2023 Sift Review: Pricing, Features & Alternatives
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Genevieve has helped small business owners improve their HR processes from employee onboarding to payroll and benefits. She is one of Fit Small Business’s authority on anything HR.
Sift is an org chart creation software with visually appealing templates, rich employee profiles, and intuitive search functionality. It also integrates with popular HR and IT systems, such as Rippling, Gusto, and TrustSwiftly, allowing you to collate your data in one place. Its basic plan costs $1.50 per person monthly and includes basic features, two data source integrations, and 24/7 online support.
In our evaluation of the best org chart software, Sift earned a 3.95 rating out of 5, primarily because it doesn’t offer a free version and has no in-app messaging. It also lacks access control, making it susceptible to unauthorized use.
Overall Score:
3.95 / 5
Pros
- Easy to use
- Affordable pricing plan for SMBs
- Visually appealing UI
- Offers custom integrations
- 24/7 live chat support
- Has a mobile app (Android and iOS)
Cons
- Limited customization options
- Updates could get a bit laggy
- No automatic updates with role changes
- Org chart is not drag-and-drop
Deciding Factors
- Affordability
- Setup is easy
- Eye-catching templates
- HR software integrations
What We Recommend Sift For
- Organizations seeking to improve their talent distribution: With Sift’s analytics, managers can easily have a bird’s-eye view of what skills their people have. Through it, they can easily manage their employees, foster employee engagement, identify talent gaps, and recruit internally or externally.
- Businesses with many cross-functional projects: Sift allows employees to put their information on their profiles, including their skills and expertise. This information helps managers easily identify who to assign to a particular project or role. It also shows work location, which is valuable when planning collaborative projects.
- Non-tech-savvy companies: Sift is easy to set up and use, with a comprehensive yet simple setup tutorial—and an accompanying checklist—and an intuitive user interface (UI).
When Sift Would Not Be a Good Fit
- Microbusinesses looking for a free org chart creator: If your company has only a few employees and you only need an org chart, Sift won’t be a good value for money. Lucidchart is a good alternative because it has a free version with an org chart creation feature.
- Fast-growing companies: While Sift integrates with different HR software and has an affordable pricing plan, it might not be practical for fast-growing businesses. In such a case, Organimi is a much better option, as it costs $18 for every 150 employees and has built-in onboarding and employee management features. It also integrates with most popular HR software and ranks highly in our best org chart software evaluation.
- Businesses looking for a more customizable org chart: While Sift has visually appealing templates, these are not customizable. You can assign colors to identify each department, but that’s as far as the changes go. ChartHop has more customization options and a free version for up to 150 employees.
Sift Deciding Factors
Supported Business Types: |
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Free Trial/Free Version: | 14-day free trial |
Standout Features: |
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Ease of Use: | Setting up the org chart does not require any help. Users can import the data from a CSV file, choose a template, and click. |
Pricing: |
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Customer Support: | Email, help desk, knowledge base, phone support, chat Also, the Enterprise plan has a dedicated account manager assigned to you. |
Top Sift Alternatives
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
Starts at $7.95/month; Has a free version with limited features | Starts at $18/month per 150 employees | Starts at $8/employee a month + $12,000 annual contract and platform fee; Has a free version for the first 150 employees |
Best for: Microbusinesses with fewer than 50 employees | Best for: Fast-growing businesses | Best for: Businesses that want more customizable org charts |
Although Sift has an affordable pricing plan, it only earned 3.38 out of 5 in our evaluation. Sift has no free version, but it has a 14-day free trial. In terms of transparency, its Enterprise plan requires talking to a sales representative.
Starter | Pro | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
Starts at | $1.50/profile per month | $2.50/profile per month | Contact sales |
Editable employee profiles (+ work experience field) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Group Email Messaging | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Dynamic Pages | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Time Zones, Working Hours, and Work Locations | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Dedicated Account Manager | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Custom Attributes | ✕ | Up to 5 | Unlimited |
Quarterly Business Reviews | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
Aside from its easy-to-use UI, Sift has smart filters that allow users to find their colleagues using any keyword. It also has an embeddable widget and an employee profile that allows users to add detailed information, such as skills and interests. In our evaluation of its org chart features, Sift earned a 3.5 out of 5 score. It didn’t get a perfect rating in this criterion because it did not have access control and in-app messaging.
