Small businesses use employee training software to keep their employees compliant and allow them to continue their career education or to sell learning content to customers. The employee training software we evaluated all make it easy to create courses, track participation, and provide reports that can be used for audits and compliance.
The six best employee training management software for small businesses are:
- Thinkific: Best overall employee training software
- Eduflow: Best free employee training software
- 360Learning: Best for collaborative learning
- TalentLMS: Best for industry-specific compliance
- LearnUpon: Best for midsize and large businesses
- Trainual: Best for onboarding/new hire training
Employee Training Software Compared
Free plan | Starting monthly paid pricing* | Mobile app | Supports multiple languages | SCORM** and other technical standards | Live support (phone or chat) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
✓ | $49 | With higher plans Android: 2.6 / 5 iOS: 4.6 / 5 | 39 | ✕ | ✓ | |
✓ | $49 | No app; mobile-friendly site | 3, with Pro Plan | SCORM | Chat only | |
✕ | $8 per user, min 5 users | Android: 4.8 / 5 iOS: 4.8 / 5 | 13 | SCORM | ✓ | |
✓ | $89 | Android: 4.7 / 5 iOS: 4.8 / 5 | 30+ | SCORM 1.2/Tin Can/cmi5 | Chat only | |
✕ | $599*** | Android: Unrated iOS: 3.7 / 5 | 20+ | SCORM/xAPI | ✓ | |
✕ | $300 (for up for 50 employees) | Android: 4.5 / 5 iOS: 4.4 / 5 | w/Google Translate | ✕ | ✓ | |
*Many offer discounts for annual subscriptions. **SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) is the set of international technical standards for eLearning products that allows eLearning content and LMSs to work together. ***Based on a third-party source. |
Check out our article on how to train new employees for tips and best practices.
Thinkific: Best Overall Employee Training Software
Pros
- Ecommerce tools and payment processor
- Free plan with unlimited learners
- Mobile app
- 39 languages available
Cons
- Outdated layout
- Limited customization options
- Free plan limited to one course
What we like:
Thinkific is a content-creation platform that allows small businesses to create engaging employee training programs through customizable templates or drag-and-drop course creation. You can use live streams, presentations, and other media to build content, create quizzes, and reward your employees with certificates of completion. You can easily track employee progress and course completion rates, and monitor engagement. You can also sell courses to customers, and Thinkific can brand them to your company.
Thinkific offers a mobile app with its Pro and higher plans. The course interface is mobile-friendly, and you can check how it looks on desktop and mobile before publishing your course if you don’t want to pay for this feature.
Thinkific’s overall score is 4.88, with perfect marks for functionality, training tools, reporting, and popularity. It offers the most language options, making it great for international companies. While user-friendly, its platform can take time to explore, especially for beginners—something that hindered it from getting a perfect mark for ease of use.
Plans are listed with month-to-month pricing; annual plans get a 25% discount. Annual plans also come with the Accelerator Program for quicker course creation and sales.
- Free (1 course, unlimited students, 1 site admin, 1 community, 2 spaces* per community): Includes easy course builder, website templates, ecommerce integration, quizzes, chatbot support, email support for 30 days, Thinkific App Store and Thinkific Academy course
- Basic Plan, $49/month (1 site admin, unlimited courses and students, 1 community, 5 spaces* per community): Includes all in Free, plus live chat support, custom domain, coupons, and affiliate selling
- Start Plan, $99/month (1 site admin, unlimited courses and students, 1 community, 10 spaces* per community): Includes all in Basic, plus Thinkific Mobile, membership and payment plans, live lessons, advanced course building, bundles and add-on packages, completion certificates, advanced website code editing
- Grow Plan, $199 (2 site admin, unlimited courses and students, 3 communities, 20 spaces* per community): Includes all lower-tier features, custom branding, student emailer, bulk enrollments, and API access
*Spaces are like virtual rooms in a community where you can manage posts, curate topics, and create different areas of the community for different conversations.
- Free Plan: With Thinkific’s free forever plan, you can create a trial course for an unlimited number of employees or students. It offers the basic tools you need, plus email support. It’s good for trying out the software, but we prefer Eduflow for a more versatile free plan.
