TriNet vs BambooHR

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Our analysts compared TriNet vs BambooHR based on data from our 400+ point analysis of HR Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

TriNet is a cloud-based HR solution that’s ideal for small and medium-sized businesses, focusing on payroll, benefits and compliance.

Acquired by TriNet in February 2022, Zenefits was previously recognized for its all-in-one approach to HR, emphasizing benefits administration and employee management. The platform supports onboarding new employees, tracking time and attendance, managing payroll and monitoring performance.

After running through the demo, I felt that navigation was particularly well-suited for beginners. Its simple layout streamlines administrative tasks without needing extensive HR expertise.

An issue a lot of workplaces face is handling employee burnout. Many users mention how easy it is to submit PTO, helping their employees take the time off they need without needing admin approval.

Another common HR challenge is benefits enrollment. With so many plan options, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. On top of that, employees often have limited time to make decisions, which can lead to rushed choices or forgetting to enroll at all. TriNet addresses these challenges by providing tools like automated notifications and detailed cost breakdowns to simplify the enrollment process.

Users appreciate the user-friendly interface and automated processes, which lessen the manual workload for HR teams. Some consider it basic, but most value its straightforward design. In contrast, opinions vary on customer support wait times.

There are three pricing plans: Essentials $8 annually or $10 monthly, Growth $16 annually or $20 monthly, and Zen $27 annually or $33 monthly, all charged per user. For exact pricing information, we recommend requesting a quote from their website.

Overall, TriNet helps manage payroll, benefits and employee performance with tools like time tracking, automated payroll and employee engagement surveys.

What else can it do? Let’s take a closer look.


TriNet at a Glance

Support Options
  • Phone and email
  • Training videos
  • Help Center
  • Chat
Top Modules/Functions and Our Analyst Score
  • Time and attendance (100)
  • Document management (98)
  • Payroll management (95)
Strengths
  • User-friendly design
  • Easy benefits enrollment
  • Automation options
Limitations
  • Mixed reviews on customer support wait times.
  • Basic functionality may lack depth for advanced users.
Mobile Access Yes. (2.2 rating on Google Play)

Industry Specialties

Serves all industries, including but not limited to:

  • Healthcare
  • Technology
  • Manufacturing
  • Professional Services
  • Retail

Pricing Plans

Feature/Functionality

Essentials

Growth

Zen

Price

$8 annually, $10 monthly

$16 annually, $20 monthly

$27 annually, $33 monthly

Core HR Included

Yes

Yes

Yes

Benefits

Yes

Yes

Yes

Recruiting

Yes

Yes

Yes

Time and Attendance

Yes

Yes

Yes

HR Advisory Desk

Yes

Yes

Yes

People Analytics

No

Yes

Yes

Real-time Comparison Salary Data

No

Yes

Yes

Custom Compensation Benchmark Options

No

Yes

Yes

Goal Management

No

Yes

Yes

Employee Engagement Surveys

No

No

Yes

People Hub

No

No

Included

Payroll Tax Filing

Add-On

Add-On

Included

General Ledger

Add-On

Add-On

Included

Contractor payments

Add-On

Add-On

Included

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BambooHR is an HRMS designed for small and medium-sized businesses, and provides solutions for organizations in all industries. Based in the cloud, it streamlines data collection throughout the employee lifecycle, warehousing relevant information in a centralized database to make it easily accessible for managers and individual employees.

