Staffbase is one promising option to facilitate employee communication, but it falls short due to the complex onboarding process and limited customization options.
Furthermore, some companies may need more robust analytics and integrations, while others need more affordable alternatives to Staffbase.
We’ve scoured the market and found some fresh, exciting options that will take your employee communications to the next level. Get ready to discover our favorite picks for 2024!
What is Staffbase?
Staffbase is an employee communication software with a toolkit that helps your employees collaborate and communicate better. It has employee email, employee app, and front door intranet to facilitate employee engagement and integrates with SharePoint and Teams.
Source – StaffBase
Top Features of Staffbase
- Multiple Communication Channels: Staffbase offers a variety of communication channels, including newsfeed, chat, groups, push notifications, and email, to let your employees communicate easily.
- Analytics & Insights: Staffbase provides a range of analytics and insights to help organizations measure the impact of their internal communication efforts. This includes engagement metrics, content performance, and employee feedback.
- Integration with Other Systems: Staffbase offers integration with various third-party systems such as Single Sign-On (SSO), Active Directory, and HRIS, which lets your organization smoothly manage employee data and improve the overall user experience.
- Multilingual Support: Staffbase supports more than 30 languages, which makes it ideal for organizations with a global workforce. This feature lets all your employees access information regardless of location or language.
- Employee Surveys & Polls: Staffbase offers an employee survey tool that allows organizations to gather employee feedback and insights. The platform also offers polling features allowing you to collect feedback on specific topics.
Cons
- The complex onboarding process can be a barrier to adoption.
- Limited and complex customizing options. Users experience difficulty in resizing images and saving font colors and sizes.
- Complex test email process. Users receive emails with watermarks throughout the pictures, making them difficult to read.
- Desktop browsers don’t have notifications for the chat feature.
Pricing
- All plans support custom pricing. Get in touch with the sales team to know more.
- Is a free trial available?
- No.
What Should You Look for in Staffbase Alternatives?
While choosing an alternative, try to trade up and find a better solution. Consider the following factors before finalizing an employee communication software.
- Features: Look for a platform that offers comprehensive features to support your organization’s employee communication needs. For example, you may need a platform that provides both mobile and desktop access. It should also offer a range of communication tools, such as instant messaging, forums, and news feeds.
- User Interface and Ease of Use: Look for a platform with an easy-to-use interface that works seamlessly for both administrators and employees. This ensures fast communication and your employees can easily find whatever they need.
- Customization: Look for a platform that allows for customization, such as branding, layout, and content, to align with your company’s unique needs. This ensures that your communication efforts align with your brand and values.
- Integration: Look for a platform that integrates with tools you already use, such as project management tools.
- Security and Compliance: Employee engagement tools often involve the collection and processing of personal data, such as an employee’s name, email address, job title, performance data, and feedback. Ensure the platform is secure with compliance requirements such as GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2 to avoid legal hassles.
- Customer Support: Look for a vendor that provides excellent customer support.
Top 8 Alternatives to Staffbase for Employee Communication
Time to level up employee communication with a suitable tool, here are our eight picks for Staffbase alternatives:
- Simpplr
- MangoApps
- LumApps
- Confluence
- Workplace by Meta
- SnapComms
- Assembly
- Blink
Simpplr
Simpplr is an employee communication and collaboration software that is a centralized hub for all internal communication and knowledge-sharing needs. The platform’s unique use cases include the following:
- Personalized news feeds that prioritize relevant information for individual employees
- Social intranet capabilities that enable employee engagement and collaboration
- AI-powered search functionality that helps employees find the information they need quickly and easily.
Source – Simpplr
Why Do People Love Simpplr?
- Simpplr is known for its user-friendly interface, robust features, and seamless integration with other business tools.
- The platform’s focus on simplicity makes it a popular choice for organizations looking to improve internal communication, increase employee engagement, and drive productivity.
- People are also impressed with proactive customer support that resolves issues within minutes.
What’s the Catch?
- Simpplr lacks flexibility in the pricing model. It can be costly for small businesses.