- Mobile app: The new mobile app is user-focused and lets your employees or customers take courses, join learning communities, track progress, and connect with instructors on the go. It currently rates 2.8 out of 5 stars on Android and 4.6 out of 5 on iOS. Most on our list are better, but this is a good start.
- Tcommerce—sell your courses online: Eduflow, LearnUpon, and TalentLMS let you set prices to sell your courses to customers. Thinkfic offers a wide range of selling tools. These include coupons and promotions, bundles and subscription opportunities, an optimized checkout page, and the Thinkific App Store, where you can promote your classes, webinars, and blog apps. Tcommerce includes its own payment processor, Thinkific Payments.
- Wide range of multimedia: Thinkific really shines when it comes to the variety of content you can add to your training courses. You can create training materials using various media, including videos, text, downloadable content, PDFs, and live presentation. Employees can provide feedback in different ways, including ratings, scales, and providing answers.
- Multilanguage support: Thinkific supports nearly 40 languages, the most of any on our list. Students can choose their own language, and the site messages, buttons, and such will change (your content will not). Alternatively, you can create a separate Thinkific site in a specific language.
- Drip scheduling: If you subscribe to Thinkific’s paid plans, you can schedule your lessons or training as you please. If you plan to have a week-long training session, you can, for example, schedule one lesson per day. This helps ensure that your employees have enough time to digest the training lessons and prevent information overload.
Eduflow: Best Free Employee Training Software for Small Businesses
Pros
- Free plan
- Can add more users for a monthly fee
- Customized dashboards
- Interactive peer learning tools
Cons
- No mobile app
- Few language options
- Many features require plans costing over $399 per month
What we like:
While Thinkific and TalentLMS both have free plans, we chose Eduflow as best because, for small businesses interested in basic training, it offers the best balance between the number of active users and courses.
Eduflow also differs from others in that while it has inexpensive plans with user limits, you can add active users for a few dollars a month, a great feature if you need to temporarily surge your training. It features anonymous and identified peer reviews and critiques for social learning. It promotes itself for onboarding and sales training in particular but is used by over 1,000 organizations for multiple purposes.
Eduflow earned 4.62 out of 5 on our list, a close contender to Thinkific, although Thinkific offers more features. It earned perfect scores for pricing, training tools, and popularity, but lost points because many tools are in the most expensive plans and because it does not have the depth of reporting that Thinkific and others on our list have.
Thinkific offers a free plan and an inexpensive Lite plan. Then the prices jump, but the plans allow 100+ users. One standout is that if you are good with your plan but need to add some active users, you can do so for a few dollars a month. All plans include unlimited courses, even the free plan.
Eduflow stands out in that it offers up to 75% discounts for K-12, higher education, and nonprofit organizations.
- Free (10 users, 3GB storage): Course creation tools
- Lite, $49/month for 50 users + $3/additional user (10GB storage): Free plan plus bulk submission exports and the ability to adjust group sizes
- Plus, $249/month for 100 users + $2/additional user (100GB storage): Lite plan plus data export, download blocking for videos, course library, Zapier & API, custom subdomain, messaging controls
- Super, $399/month for 250 users + $2/additional user (300GB storage): Plus plan plus assistant roles, certificates, customized domain and branding, course logs, SSO, user customizations
- Pro, $649/month for 500 users + $1/additional user (3TB storage): Super plan plus access to additional languages, course themes, custom coding
- Free plan: While Thinkific and TalentLMS also have free plans, Eduflow is the best for small businesses that only do occasional training. You can create as many courses as needed and have up to 10 users per month. Thinkific only allows one course, while TalentLMS only allows 5 users.
- Social learning: Eduflow’s peer feedback makes it a good choice for social learning through interaction and peer review. You can set reviews to be anonymous to encourage honest assessments. You can also use interactive learning to replace instructor evaluation where the goal is to improve rather than achieve an objective standard—such as for delivering a sales pitch vs knowing the specs of a product.
- Onboarding: While others on our list can be used for creating onboarding courses, Eduflow offers templates, videos, guided exercises, and even collaborative activities. You can track progress as well. We did find Trainual best for new hires and onboarding, but Eduflow is strong here too.
- Integrations: Eduflow integrates with over 60 applications from video software like Zoom to payment processors like Stripe to CRM software like Salesforce. If that’s not enough, Eduflow’s higher plans use Zapier and API for additional integration capabilities. This is the most of any on our list; in fact, TalentLMS only lists five on its brochure.