Below are some of its org chart features:
Sift’s search feature works like a Google search query—users can use both long- or short-tail keywords to get the nearest result they want. They can use different combination queries like name, position, interests, or skills to identify the right employee.
Sift yields the results you need no matter what search attributes you use. (Source: Sift)
Other org charts put position, name pronunciation, interests, and department in their employee profiles. Sift takes it one step further by allowing users to add the skills they have using the “Reach Out to Me for” section. Users can easily find colleagues with the skills they might be looking for to finish the project.
Sift’s employee profile includes skills, languages, location, and more. (Source: Sift)
Sift has a widget you can embed in your intranet, social media, or digital workspace. That saves them time looking for people because they don’t have to open the program to do that.
Sift has a mobile version available for iOS and Android, allowing you access to it anytime and anywhere.
Two major features that stand out to us are its robust integrations with popular HR software and analytics capabilities. These functionalities, together with its customized profiles, contributed to this provider getting a perfect score for general features.
Here are some of Sift’s outstanding features:
Aside from individual employee profiles, Sift has pages that employees can use as a social hub or community. They can create a page based on their hobbies, interests, or skills. They can also use it for project collaboration and communication.
This feature allows businesses to visualize the skills and talents of their employees using charts and graphs. With analytics, businesses can understand trends and discover insights within their organization.
Sift’s analytics allow managers to identify trends and opportunities in their organization. (Source: Sift)
Sift integrates with most of the popular HR, ATS, collaboration, and messaging tools. If your system is not on the list, Sift offers custom solutions without charging extra.
- ADP
- Gusto
- Workday
- BambooHR
- Paycor
- UKG
- Azure Directory
- G Suite
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Skype
- Zoom
- Outlook
- Rippling
- Microsoft 365
- Greenhouse
- Zenefits
- Namely
- Ntranet
- eXo Platform
- Beekeeper
- Igloo
- TrustSwiftly
- AuthSignal
- WhenThen
- Has 24/7 live chat and other types of customer support
- User-friendly and intuitive platform
- Live online and video guides
- Setup does not require help
- No drag-and-drop feature for org chart
Sift’s setup does not require any technical help—the UI is intuitive, so even those with little experience can easily learn how to use it. It also has 24/7 live chat support for all its plans, but the Pro and Enterprise plans have a dedicated account manager. However, its lack of a drag-and-drop feature in org chart creation lost some points, thus lowering its ease of use score to 3.75.
Sift earned 4.13 out of 5 in this area, scoring satisfactorily on third-party review sites like Capterra and G2. Those who left positive reviews love its search feature and employee profiles, which allow users to find their colleagues easily.
On the other hand, those who left negative reviews do not like its lack of customization for the org chart itself. They also mentioned that the profiles could’ve been much better if they could connect to LinkedIn accounts.
- G2: 4.9 out of 5 based on about 240 reviews
- Capterra: 4.6 out of 5 based on 15+ reviews
How We Evaluated Sift
In choosing the best org chart software, we used five different criteria—pricing, ease of use, org chart capabilities, general features, and popularity.
Check out the full evaluation by clicking each tab:
20%
Pricing
25%
Ease of Use
30%
Org Chart Features and Functionality
15%
Other Features
10%
Popularity
20% of Overall Score
We include transparent and custom pricing under this category, and whether the software has a free version or not.
25% of Overall Score
This criteria includes whether the software has a drag-and-drop interface and requires little or no help during setup. It also includes the number of support channels it offers. Those that do not need customer support during setup were also given points.
30% of Overall Score
We prioritized those that display the name, picture, and position of an employee and those with in-app messaging and search features. We gave extra points to search filteråbility.
15% of Overall Score
This includes how well the organizational chart software integrates with third-party applications and software, as well as its ease of importing and exporting data to and from different file formats.
10% of Overall Score
We considered user reviews of popular websites, what people are saying about the software, and the number of reviews.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Businesses looking for an org chart software that is easy to use and straightforward will love Sift. Aside from this, organizations with cross-functional projects and those looking to improve their talent pool will find it a helpful tool.