- The mobile app has limited features. Some features are only available on desktops which users can’t access on mobile apps.
Customer Reviews and Ratings
- G2 rating: 4.7/5
- Play Store rating: 4.9/5
Pricing
- Simpplr offers customized pricing based on a company’s size, complexity, and requirements for continuous assistance.
- Is a free trial available?
- No
MangoApps
MangoApps is an all-in-one employee communication and collaboration platform. It enables organizations to streamline internal communication, share knowledge, and increase productivity.
MangoApps is designed to be a customizable and flexible solution that you can tailor to fit your organization’s needs. It integrates with other business systems and tools to keep your old tool setup and implement it as a new addition.
The platform’s unique use cases include the following:
- Social intranet capabilities let employees connect and collaborate through various tools such as message boards, chat, and social feeds.
- Project management capabilities allow teams to create task lists, assign tasks and track progress.
- File sharing and collaboration features allow employees to easily share and collaborate on documents and presentations.
- Integrated employee recognition and reward systems allow managers to identify and reward employees’ efforts.
Source – MangoApps
Why Do People Love MangoApps?
- Users appreciate the platform’s flexibility and customizable features.
- They like its user-friendly interface and comprehensive communication, collaboration, and project management tools.
- Some users praise MangoApps for its customer support, saying the platform’s support team is responsive and helpful.
What’s the Catch?
- Some people experience technical issues with the software, such as slow load times and occasional system crashes.
- Some users complain that the price system is complex. They faced unexpected charges for certain updates.
Customer Reviews and Ratings
- G2 rating: 4.2/5
- Play Store rating: 4.6/5
Pricing
- MangoApps offers custom pricing based on the specific requirements of a company. You can schedule a call with the sales team to get further details.
- Is a free trial available?
- No
LumApps
LumApps is an all-in-one digital workplace solution designed to improve internal communication, increase employee engagement, and drive productivity. It’s a popular choice for organizations looking to streamline their digital workplace.
The platform’s unique use cases include the following:
- the ability to integrate with existing business systems such as G Suite, Office 365, and SharePoint
- the ability to personalize the user experience based on employee roles, locations, and preferences
- social intranet capabilities that enable employee engagement and collaboration
- AI-powered search functionality that helps employees find the information they need quickly and easily.
Source – LumApps
Why Do People Love LumApps?
- Users generally like the platform’s user-friendly interface.
- Its customization features are also popular, allowing users to personalize the platform based on their needs.
- Users also like the ability to integrate with business systems like G Suite and Office 365
What’s the Catch?
- Some users report difficulty with the platform’s search feature. They couldn’t locate the information they were looking for.
- The platform can be expensive for smaller organizations with a limited budget.
- Some users are not satisfied with customer support.
- The learning curve for the platform is long for some users.
Customer Reviews and Ratings
- G2 rating: 4.0/5
- Play Store rating: None
Pricing
- LumApps offers custom pricing based on the specific needs of a company. You can get in touch with the sales team to get further details.
- Is a free trial available?
- No
Confluence
Confluence is a team collaboration and knowledge management software developed by Atlassian. It provides organizations a centralized platform to create, share, and collaborate on content such as meeting notes, project plans, and technical documentation.
Confluence is used by many organizations, from startups to enterprise-level corporations, and is particularly popular among software developers and IT teams.
Confluence’s unique use cases include the following:
- its ability to streamline team collaboration by providing a single source of truth for shared information
- facilitating agile project management through customizable templates and workflows
- improving team communication through comments, mentions, and notifications
- highly customizable platform, allowing teams to tailor the user experience to their needs and requirements
Source – Confluence
Why Do People Love Confluence?
- Users like customizable templates in the platform.
- Confluence is integrated with Atlassian products like Jira and Trello, which help users manage projects.
- Users appreciate the search functionality; anybody can find any project on Confluence pages.
- Users like the project management capabilities of Confluence as it allows them to create multiple dashboards with different timelines, courses of action, and dependencies.
What’s The Catch?