- Highly rated by users: Eduflow does not have as many user reviews as others on our list, but it does have the highest rating: 4.8 out of 5 averaged over multiple third-party user review sites. The next highest on our list is Trainual with 4.73. Users said it is well-designed and easy to use. The biggest complaint was the price for the higher plans.
360Learning: Best for Collaborative Learning
Pros
- Courses available in multiple languages, plus custom content creation
- Advanced content integration with third-party providers (LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udemy Business)
- Highly rated mobile app for learners
- Employees can suggest classes, offer to teach
Cons
- No free plan
- Missing some features, such as e-commerce management
- Narrow scope of compliance management
What we like:
360Learning is a comprehensive employee training tool with employee and compliance training, customer training, employee onboarding, and extended enterprise support. The platform is based on collaborative learning, where employees can share their skills and expertise with each other—very much unlike the traditional top-down learning style.
360Learning’s mobile app does generally well with users, scoring a 4.8 out of 5 on the Apple App Store and 4.5 out of 5 on the Google Play Store.
It outranked most of the other employee training management software with a score of 4.56 out of 5. It maxed out all our sections except pricing. The starting plan of $8/month per user is cheap if you only have five employees (the minimum), but it adds up fast. It lacks a free plan, but its 30-day free trial should give users enough time to learn its features and make a final decision.
360Learning offers a 30-day free trial, plenty of time to learn the features and explore its catalog of existing courses. It differs from most of the others on our list in pricing in that it charges by the user rather than a set monthly fee (Trainual also does this). It does not discount annual subscriptions.
- Team Plan, $8/month per employee (minimum 5, up to 100 users): Includes all the core product features for course creation, sharing, and tracking, plus access to the Engagement Academy (to teach you how to create courses), priority invitations to coaching workshops, access to support widget, integrations
- Business Plan, custom pricing: Includes all Team Plan features, plus automations and a dedicated technical support team
- Huge number of ready-made courses: 360Learning offers over 6,000 available courses; plus, when creating your own course catalogs, you can integrate with over 200 institutions, including Coursera, to bring you thousands of available content modules, including employee policy training, workplace harassment, OSHA training, and more.
- Collaborative learning: 360Learning offers “collaborative learning” (peer learning), in which anyone can address questions within training courses as well as suggest course topics or course improvements. Plus, it lets you find experts within your organization who can teach. Eduflow’s collaborative learning is more restricted to in-course feedback.
- Excellent mobile app: Like Thinkific, 360Learning has an app for course takers. It rates extremely well, with 4.5 out of 5 on Android, and 4.8 out of 5 on iOS. It’s not the highest-rated on our list (that honor goes to TalentLMS), but it is still noteworthy.
- Course creation enhancements: It offers an intuitive platform that can reduce course creation time to as little as 17 minutes. Additionally, you can leverage content across your legacy LMS and integrate it into 360Learning’s platform, as well as create new or use existing content. In April 2023, it added the ability to use AI to generate questions based on videos.
- LMS tools: 360Learning’s LMS offers integrations into your HR software, collaborations, workflow integrations, user sync, public portals or private groups, and unlimited custom fields for tracking users for in-depth reports on the information you need.
- Personalized learning experience: The learning experience includes blended learning, incorporating live training and online study. Besides that, companies are equipped with the ability to assign paths based on the learner’s needs, with assessments to ensure knowledge retention. Certificates are awarded upon course completion, highlighting the newly acquired skills your employees have obtained in their industry, which can help when considering promotions.
TalentLMS: Best for Industry-specific Compliance
Pros
- Easy-to-use interface
- Industry-specific customized training
- Multiple training platforms
- Strong certification tools
Cons
- Free plan is limited
- Limited live support
- Lacks analytical feedback
What we like:
TalentLMS is ideal for businesses that need to offer industry-specific training. Its tools allow for personalized and customized training no matter your industry. It serves a broad range of industries—be it in automotive, hospitality, or even technology—and offers leadership courses that can help employees rise within the company.
Like others on our list, it has drag-and-drop capability, plus you can set up live sessions and add quizzes. You can set up learning paths and completion rules. It’s one of the few on our list that includes gamification with badges, leaderboards, and levels.
