroll is your primary need.
The Fit Small Business editorial process follows strict standards to ensure that our best answers are founded on the basis of accuracy, clarity, authority, objectivity, and accessibility.With over two decades of human resources and payroll expertise centered around small businesses, I bring a unique perspective on determining if BambooHR is right for your business. Additionally, I have over three years of expertise in evaluating HR and payroll software.
For this review, we did an extensive evaluation of BambooHR, as well as its top HRIS competitors, across 39 data points to determine affordability, HR and HRIS features, and how easy it is to use. See my full methodology below.
How BambooHR Compares With Top Alternatives
Review Score (out of 5) | Best For | Starting Price | Our Reviews | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 3.93 | Small businesses that need all-in-one HR solutions | ||
 | 4.63 | Businesses with a remote or global workforce that need automated employee management | ||
 | 4.27 | New and small business owners that need unlimited pay runs | ||
 | 4.19 | Companies in a rapid growth phase that need flexible payroll and HR options | Custom priced | |
BambooHR has two main plans: Core and Pro. However, pricing details for these plans aren’t available on its website—you have to contact the provider to discuss your business’ requirements and request a quote. With BambooHR’s plans, you can enjoy a 7-day free trial to test out its products and see if they are right for your small business. Additionally, it offers a 14-day free trial for its time tracking add-on.
We received a quote from one of its representatives, as indicated below:
- Core ($250/month for up to 25 employees; $10/employee for over 25 employees)
- Includes HR data and reporting, hiring and onboarding, time off and benefits tracking, employee experience, and integrations marketplace
- Pro ($450/month for up to 25 employees; $17/employee for over 25 employees)
- Includes everything in Core plan, plus performance management and employee community
- Add-ons:
- Payroll: $190 base + $7.47 per employee after 25 employees
- Benefits administration: $140 base + $5.48 per employee after 25 employees
- Time tracking: $3 per employee (up to 25 employees); $2.97 per employee for 25-plus employees
BambooHR allows unlimited pay runs and multiple plan options, helping its scoring in this category. Where it lost points was for its nontransparent pricing and the fact that BambooHR does not offer a free setup.
Plan Updates
The following additions and changes were made to BambooHR’s Core and Pro plans, effective mid-August 2024:
- Addition of three new ATS features (both Core and Pro plans)
- Job pipelines
- Disqualifying questions
- Automated emails
- New to Core plan (previously only available in Pro plan)
- Employee wellbeing
- eNPS surveys & AI topic summaries
- Total rewards
With BambooHR’s suite of HR solutions, you can streamline and automate hiring, onboarding, and performance management processes. And, it provides employees with self-service tools for updating personal information and tracking attendance-related requests.
It lacks in this category because it does not have experts on staff to assist with compliance issues or offer a professional employer organization (PEO) option. Plus, it only generates state new hire reporting forms and doesn’t file them for you.
BambooHR also lacks sophisticated employee engagement surveys compared with platforms like Rippling or ADP. However, its prebuilt and easy-to-use eNPS and well-being surveys can be all a small business needs to monitor employee satisfaction. Plus, their plug-and-play nature means faster implementation.
Let’s look at some of BambooHR’s important features:
BambooHR helps automate and simplify employee management with features such as employee records, workflows, reporting, and analytics. With the software, you can access a secure and centralized database that allows HR teams to manage employee data efficiently.
Given that it integrates with BambooHR’s other modules, including its marketplace of third-party partner software, you need only to manage one database in which all employee information updates are shared across all solutions.
You get to see the latest HR updates for your business from the dashboard. (Source: BambooHR)
BambooHR has an applicant tracking system, which helps everyone involved in the recruitment process to stay in the loop with its collaboration tools. The software centralizes employee hiring and tracking systems, allowing users access to data along each step of the pipeline. BambooHR also helps save time by allowing you to streamline applicant tracking and hiring.
You can view open jobs and track applications from the Hiring dashboard. (Source: BambooHR)
When onboarding new hires, you’ll have to deal with compliance, checklists, and paperwork, which can be simplified with BambooHR. Its preboarding and onboarding solutions let users set up welcome emails and to-do checklists for new hires and enable the digital signing of electronic documents.
Onboarding can vary across industries, and BambooHR allows you to customize checklists, processes, and permissions as your company requires. Use its welcome templates and customize these for different jobs or departments.