- Lack of analytics. This makes it difficult to gauge the usage of knowledge documents prepared for employees.
- Difficulty in printing documents in PDF format. The structure breaks up, and you’ll end up using other extensions.
- The platform becomes laggy while handling large documents.
Customer Reviews and Ratings
- G2 rating: 4.2/5
- Play Store rating: 4.6/5
Pricing
- Standard Plan: $5.75 per user
- Premium Plan: $11 per user
- Enterprise: Custom Pricing
- Is a free trial available?
- Yes
Workplace by Meta
Workplace by Meta is a collaboration and communication platform designed specifically for businesses. It combines chats, videos, groups, and Intranet with other business tools, such as project management.
Workplace by meta constitutes many unique use cases:
- Meta has multi-company groups that enable your organization to interact with other partners and vendors.
- Workplace by Meta securely integrates with popular business tools such as Microsoft Office, G Suite, and Salesforce, enabling organizations to streamline workflows and improve productivity.
- Meta has live video broadcasting that allows your organization to live broadcast events, presentations, and other company updates.
- Workplace by Meta supports over 50 languages, making it easy for organizations to communicate and collaborate with teams worldwide.
- Meta’s safety check feature allows you to check on your employees during a crisis, such as a natural disaster.
Source – Workplace by Meta
Why Do People Love Workplace by Meta?
- Users appreciate Meta’s simple user interface making it easy to navigate.
- Creating groups and communicating with colleagues is a key strength of Workplace by Meta.
- Integrating Facebook and other business tools is also appreciated, as it allows for a seamless transition between personal and work-related tasks.
- The Safety Check feature, which enables organizations to check on the safety of employees during a crisis quickly
What’s The Catch?
- You can’t organize group chats making it challenging to locate specific chats.
- You receive countless notification alerts from Facebook, which can be distracting if you work in a large organization.
- The Comments feature of the Workplace is not very reliable. Whether during live sessions or in general, comments sometimes show up and sometimes don’t. Also, you can’t delete them once sent.
Customer Reviews and Ratings
- G2 rating: 4/5
- Play Store rating: 4.6/5
Pricing
- Inform Plan: $4
- You can get a buy add-on on top of the core plan. Contact the sales team to create a custom package for yourself.
- Is a free trial available?
- Yes
Snapcomms
Snapcomms is a Staffbase alternative for employee communications. The tool has multiple communication solutions, including desktop alerts, scrolling news feeds, screensavers, quizzes, and surveys.
Here are some unique features of Snapcomms:
- It’s possible to send targeted messages to specific groups and individuals within an organization
- There are multiple message formats to choose from, including video, audio, and images to capture employee attention
Source – Snapcomms
Why Do People Love Snapcomms?
- Intuitive UI
- Users appreciate that all business announcements are centrally located, which makes it easy to find
- Interactive customer service who’s always ready to make updates at users’ convenience
- Color coding messaging based on urgency. Urgent messages pop up differently than less important messages.
What’s the Catch?
- Complex onboarding makes it hard for employees with lesser technical knowledge.
- Lack of real-time updates from ongoing communications
Customer Reviews and Ratings
- G2 rating: 4.6/5
- Play Store rating: None
Pricing
Snapcomms has fixed pricing based on the number of employees in your organization.
| Inform | Engage | |
| For 100-200 employees | $40 | $60 |
| For 201-500 employees: | $25 | $35 |
For 501-1000 employees: | $15 | $20 |
| For 1001-2000 employees: | $12 | $16 |
| For 2001-5000 employees | $9 | $14 |
| For 5001-10000 employees: | $7 | $10 |
| For 10,001-20,000 employees: | $5 | $7 |
| For 20001-50000 employees: | $3 | $5 |
| For 50001 – 100000 | $2.50 | $3.50 |
| For 100000+ | $2 | $3 |
Is a free trial available?
- No
Assembly
Assemble is another Staffbase alternative that lets employees seamlessly communicate and collaborate on multiple tasks. It’s an all-in-one employee communication software that helps with employee recognition, workplace search, and knowledge management.