It earned a score of 4.45 out of 5 due to its easy-to-use interface and customizable features, with perfect scores for training tools, functionality, reporting, and popularity. TalentLMS fell short with its limited live customer support and lack of a free trial (the only LMS on our list that doesn’t offer this feature). However, it has a free plan you can use to try it instead.
TalentLMS is unique in that it has two levels of plans: one charges by user whether they are actively taking courses or not, while the other allows unlimited registrants but charges according to active users. This second level is great for businesses that deal with heavy but intermittent continuing education and training. It also has a free plan.
Prices listed below are monthly; there are discounts for annual subscriptions.
Standard Plans:
- Free (Up to 5 users and 10 courses): Unlimited storage, Salesforce integration, white labeling, webinar integrations, eCommerce, SCORM 1.2/Tin Can/cmi5 compatibility, customer user permissions, gamification, mobile app, unlimited email support
- Starter, $89/month (6–40 users): Free plan plus custom home page
- Basic, $189/month (20–100 users): Starter plan plus SSO support, custom domain and SSL, 1 branch*
- Plus, $369/month (50–500 users): Basic plan plus custom reports, automation, 3 branches*
- Premium, $569/month (400–1,000 users): Plus plan plus an account manager, automations, live chat support, 15 branches*
- Enterprise, custom pricing (over 1,000 users): Premium plan plus unlimited branches*, flexible user limit
Active Plans (includes all features of Standard plans):
- Starter Active, $179/month: 40 active users, unlimited registered users
- Basic Active, $339/month: 100 active users, unlimited registered users
- Plus Active, $489/month: 250 active users, unlimited registered users
- Premium Active, $649/month: 500 active users, unlimited registered users
- Enterprise, custom pricing: Over 500 active users
*Branches are independent portals, which can serve different departments or needs.
- Gamification: TalentLMS lets you gamify courses with badges, points, levels, leaderboards, and rewards. By contrast, Thinkific, our top-recommended platform, only does this via third-party integration, while 360Learning’s gamification mode is only available in the mobile app.
- Compliance training and monitoring: Like the others on our list, TalentLMS can provide compliance training with reports and certificates. It stands out, however, in that it can track expiration dates so you know when someone has to re-certify. It can also automatically remove an outdated course from someone’s task list, assigning the current one instead. You can also easily download reports for auditing certifications.
- Industry-specific courses: TalentLMS courses are offered across a wide range of industries. Its corporate training platform enables businesses to offer compliance training to their employees that result in the issuance of certificates and certifications. Industries include:
- Automotive: Inform technicians about new regulations and introduce new models to dealerships
- Aviation: Ensure your employees are compliant with regulations, systems, and standard airline procedures
- Call Centers: Train your employees to handle a variety of call types
- Education: Allow for distance learning and traditional in-classroom training for your educators
- Food and Beverage: Help with onboarding and employee training
- Franchise: Train your employees across multiple locations in company core values and standardized procedures
- Healthcare: Train your workers on new medical devices, procedures, and compliance
- Hospitality: Instill customer service values in your staff
- Manufacturing: Instruct employees on standardized procedures as well as OSHA compliance
- Nonprofit Organizations: Train your volunteers on all organizational procedures and policies
- Retail: Build your own online procedural training courses to use for employees across multiple chain locations
- Supply Chain: Train your warehouse employees on new and existing operational procedures
- Technology: Share best practices in the IT field and train on new procedures
- Telecommunications: Reach thousands of customer service reps and technicians with specialized training
- Easy for learners to use: This software is equipped with a simple, customizable interface where users can learn and adapt. This means that users experience training that feels comfortable from the very start. Additionally, TalentLMS offers the ability to toggle between an online learning experience and mobile applications. Its mobile app has the best scores on our list, with 4.8 out of 5 among Android users and 4.8 out of 5 among iOS users.
- Charge for courses: TalentLMS lets you set prices for courses, such as those you want to offer customers rather than employees. Thinkific and Eduflow also have this feature.