It facilitates hiring, onboarding, compensation administration, performance management, provides employee self-service capabilities and everything in-between. It allows organizations to make customizations, set multiple administrators and maintain inactive employees.
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$8 Monthly
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
$175 Monthly, quote-based
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Small 
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Medium 
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Large 
i
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Reduce Busy Work: Create approval workflows to make daily tasks more efficient. These workflows can be applied to any employee changes, including promotions, terminations and new hires. Automating these processes saves time and reduces administrative overhead. A couple of fully supported features that further cut down on manual work include ACA eligibility calculations and real-time data synchronization, according to our Express App.
  • Get Intelligent Insights: Access reports smoothly, from executives to administrators—with customizable permissions for security. Get real-time data through prebuilt reports on turnover, compensation, equal opportunity and more, plus create custom reports for your key KPIs.
    • TriNet fully supports timesheet management, custom fields, and charts and visualizations for data-driven decision-making.
  • Empower Employees: Let your employees take the reins with employee self-service (ESS) tools to manage their information, including viewing pay stubs and updating benefits elections.
    • New hires can self-enroll in benefits like healthcare and 401k during onboarding or later on.
    • Employees can update their personal info, such as family details, marital status updates, birthdays and work permits.
    • Self-service leave requests are moderately supported.
  • Provide Mobile Access: Check benefits, view pay stubs, access the company directory, clock in and out, and close tasks on the go. Admins can also cross off performance reviews, payroll and time off tasks right from their phones via mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.
    • Simplify PTO: View and request time off in a few steps on the mobile app.
  • Ensure Compliance: Ensure ACA compliance with built-in explanations, tailored configuration suggestions, e-filing, compliance status visibility, offboarding features and ERISA data storage.
  • Connect to Popular Platforms: Use third-party apps for ATS, productivity, 401(k), expense management, employee engagement, learning and development, and accounting (just to name a few). Apps include G Suite, Slack, OnPay and Salesforce.
  • Access TriNet Perks: Provide your employees access to discounts and corporate rates on brands like Costco, AMC Theaters, Disneyland, PODS, and Columbia Sportswear.
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  • Apps Marketplace: Find official partner integrations and solutions in a unified location to choose add-ons that make BambooHR a more robust solution. 
  • Employee Self-Service: Employees can log in to view personal information, including time off balances, benefits information and the employee directory. Administrators can set reminders to notify employees when they have documents ready to e-sign or other tasks to complete. 
  • Ensure Privacy: Administrators can set permissions to allow employees to view and edit their personal information while restricting access to other sensitive data. Ensures that all individual employee information is kept private and protects important company information from employees who don’t need to see it. 
  • Live Support: Access live chat and phone support Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. 
  • Progress Tracking: Gain visibility into the progress of individual projects and activities to oversee workflows and approvals, as well as which individuals have completed them. 
  • Security and Peace of Mind: Guarantees enterprise-level data security for any data that is housed within the system, ensuring compliance for organizations with security needs. 
  • Self Onboarding: Enable employees to e-sign and complete documents as well as enter their own information to streamline the onboarding process and free up managers to focus on other important tasks. Employees and new hires can also send introduction emails to meet team members before the newest employee starts their first shift. 
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  • Payroll: Log on, go to your payroll overview, and you'll see tasks you need to complete at the top. Click open payroll and review and approve your next pay run. There are also indicators that let you know if anything looks off to prevent payroll errors.
    • Pay Cycle Tracking: Monitor pay cycles and important dates categorized by employee groups (exempt vs non-exempt) with downloadable calendar views.
    • Advanced Issue Notifications: Receive indicators for potential payroll issues prior to final approval, with advanced filters for insights (location, department, job code).
    • Reimbursements: Make reimbursements easy. Choose the type (like driving) and enter the amount right on the platform.
  • Integrations: Integrate with popular accounting software platforms like Xero and QuickBooks.
  • Benefits Administration: Offer standard medical, dental and vision benefits, along with life and disability insurance. Additionally, there are commuter benefits, COBRA administration, workers comp, FSA and HSA. Filter from hundreds of providers for easy comparison and manage their information from a dashboard.
    • Transparent Pricing: Know where your money's going with monthly cost breakdowns that lay out all the details, from dental to life insurance.
  • Time Management: Keep an eye on clock-in/out times and hours worked with real-time dashboards. Set up customizable PTO policies, streamline workflows, view calendars, approve requests with a click and let employees manage their sick days/time-off requests.
  • TimeKeeper iPad App: Protect against fraud and time theft by taking pictures of employees when they check in or out.
  • Performance Management: Leverage goal management, meetings, action items and performance tracking. Run peer and 360-degree reviews using prebuilt templates and customizable questions.
  • Document Management: Centralize employee documents, create custom folders and specify which employees have access.
  • Recruiting and Hiring: Handle all your hiring tasks digitally, fast track completing offer letters with templates and run background checks.
    • Job Post Sharing: Share job listings on free job boards and social media, or boost them on paid channels with just a few clicks.
    • Automated Communication: Send automated texts, emails and notifications to prevent candidates from getting stuck in one step of the hiring process.
    • Candidate Profiles: Click on a candidate's name to access their profile, where you can view their resume, scorecard, assessments, emails, and documents all in one place. Easily reject or advance candidates with just a click from their profile.
    • Seamless Hiring: Once you select a candidate for hire, simply choose their start date and hit "hire." Celebrate when they’re officially onboarded.
  • Onboarding: New hire info syncs across the suite, so you won't have to enter it twice (or worry about double entry). New employees can also manage their part of the process to keep everything accurate and on time.
    • Employee Progress Dashboard: Track who’s completed enrollment and send reminders or invitations to new hires.
  • Compliance Assistant: Use this built-in tool to track federal HR deadlines and set custom reminders. You’ll find detailed explanations of compliance deadlines that could affect your business and sync reminders with your personal calendar. There are also resources to provide a better understanding of regulatory requirements, including ACA, COBRA, EEOC and I-9 compliance.
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  • Applicant Tracking System (ATS): Allows recruiters to post jobs to popular job sharing sites and social media. Sends alerts to notify recruiters as candidates move through the application process and offers in-app messaging features to answer candidate questions directly. 
  • Overtime Compliance: Checks overtime regulations in all 50 states and territories, ensuring compliance. 
  • Benefits Administration: Provides an option to set a variable rate health plan or enable users to sync with Maxwell Health, a third-party benefits administration outsourcer. 
  • Calendars: Generate a “Who’s Out” calendar to track which employees are out on sick leave or PTO. Integrates with popular third-party calendar apps such as Google Calendar, iCalendar and Outlook Calendar, enabling employees to synchronize their devices so they can easily view who will be available and when. 
  • Custom Workflows: Build data entry workflows that allow different individuals to be assigned to tasks and enter information. Up to five different individuals can make changes and approve workflows. 
  • Employee Reviews: Measure employee satisfaction and see how to boost employee engagement via anonymous scorecards that allow employees to evaluate the workplace. Combines eNPS and intelligent feedback analysis to gauge all aspects of the employee experience. 
  • Inbox Notifications: Alerts managers when an employee submits a time off request and reminds managers when they need to take action, such as approving or denying these requests. 
  • Mobile Capability: Provides desktop benefits from anywhere. Android and iOS-compatible apps allow employees to view time off balances, request time off, view company directories, contact employees via direct message and more. 
  • Offboarding Alerts: Send reminders to system administrators and managers to ensure that all aspects of the offboarding process are completed before an employee leaves their position and it’s too late. 
  • Performance Management Add-On: Allows employees to leave peer reviews through an objective feedback questionnaire to provide more robust evaluations. Aids managers in evaluating and comparing employee performance on an individual and departmental level, as well as across the entire company. 
  • Streamlined Reporting: Quickly generate a variety of reports including EEO-1 via the library of built-in reports. Set custom permissions to keep confidential information safe and then share reports with an unlimited number of individuals for review. 
  • Time Off Calculator: Employees can check their current PTO balances, see any upcoming time off that they have scheduled and make PTO calculations with the in-app calculator to determine how much PTO they will accrue in the future. 
  • Time Tracking: Allows employees to clock-in and clock-out for shifts as well as view their timesheets. Alerts remind employees and managers to keep their timesheets up to date with accurate hours and approve timecards when necessary. 
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Product Ranking

