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Almost 30% of job seekers say they have left a position within their first 90 days. Therefore, it is important to properly engage your workforce at the very beginning of their journey with your company to ensure a high retention rate. Onboarding tools prepare them for success in their new roles, empower them to set high expectations for themselves, and even encourage them to stick around longer.
Employee turnover is costly, especially if those costs come immediately after new employee hiring expenses. Despite that, many small businesses and startups still might not be able to fit an onboarding platform in their budget. As such, we put together a list of the best free onboarding solutions, including free trials and free forever options. Our aim is to help small businesses empower new hires and create high-growth teams while also saving money and valuable time.
This guide outlines the best free employee onboarding systems, either those that have free trials or are actually free depending on your company size. You can also check out our landscape on the top employee onboarding solutions.
We spend hundreds of hours researching the best HR and recruiting software so you don’t have to. We never take money from vendors during our research phase and rely heavily on practitioners and experts to help us recommend the right software. However we may earn a fee if you click on vendor links on this page. Learn more
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17
Hours Researched
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1
Experts Consulted
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9
Vendors Reviewed
Our criteria: How we chose the best vendors
We take our research seriously and want to make sure we are presenting our readers with the very best solutions in a given software category. Here's how we select vendors to be in our buyer guides:
- Product: We want to have a deep understanding of a vendor's product before recommending it. This usually means getting a demo by a senior executive (their CEO, head of product, etc), and/or using the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best in class offering.
- User feedback: We do our best to understand what users say when they experience this product. User input allows us to accomplish a more thorough due diligence of products, put new vendors on our radar, and generally make sure we are presenting the right products to our readers.
- Financial metrics: We are very much finance nerds and so use a product's retention rates, growth, profitability, and scale to understand whether or not it is truly best in class.
- Best for a use case: Sometimes the best solution is the cheapest, the best tool for international companies, or the best for startups. We try to include a diversity of solutions so that our readers can find the tool that is best for what they need.
Here's more detail if you want to read further on how we research vendors.
In this guide you'll find
Featured in
Top Free Employee Onboarding Software Platforms — 2022
We track thousands of HR Tech solutions. Here are the best free employee onboarding software as of 2022.
Why we love it
:
Not only is Freshteam a complete HR suite that's highly thought of by all sorts of professionals, they're also the makers of a breadth of widely-acclaimed business solutions.
- Freshteam is very user-friendly, with an intuitive UI that’s easy to navigate. It features a customizable, Kanban-style view of the full hiring process from initial contact to offer sending. Drag and drop mechanism makes it easy to move candidates around as they progress through the different stages.
- Freshteam is affordable for SMBs to use while still having a comparable feature set to more expensive solutions.
- Freshteam is quite scalable. With four plans to choose from, customers can start out with the free plan, then upgrade to more features as their business grows.
- While Freshteam has a free-forever plan that small companies can use, the plan is limited in features and allows for only 3 published job postings. That said, Freshteam’s paid plans are quite affordable, and can be used by small businesses - should they need to - without breaking the bank.
- Freshteam might not be suitable for enterprises and agencies that do volume hiring and are in need of advanced applicant tracking, candidate sourcing, and relationship management capabilities.
Freshteam
Review:
Freshteam offers a 21-day free trial of their employee onboarding software solution. It allows you to put together and send an onboarding kit of documents, forms-to-fill, and handbooks to sign so it can all be taken care of before the first day. Whenever something is missed, the system sends out reminders. Some of the additional features Freshteam offers include task tracking, open API’s, and employee offboarding.
It is typically packaged as a part of their greater HR software package, of which they offer a free-forever plan called. Unfortunately, onboarding functionality is not included in the free plan at this time.
Freshteam
Customers:
Daimler, Nissan, JCDecaux, SAP, University of Pennsylvania
Freshteam
Stats:
- Used by 5,000 customers worldwide
Freshteam
Pricing:
Freshteam is free for up to 50 employees. Their onboarding solution is offered with their Pro and Enterprise plans. The former starts at $2.40 per user per month plus a monthly $119 platform fee. That being said, you get two months free if you go for the annual plan.
Best For:
Freshteam is a good bet for businesses large and small. However, those looking specifically for a free onboarding solution may not find a good fit here, as it offers so much more but onboarding is a part of the paid offering only.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
This is a great employee onboarding platform if you're specifically looking to solve issues around training and learning for new employees.
eloomi
Review:
If you're looking for a free employee onboarding solution, eloomi might be the right fit for you. Their product is built around their LMS (also free up to 10 users / courses).
Employees who are new to the organization are automatically put into an onboarding cadence where they can learn about the company, their role, and more.
eloomi
Customers:
Domino’s, Jabra GN, Sophos, Le Creuset, Icelandair Hotels, Delta.
eloomi
Stats:
- eloomi was established in 2015
- eloomi has been used by over 500 customers
Best For:
Companies across different industries looking for an integrated employee learning, development, and appraisal solution.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Leapsome offers a modern approach to onboarding and other HR processes, all united by great UX and support.
Leapsome
Review:
Employee engagement and performance management software company Leapsome offers a 14-day free trial of their product. It has a robust onboarding solution that lets you craft a step-by-step learning program and quiz your new hire on what they learned at each step.
Leapsome
Customers:
Leapsome is used by Babbel, Mercedes-Benz, Trivago, and Spotify, among others.
Leapsome
Stats:
- 1.2M unique pieces of feedback shared
- 99% customer satisfaction
Leapsome
Pricing:
Leapsome starts at a 14-day free trial. Once that is over, pricing will depend on the number of employees you'll have using the tool and the modules you'd like to use. Their modular pricing starts at 7 USD user/month if billed annually.