LearnUpon: Best for Midsize & Large Businesses
Pros
- 20+ languages
- Portals for audience customizations
- Customer success (learning) teams with every plan
- Gamification
Cons
- Pricey
- Plans start at 50 users
- Learning curve is higher than others on our list
What we like:
LearnUpon is the most expensive plan on our list and recommended for companies with over 50 employees, which is why we consider it best for medium and large businesses, although it does work with smaller companies, too. It offers a strong LMS with the ability to create courses, guide learning, and track employee qualifications.
It’s the only plan on our list that offers dedicated customer support and 24/7 live assistance in all its plans. It also has the lowest mobile ratings of those on our list.
It earned a 4.12 out of 5 on our rubric. As expected, the price brought the score down quite a bit, but it also lost points for having a higher learning curve. It includes implementation assistance, but it also seems to require this assistance, whereas others are more DIY. However, it offers multiple learning portals for customizing to your audiences, and 20+ language options, making it good for multinational companies.
Unlike the others on our list, LearnUpon does not list pricing for its plans on its website. SaasWorthy lists them as starting at $599 per month, but you’ll need to call to get a custom quote. It lists three plans, separated by the number of users, with the lowest plan starting with 50 users. However, it says it works with startups.
It does not list a free plan or free trial, but it offers discounts to nonprofits.
All plans include working with customer success for advice on optimizing learning and long-term goals and policies; an implementation consultant to configure, integrate, and launch the software; and 24/7 technical support.
- Essential (550 users): Standard creation and delivery tools, custom branding, instructor-led training center, assignments, ecommerce, gamification, dynamic rules, limited integrations
- Premium (150—300 users): Essential plan plus webinar integrations, Zappier, SSO, API, multiple languages
- Enterprise (300+ users): Premium plan plus Enterprise SLA, white labeling, Salesforce integration
- Portals: Similar to TalentLMS’s branches, portals let you customize the learning experience for a target audience, whether your sales department to get training on products and best practices or your customers to learn how to make the most of their purchase. LearnUpon, however, does not limit the number of portals you use, and it offers custom branding, configuration, and banners for each portal while still letting you share courses among many portals.
- Customer success teams: LearnUpon is the only software on our list that includes dedicated support teams with every plan. Not only can they answer your questions when you have trouble, but they are with you from the start: helping you evaluate your goals for the software, assisting with implementation, and helping you define and meet future training goals.
- Choice of mandatory and self-serve courses: You can create automated enrollment for mandatory classes, like orientation or certifications, as well as offer a course catalog that employees or customers can browse. Base automated enrollment by user groups or by using your integrated LMS.
- Gamification and awards: Like TalentLMS, LearnUpon offers gamification with badges, levels, and leaderboards to add a level of fun to getting coursework done. You can also reward students with certifications and even course credits.
- Reports: LearnUpon has enterprise-level reporting with custom filters, automations, and report scheduling, plus integrations to other systems and a dashboard overview. You can pull records by course or individual, or look at general use as needed.
Trainual: Best for New Hire Training & Onboarding
Pros
- AI assistance for course creation
- Advanced policy and standard operating procedures (SOP) creation
- Extensive onboarding and new hire employee training
- ROI calculator
Cons
- Available only in English (can use Google Translate)
- More heavily focused on onboarding than continuing education
- Limited number of users; must pay for additional users
What we like:
Unlike the others on our list, Trainual is focused on bringing your company’s processes, procedures, and training policies into one system to make onboarding and learning easier. With all your training and onboarding documents in one place, your newly hired employees will be fully trained and ready to start their new jobs quicker. It is ideal for smaller businesses; pricing is custom and increases by 25 user increments.
One standout feature was the AI implementation in some of the custom content sections. Rather than templates, you can type in your needs, similar to ChatGPT, and Trainual will create content you can modify.
Trainual, with a score of 4.04 out of 5 on our evaluation, provides a customizable dashboard for creating documentation and manuals and allows for continued employee training. Keeping Trainual from achieving a perfect score is its lack of ability to customize reports and limited language support.
- Small Business, $300/month (1–50 employees): Unlimited documentation, testing, tracking, reporting, customizable templates, org and role charts, team directory, roles & responsibilities builder, custom branding, screen recording, can embed hundreds of content types, mobile app
- Growth Business, $500/month (51–100 employees): Train plan plus personalized setup support, share content with anyone, automatic time estimates, due dates, premium integrations, SSO, unlimited chat and email support, custom domain. The first 25 esignatures (for policy acknowledgment) are free.
