Rippling Expert Review, Pricing, Alternatives - 2023

4.8
(1505)
Alison Hunter
Editor and HR expert for SelectSoftware Reviews

Contributing Experts

Stacey Richey
Vice President of People at Corvus Insurance; 18+ years experience in HR.
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Rippling Versus the Competition

Rippling is an employee management platform for everything between onboarding and offboarding, with a soothing design and a great user experience.

If you're ready to get a Rippling demo, we suggest getting in touch for a look at the product and quote. Otherwise, read on!

⭐️
Ratings
4.8
🏅
Ease of Use
👍
Best For
💡
Key Differentiator
💵
Price
🆓
Free Trial
Pros
  • Operates globally with any currency
  • Automates issuance process
  • Workflow automation
  • Analytics opportunities
  • Provides a holistic view of company outflows—headcount costs included
Cons
  • Total buy-in to Rippling is essential 
  • New features tend to be buggy in ways that tech teams are not accustomed to fixing

Rippling Review

Expense reporting and reimbursement is prone to error. Any number of human or computer blunders can happen during the handoff to the payroll system, the handoff to accounting, and the handoff(s) along the approval chain. These problems are amplified if the handoffs are between systems designed by entirely different companies with a third party brokering the information exchange between the two.

Rippling’s spend management system puts digital intelligence where once a (probably very frustrated) human admin would choreograph the awkward software dance between one piece of middleware and another.

Who shouldn't buy Rippling

A small, level org with simple spending needs would not use most of the features offered by Rippling’s HRIS, and therefore their global payroll.

Rippling Customers

Proxy, Dwell, Superhuman, Expensify, Checkr

Rippling: Spend management tool in HIRS

Rippling Key Features

  • Manage devices: Among other things, Rippling lets you manage and protect the computers, phones, and tablets that your employees use for their work.
  • App management: Another feature that's particular to Rippling is their mission control for work apps. In brief, you can manage users and their access for tools like Slack, Office, Google Workplace, and Dropbox.

Rippling also offers:

  • Payroll
  • Benefits
  • Talent Management
  • Time & Attendance
  • Automated Onboarding & Offboarding
  • PEO

Rippling Key Integrations

When it comes to integrations, Rippling is one of the leaders in the HR tech space, being able to integrate with over 500 tools. Some of them are Lever, Greenhouse, and Quickbooks, for example.

Rippling Pricing

Rippling's Core HR platform starts at $8 per employee per month. Contact Rippling regarding a custom Spend Management quote.

Motivosity Recognize
Motivosity Recognize
Motivosity Lead
Motivosity Listen
Free
$5 per person per month
$6.50 per person per month
$2 per person per month

Rippling is Best For

This software is best for companies of medium to large size, globally or nationally distributed with multiple levels of organization.

Motivosity Recognize
Motivosity Recognize
Motivosity Lead
Motivosity Listen
Free
$5 per person per month
$6.50 per person per month
$2 per person per month

How Has Rippling Changed Over Time?

Rippling Implementation

Typically, Rippling takes around 2 weeks to implement, but times will vary depending on the scope of each project.

Rippling Customer Success

Rippling has a Customer Success department, a CSM toolkit, and a help center.

About Rippling

Rippling has an interesting origin story, in big part because they were founded by the former Zenefits CEO and one of its Co-Founders, Parker Conrad, after a somewhat dramatic exit. Conrad co-founded Zenefits in 2012. Part of what inspired him to help create the product was the launch of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and his experience as a cancer patient.

Zenefits became one of the quickest-growing tech startups of its era, getting valued at $4.5 billion within two years of its inception. Since then, it has remained a constant household name in the world of HR software for American SMBs. Even after some controversy.

In 2015, it was reported by Buzzfeed News that the startup had allowed salespeople to sell health insurance that they were unlicensed to sell, since in the US the law requires insurance brokers to be licensed. The company came under heavy scrutiny for failing to enforce these legal requirements, to the point that Conrad had to step down from his role as CEO.

From the ashes, Parker Conrad teamed up with Zenefits’ former director of engineering and founded Rippling. The driving idea was to create a platform that could simplify HR in general through automated workflows. The focus was on going beyond benefits and payroll and touching upon everything that HR is traditionally supposed to do.

Founded in 2016, the product caught on somewhat slower than Conrad’s former project, but they solidly built a name for themselves by orienting their product towards companies with less than 2000 employees.

Then, in 2020, Rippling was named a "Next $1B Startup" by Forbes. They became an actual $1B startup just months after that mention, getting valued at $1.35 billion in August 2020. Shortly after, they managed to top even that, getting valued at $6.5B in October 2021, and then at aghgb staggering $11.25 billion in May 2022. 

To this day, they continue to grow consistently and are considered one of the top players in the HRMS space for SMBs. Also, they now hold their own licenses for insurance services, PEO, and payments. You can consult the exact info on those via their website.

As a next step you can visit the Rippling website or read our research on the Best HRIS Systems.

As a next step you can visit the Rippling website or read our research on the Best HRIS Systems.

Rippling Alternatives

Payroll and compliance in 150 countries
Top vendor with flexible pricing
HRIS for US-based SMBs
Affordable payroll, HR, and benefits admin
Culture-focused HRIS

FAQs

Company HQ
San Francisco, CA
Number of Employees
1290+
Year Founded
2016
Amount Raised
Last raised $250M via series D funding.
Listed in our research about HRIS Systems
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