BambooHR delivers employee benefits while accounting for rank, seniority, and time schedules. The software can help you administer benefits together with the payroll. You may also set benefit administration in advance. For instance, schedule the benefits delivery for an employee who’s a month or two away from getting a specific benefit so they can receive it on time.
Employees can easily view their benefits from the dashboard. (Source: BambooHR)
With BambooHR’s HRIS functionality, users can not just onboard with it but adjust benefits, access pay stubs, request time off, and communicate with their team. It also offers full service payroll that pays and files taxes, pays employees, handles year-end taxes, and offers automatic payroll processing features.
Learn more about each of BambooHR’s HRIS features.
BambooHR has PTO, time tracking, and payroll tools, which let you automate and simplify paying employees.
You can view employees’ benefits, time off, and other information from the People dashboard. (Source: BambooHR)
Available as a paid add-on, BambooHR’s time tracking tool captures employee clock-ins/outs, displays timesheets, and calculates regular working and overtime hours for payroll reporting. It also has project-tracking capabilities to help you log and monitor working hours for specific clients and tasks.
With its time-off management solution, your employees may easily file and monitor leave requests online. HR administrators can also set up several PTO types in BambooHR, from standard leaves, such as vacation and sick leaves, to unlimited PTO for a single team to custom time-off policies for specific individuals.
In addition, BambooHR has a “Who’s Out Calendar” to see employees on PTO easily. This also allows managers to ensure their departments are adequately staffed during holidays. BambooHR offers a 14-day free trial for its time tracking tool.
BambooHR now offers in-house payroll with a single source of data that integrates time tracking, time off, and benefits directly into payroll. It also offers full-service payroll tax filing for federal, local, and state taxes.
Reporting is easy with BambooHR, allowing you to choose from dozens of standard reports. You can set access levels, evaluate cash requirements, access total deductions, and analyze a complete payroll summary per employee.
BambooHR prioritizes employee and employer user experiences in payroll. (Source: BambooHR)
BambooHR’s performance management add-on includes online tools for creating and tracking employee work goals. It comes with automated reminders, notifications, and built-in reporting, such as talent management data and goals status reports.
Track employee performance directly through your BambooHR Performance Management dashboard. (Source: BambooHR)
Plan employee assessments using its review cycle questionnaires. With it, you can have 30-, 60-, or 90-day check-ins. Depending on your priorities, you can skip or reschedule assessments.
BambooHR’s employee satisfaction system combines employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS) and intelligent feedback analysis methods. Aside from letting HR professionals measure staff engagement and better understand workforce issues, this can help you create employee programs to address problem areas.
BambooHR provides a promoter score (eNPS) to gauge employee satisfaction. (Source: BambooHR)
Employees can log in to BambooHR and answer questions related to their managers and work at set intervals across the year. Employees and managers can also collaborate on goals, which can be set with due dates. The software tracks completion percentage and offers a commenting function.
With its employee/manager self-service tool, your employees can view the company calendar, access the staff directory, check their personal information, file PTO requests, and approve requests online.
Get instant access to a list of staff members and their work information. (Source: BambooHR)
For your mobile employees, BambooHR has apps for iOS and Android devices that have the same functionalities as its self-service tool. HR teams can even send company-wide communications through the provider’s mobile apps.
When it comes to reporting and analytics, you can generate different kinds of reports, including PTO usage, equal employment opportunity (EEO) reports, and employee turnover. BambooHR’s reports are easy to organize and read, which HR managers can use to make informed decisions.
BambooHR fell short of receiving a perfect score in this category because of the fact that you have to pay extra for customization.
Access reports snapshots from the BambooHR dashboard. (Source: BambooHR)
- Intuitive interface
- Employee self-service and mobile apps
- 150-plus integration options
- Standard and customizable workflows
- Library of webinars and how-to guides
BambooHR is easy to use and comes with a wide range of cloud-based solutions, including self-service tools, which allow you to manage essential HR processes more efficiently. With its intuitive and all-in-one HR platform, your HR team can spend more time on strategic business-related projects and less time handling day-to-day tasks.
The platform also comes with basic customization options. Aside from adding your company’s branding elements, BambooHR lets you create custom workflows and user access levels. Note, however, that these options are available only with the Pro plan.