- Policy (SOP) creation: Over 150 templates are available for the creation of policies and SOPs. Trainual stands above other LMSes, for its ability to not only create courses but provide policy training manuals. These templates allow for the creation of training materials that can be accessed by multiple employees at one time, including onboarding documentation. Some templates include:
- Diversity and Inclusion Policy
- Bereavement Leave Policy
- Solicitation Policy
- Compensation and Development Policy
- Workplace Harassment Policy
- PTO and Sick Leave Policy
- Anti-Discrimination Policy
- Disciplinary Action Policy
- No Retaliation Policy
- Sexual Harassment Policy
- Employee Performance Review
- AI assistance: Trainual’s built-in AI can help you generate content which you can then edit to match your company’s tone and needs. This was the only employee training system that used AI in this way.
- Organization: Policies and SOPs are easily organized in one place for instant access from any device. It is a “playbook” in your pocket. Training is highly searchable, right down to the word, making it easy to find the policy you are looking for.
- Mobile-friendly: Trainual scored an impressive 4.8 with Android users but only 4.4 out of 5 on iOS. However, it deserves a callout here because it offers a few extra features, like the ability to refer back to policies and take screenshots for future reference, plus access to org charts.
- Customized features: Companies can supplement training by adding videos, in-house stock photos, and GIPHY integration. While all of the employee training software we reviewed support some of these features, they do not support all, giving Trainual an edge by enhancing the overall user experience.
Employee training software is designed to streamline and enhance the process of training and development for employees within an organization. It serves as a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises, looking to efficiently onboard, upskill, and continuously educate their workforce. This software is essential in the modern workplace, where ongoing learning and adaptability are crucial for success.
Here are some key aspects and features of employee training software:
- Content management: Employee training software allows organizations to create, manage, and deliver various types of training content. This content can include text, videos, documents, presentations, quizzes, and more.
- Accessibility and convenience: One of the primary advantages of such software is the ability to make training materials accessible to employees anytime, anywhere. This is particularly valuable for remote or distributed teams, allowing them to learn at their own pace and convenience.
- Tracking and assessment: Training software provides robust tracking and reporting capabilities. Employers can monitor the progress of their employees, track completion rates, and assess the effectiveness of training programs. This data is invaluable for making informed decisions about training investments.
- Interactivity: Many employee training software solutions offer interactive features, such as quizzes, simulations, and gamified elements, to make the learning experience more engaging and effective.
- Compliance and certification: For organizations in regulated industries, training software often includes features for tracking compliance with industry standards and regulations. It can also issue certificates upon successful completion of training modules.
- Feedback and communication: Training software often includes tools for employees to provide feedback on training materials and engage in discussions with instructors or peers. This fosters a collaborative learning environment.
Small businesses have unique needs when it comes to employee training software. They often require solutions that are cost-effective, easy to implement, and scalable. Here are some key features and considerations that small businesses should look for when choosing employee training software:
- Affordability: Small businesses typically have limited budgets, so cost-effectiveness is crucial. Look for software with transparent pricing, including subscription or licensing fees, and assess the long-term value it offers.
- User-Friendly Interface: The software should be intuitive and easy for both administrators and employees to use. Complicated systems can be a barrier to effective training.
- Content Creation and Management: The ability to create, organize, and update training content is essential. Look for software that allows you to upload various types of content, such as videos, documents, presentations, and quizzes, without requiring advanced technical skills.
- Customization: Small businesses should be able to tailor the training software to their specific needs. This includes branding, creating custom courses, and aligning training content with the company’s goals and values.
- Scalability: While you may be a small business now, your needs can change as you grow. Ensure the software can accommodate additional users, modules, and training materials as your organization expands.
- Compliance Features: If your business operates in a regulated industry, the software should support compliance tracking and reporting. It should help you ensure that employees are meeting industry standards and certifications.
- Assessment and Reporting: The software should offer assessment tools, such as quizzes and exams, and provide detailed reporting on employee progress and performance. This data is valuable for tracking learning outcomes.
- Mobile Compatibility: Many small business employees may not be tied to a desk, so mobile compatibility is crucial. Employees should be able to access training materials on their smartphones or tablets.