Best For
All sorts of company sizes could make good use of Leapsome.
Worth Checking Out:
Leapsome is available in English, German, and French, although support is only available in the former two.
Why we love it
:
WebHR is free if you have 5 employees or less in your organization. Its base module includes onboarding tools, which are designed for new hire self-service.
WebHR
Review:
With WebHR, employees can use any device to fill out paperwork, sign and upload documentation, choose benefits plans, and complete training modules. Even if you need to upgrade from the free plan, WebHR's options are pretty inexpensive; as little as $2/month per staff member. That makes it an ideal employee management system for small businesses.
WebHR
Customers:
Chevrolet, Nissan, Infiniti, WaterAid, GMC, and Budget.
WebHR
Stats:
- Available in 30 languages
WebHR
Pricing:
WebHR's pricing after the free version depends on the amount of modules you add. As mentioned above, it can be as little as $2 per user per month for all the base modules.
Best For
Small businesses looking for a simple solution with all the necessary features.
Worth Checking Out:
WebHR offers other HR tools like time & attendance tracking, leaves & paid time off management, document storage, and employee database.
Why we love it
:
BambooHR is a full suite HCM technology vendor that boasts over 16,000 customers, which translates into roughly 1.5 million employees active on their system.
- Flexible packaging and custom pricing is the way they roll. You can pick out one or two packages and pick other modules as add-ons based on your needs.
- Very simple and straightforward tool, easy to use.
- Payroll is only available for US-based employees
- Customer support is only offered during US business hours.
- Some modules like time tracking, performance management, and surveys are only available as add-ons.
BambooHR
Review:
BambooHR offers a free trial of their HRMS platform, which includes onboarding. BambooHR's solution spans across the employee lifecycle as they also have recruiting and performance management in addition to the core HRMS functionality.
BambooHR
Customers:
ZipRecruiter, Postmates, Change.org, Stance, University of Maryland, Grammarly, and Jane.
BambooHR
Stats:
- 45,000+ new hires onboarded per month
- 20,000+ active client organizations
- 1.8 m+ active employee users
BambooHR
Pricing:
Although it has a free trial, BambooHR doesn't disclose its pricing plans on their website.
Best For
Companies of all sizes and in all sorts of industries.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Sentrifugo is one of the top open-source HRMSs out there. Whether you're a small business or a large organization, it can be configured to fit your exact needs.
Sentrifugo
Review:
Sentrifugo is a free open-source HRMS, which includes an onboarding module in its feature set. If your company is looking for a little bit of everything on top of onboarding, Sentrifugo is a great option. However, because it’s open source you have to save all of your data on your own servers. For a small to medium sized business, that shouldn’t end up being an issue.
Sentrifugo
Customers:
Sentrifugo
Stats:
Sentrifugo
Pricing:
Sentrifugo is completely free, but you need to take into consideration the cost of hosting it yourself.
Best For
Small and medium-sized companies that want to explore the open-source route.
Worth Checking Out:
Why we love it
:
Zenefits offer top-notch product experience with a self-service ethos for most of their products. That has worked for thousands of companies because their products are so easy to use.
- It’s one of the top names in HR tech and payroll software for American small businesses.
- Their platform is one of the best-looking and easiest to figure out among the sector.
- Zenefits can grow with you. Its pricing plans allow you to pay and tweak as you go, add certain modules when you need them, or get rid of them if you don’t.
- As oriented to small businesses as the tool is, it doesn’t give you the chance to create a custom bundle of the services and/or modules you’d like to have. For instance, Zenefits does not offer a standalone ACA module. Therefore, you will need to purchase an entire HRIS plan if you want to access that offering.
- In addition, Zenefits focuses on small to mid sized companies. If you're an enterprise organization, you may want to consider another option.
- Zenefits is also rather focused on the US market at this point. So, if your team is mostly in another country and you need more of a local know-how, it might not be the best bet for certain modules like payroll and benefits.
Zenefits
Review:
Zenefits offers a two week free trial of their Hiring & Onboarding software. Zenefits Hiring & Onboarding software is entirely online and mobile friendly, and allows employees to self-onboard, saving your organization lots of time. The solution follows the entire onboarding process from making the offer to managing employees once they’re fully assimilated. It connects automatically to the rest of their HR suit as well, making it ideal if you’re already a Zenefits customer.
Zenefits
Customers:
Quora, Goals for Autism, Universal Group, Reddit, Asana
Zenefits
Stats:
- Over 11,000 customers in 35 different industries
- 80% of the new hires they onboard complete the process before their first day
- 50% less time onboarding new employees
- Some cases can complete new hire onboarding in under 10 minutes
Zenefits
Pricing:
After the free trial, Zenefits starts with the Essentials plan at $8 per month per employee.
Best For
Smaller teams (<50) that want to save time by streamlining their HR services with an intuitive platform that lets them pay and tweak as they go.
Worth Checking Out:
Zenefits is a full HRIS, so it might be a good bet for businesses looking for more than an onboarding tool.
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Final Advice on Free Onboarding Software
When looking for a free software, you’re not going to be able to get everything on your list. Narrow down the list of features you want into “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves” and pursue the offering that fits as much of the must-haves as possible.
As your company grows, you’ll be able to branch out to the full version of these vendors, or even seek out a different one. We have an entire landscape dedicated to the best employee onboarding software when you’re ready to make the jump. In the meantime, use this page to find the best possible solution.
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