Here are Assembly’s unique features:
- Announcements in Assembly lets you share highlights like important hires, strategic decisions, and company milestones.
- Not only can you celebrate your employees on Assembly, but it also allows your employees to submit nominees for recognition.
- Team retrospectives in Assembly let you look back on important tasks. Make notes to record what worked and what didn’t to utilize them in emergencies.
- Assembly provides in-depth analytics that let you check who’s engaging in the platform and how involved they are in discussions.
Source – Assembly
What Do People Love About Assembly?
- The integration with Slack makes it easy to recognize employees. Additionally, GIFs make recognition more fun.
- The customer service team is very swift with their responses and implementations.qwz
What’s the Catch?
- Complex onboarding makes it hard for employees with lesser technical knowledge.
- Lack of real-time updates from ongoing communications
- There’s no date filter for appreciation points, so you can’t identify when they were given.
Customer Reviews and Rating
- G2 rating: 4.7/5
- Play Store rating: None
Pricing
- Lite: $2.80 per member per month
- Standard: $4.50 per member per month
- Premium: Custom Pricing
- Is a free trial available?
- Yes, the ‘Starter’ plan is free.
Blink
Blink is an employee communication software that provides employees with tools, information, and inspiration to excel at their jobs. In addition, they get access to news and people, which makes them feel like they’re a part of the team.
You get data and insights to track how frontline workers are interacting with the rest of the team so you make informed decisions for them.
Here are some unique features of Blink:
- Single sign-on functionality allows frontline workers to access other tools like Workday or ADP with a single password.
- Your employees can reply to stories and chat in groups like on their social media accounts.
- The ‘Mandatory Reads’ feature allows you to ensure the employee sees critical messages.
- Advanced analytics lets you see which posts are popular among employees.
- Blink integrates with Typeform so you can conduct surveys within the platform and get answers to critical questions.
Source – Blink
What Do People Love About Blink?
- The ‘Hub’ is a great central repository for all the information your employees may need.
- The “social media feel” makes it fun and attracts more employees to communicate on the platform.
- Users can create a custom web page with information targeted for specific individuals. Whenever that employee checks the webpage, the user gets a notification.
What’s the Catch?
- High price point
- Hidden costs on minor services like custom domain
- Limited options to customize your platform
- Video uploads take a lot of time, and bulk upload is extremely time-consuming.
Customer Reviews and Rating
- G2 rating: 4.6/5
- Play Store rating: 3.3/5
Pricing
- Essential: $3.40 per person per month
- Business: Custom Pricing
- Enterprise: Custom Pricing
- Enterprise Plus: Custom Pricing
- Is a free trial available?
- No
Questions to Ask Before Picking a Staffbase Alternative
- Who is going to use the tool?
Before choosing an employee communication software, consider who will use it. Is it for a specific department, such as HR or IT, or will all employees use it? For example, if it’s for the HR department, it should have features like onboarding and performance management modules. On the other hand, if it’s for employees across the board, it should have knowledge-sharing features such as a social intranet.
- How is the user interface?
The user interface is crucial to ensure the software is easy to navigate. A complicated UI may discourage employees from spending time on the platform. For example, if the tool has a cluttered interface and is difficult to navigate, employees may struggle to find what they want, leading to frustration and a lack of engagement.
- What metrics does it collect?
Effective employee communication software should collect metrics relevant to the organization’s goals. For example, if the organization’s goal is to improve employee engagement, then the tool should collect metrics such as employee satisfaction, participation rates, and employee feedback. On the other hand, if the organization aims to improve productivity, the tool should collect metrics such as project completion rates, task completion times, and employee productivity rates.
- Is the tool secure?
Employee engagement tools often contain sensitive data, such as personal and company information. Therefore, choosing an employee engagement tool that is secure and protects sensitive data is important. For example, the tool should have features such as encryption, access controls, and user authentication to ensure that only authorized users can access the data. The tool should also comply with relevant data privacy regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA.
Parting Thoughts
Hope you found our in-depth review of StaffBase alternatives useful!