- Integration: Look for software that can integrate with other business tools you use, such as HR software, to streamline processes and data management.
- Support and Training: Ensure the software provider offers adequate customer support and training resources for administrators and employees. Good customer support can be a lifesaver when you encounter issues.
- Security and Data Privacy: Protecting sensitive employee and company data is paramount. The software should have robust security features and comply with data privacy regulations.
- Feedback and Interaction: Small businesses can benefit from interactive features that foster collaboration among employees. Discussion forums, feedback mechanisms, and social learning components can enhance the training experience.
- Free Trials and Demos: Before committing to a training software, take advantage of free trials or demos to assess if it meets your specific needs and expectations.
- Community and User Reviews: Research the software by reading user reviews and seeking feedback from other small businesses to gain insights into their experiences.
- Long-Term Viability: Consider the software provider’s reputation and their commitment to ongoing development and updates to ensure that the software will remain relevant and supported in the long term.
How We Evaluated the Best Employee Training Software
We started by looking at over a dozen employee training software, narrowing it down for small businesses by use and price. Then we did a deep dive into the specific features. Because ease of use is vital for this kind of software, we especially considered the input of real-world users. From the 20 we started with, we gave 11 a thorough evaluation to narrow it to the top six.
Click through to see the scoring criteria:
25% of Overall Score
We looked for free plans, trials, and affordability for companies of up to 50 employees. Eduflow has a perfect score, whereas LearnUpon had the lowest (2 out of 5).
20% of Overall Score
Personnel training software that offers personalization and extended features makes the learning experience more user-friendly. Those that deliver a large catalog of courses with the ability to offer quizzes and tests scored higher. Points were also granted for training schedule features, such as calendars and reminders, as well as the ability to track user progress. Thinkific, Eduflow, 360Learning, and TalentLMS got perfect scores for offering the best training tools available.
20% of Overall Score
Functionality took into account the type of content provided—if courses are customizable, support multiple types of content, and work with multiple languages. For a learning management system to be functional, it must include all these features and be user-friendly. Thinkific, 360Learning, LearnUpon, and TalentLMS got perfect scores here.
15% of Overall Score
We looked for intuitive platforms, mobile apps, and integrations and gave points for implementation assistance and phone or chat support. Real-world user reviews were taken into consideration here. 360Learning earned a perfect 5 out of 5.
10% of Overall Score
Reporting was scored based on whether the software provided analytics and a good variety of reporting features. Additionally, if reports were customizable, the software scored higher. Only Eduflow didn’t get a perfect score, as its report customizations were limited.
10% of Overall Score
We researched what users had to say about employee training software by reviewing G2.com, TrustRadius, and Capterra. We gave top scores for software with 4.5 stars or more and also considered how many reviews the software had. All the software on this list reviewed scored a perfect score, but it should be noted that not every product we considered had a perfect score; these are the cream of the crop.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, employee training software can be tailored to the needs of small businesses. Look for affordable, user-friendly, and scalable solutions that fit your budget and growth potential.
Employee training software offers accessibility and flexibility, enabling remote or distributed teams to access training materials from anywhere, at any time, making it ideal for remote learning and onboarding.
Yes, most training software provides robust tracking and reporting features, allowing employers to monitor employee progress, track completion rates, and assess the effectiveness of training programs.
Compliance tracking ensures that employees meet industry standards and regulatory requirements. Training software can record and report on compliance to help businesses stay within legal and industry guidelines.
Ensure the software has robust security features, data encryption, and follows data privacy regulations. Regularly update and patch the software to maintain security.
Training software providers typically offer customer support and training resources for administrators and employees. Check their customer support channels and resources before choosing a software.
You can assess the effectiveness of training programs by analyzing performance data, tracking completion rates, and gathering feedback from employees. This information helps you make data-driven decisions.
Bottom Line
What employee training software you want depends not only on price and features, but use. Some, like 360Learning, offer a huge range of courses, while Trainual focuses on employer policies and onboarding. Regardless, you should consider ease of use and mobile applications for employees who train on the go.
Overall, we considered Thinkific to be the best employee training software of the many we considered. It rocked the charts in every category, with a wide range of training tools, and functions. It’s multilingual and offers certification tools as well. Check out the free plan and see if Thinkific will work for you.