What’s also great about BambooHR is its marketplace of third-party partner systems, which consist mostly of HR-related solutions. With more than 150 integration options, BambooHR can help you manage your employees well. For reference, below are some of the integrations available through BambooHR:
- Applicant tracking systems
- Assessment tools
- Background check solutions
- Job board sites
- Video interviewing tool
- Learning and training software
- Performance management systems
- Recognition and reward tools
- Benefits administration solutions
- Compensation software
- Payroll systems
- Time tracking and scheduling tools
In our expert review of BambooHR, its software ranks well above average in terms of functionality and features, earning it a score of 4.5 out of 5. The variety of BambooHR’s HR and HRIS features, including tax processing, onboarding, time tracking, and robust applicant tracking system, makes it ideal for small businesses that do not have the manpower to take on these tasks in-house.
Additionally, with its Pro tier, users can customize reporting to collect essential information and data that can help their businesses succeed.
Its perfect score shows BambooHR is very popular among its users. Below is a chart of what users like and dislike about the software.
| Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
|---|---|
| Intuitive platform | Integration choices and open API need to be improved |
| Simple to set up; implementation support includes extensive training for new clients | Customization options are not robust |
| Feature-rich software with all of the essential HR tools that SMBs need | |
Many BambooHR users are happy with its intuitive and simple-to-use interface. They also like having access to several HR solutions—from PTO tracking to employee information management and self-service tools. Meanwhile, some reviewers commented that its integration options aren’t robust. Some even wished it offered more customization options for its performance management module and reporting tools.
At the time of publication, BambooHR reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- Capterra: 4.6 out of 5 based on more than 2,800 reviews
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on 2,200-plus reviews
Methodology: How We Evaluated BambooHR
When we evaluate HR software for small businesses, we look at features and ease of use. Additionally, we check the pricing, popularity among users, and functionality of its reporting capabilities.
BambooHR met most of our requirements, scoring 3.5 out of 5 or higher in the majority of the categories evaluated. Where it fell short was in some of its HR features, such as the lack of experts on staff to assist with compliance issues and its limited insurance options in all 50 states. Additionally, BambooHR does not offer a professional employer organization (PEO) option, which, while not always affordable, can be an alternative option for small businesses.
Scroll through the tabs below to learn more about how we evaluated BambooHR:
20% of Overall Score
Pricing is important to small businesses. Because of this, we evaluated the software based on price transparency, estimated monthly cost, and multiple plan options.
20% of Overall Score
This score covered the basics for HR features, including online onboarding with forms, an employee database, benefits, and HR functions in general.
20% of Overall Score
This software was reviewed for its full-service payroll capabilities, access to a self-service portal, and seamless onboarding and offboarding. Extra points were awarded for advanced HR features like compensation management, learning and development, attendance tracking, and performance management.
5% of Overall Score
We evaluated the software on its ability to provide in-house reporting as well as the customization of existing reports and the option to create new reports.
15% of Overall Score
HR software should be easy to set up, customizable, and integrate well with third-party software. We considered interface, customer support, online guides, integration, and dedicated help when compiling this score.
15% of Overall Score
In this criterion, we assessed whether the software’s ease of use, pricing, and the width and depth of its HR and HRIS tools are ideal for SMBs.
5% of Overall Score
We reviewed actual customer engagement with the software to determine if it ranked best among users. We evaluated the scores provided on third-party review sites such as G2 and Capterra.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
According to most BambooHR reviews, the software is easy to navigate and a reliable source for simple HR administration tools. It received 4 star ratings on third-party review sites, like G2 and Capterra, because of its integration tools, ease of access to employee information, and other capabilities, like time tracking, payroll, and performance management. Additionally, according to BambooHR reviews Reddit is full of comments on its affordability.
BambooHR does not list pricing on its website. However, users state that it is affordable for small to midsize businesses, with prices similar to its competitors. According to a quote we received, pricing for its Core plan is $250 and its Pro plan is $425 for up to 25 employees.
The software offers everything small businesses need in its Core plan—data, reporting, onboarding, time tracking, and more. With its Pro plan, you also get performance management and a streamlined employee community. Plus, it has add-ons available, like payroll, benefits administration, and time tracking. This makes BambooHR an all-inclusive HR solution.
Bottom Line
Small and midsize businesses that want an integrated cloud-based HR platform should consider BambooHR. Aside from its wide range of HR tools, it has a user-friendly platform that can help streamline and automate HR tasks. Its monthly fees, based on the quote we received, are also reasonable. However, you need to pay extra if you want time tracking and performance management tools.
If you want to learn more about BambooHR’s features, sign up for a free trial—no credit card is required.