#25

among all
HR Management Software

#38

among all
HR Management Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

72
59
34
62
85
49
57
21
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Availability and Scalability
Platform Security
Time and Attendance Management
Training
Document Management
Vendor Information
Professional Services and Maintenance
Training

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

TriNet
BambooHR
+ Add Product + Add Product
Applicant Tracking And Recruiting Benefits Management Compensation Management Document Management Employee Engagement Employee Onboarding And Administration Employee Self Service Learning Management Payroll Management Performance Management Platform Capabilities Reporting And Dashboard Succession Management Time And Attendance Management Workforce Management 34 85 57 98 69 78 73 34 95 47 50 79 14 100 49 62 49 21 78 79 80 60 36 49 53 61 62 25 54 31 0 25 50 75 100
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71%
14%
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73%
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33%
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17%
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14%
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81%
19%
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38%
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22%
56%
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17%
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83%
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83%
100%
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25%
33%
42%
30%
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70%
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18%
82%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

TriNet
BambooHR
+ Add Product + Add Product
Availability And Scalability Deployment Options Integrations And Extensibility Mobile Platform Security 100 50 75 100 71 50 71 75 0 25 50 75 100
100%
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75%
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67%
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33%

Analyst Ratings for Vendor Qualification Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 1503 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 4948 reviews
82%
of users recommend this product

TriNet has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 82% when considering 1503 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

91%
of users recommend this product

BambooHR has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 91% when considering 4948 user reviews from 6 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (14)
5.0 (38)
4.0 (460)
4.4 (1048)
n/a
4.58 (1773)
4.2 (822)
4.6 (1589)
4.0 (3)
4.6 (272)
3.7 (204)
4.3 (228)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated TriNet and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Time and Attendance Management and Training.

Time and Attendance Management Award
Training Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated BambooHR and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Vendor Information. BambooHR stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Vendor Information Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of Use: Many users find the platform simple to navigate, making it easy to view paychecks, track time and attendance, manage payroll, and administer benefits.
Automation: Payroll and benefits processes are largely automated, reducing manual tasks and improving efficiency.
Customer Support: The support team is often praised for being professional, friendly and helpful. There are various support options available, including chat and phone and the ability to track case submissions.
Smooth Benefits Enrollment: Most users like its insurance options (especially with it being all integrated right into the platform), including re-enrollment options, multiple language support and mobile enrollment. Overall, the majority found the process hassle-free.
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Ease to Use: BambooHR has an intuitive and user-friendly interface, according to 100% of reviews on the UI.
Leave and Attendance Management: 85% of reviews on leave and ATS indicated that it’s quick and efficient for recording and updating these details.
Employee Self-Service: 100% of reviews mentioning self-service observed that it helps easily update personal information, view job history, and generate pay stubs and benefits information.
Onboarding: Automated workflows make the onboarding experience simpler and faster, according to all reviews referring to this aspect.
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Basic Functionality: Users find the platform design on the basic side, which can be a double-edged sword. While it simplifies navigation, it may feel less intuitive.
Customer Support Wait Times: Some users reported long wait times and the need to connect with multiple support representatives. There are designated support representatives, but the availability depends on the plan you opt for.
Integration Challenges: There have been difficulties linking multiple companies within the platform, complicating things like time-off approvals.
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Lacks Crucial Tools: Lacks functions such as attaching documents for employee benefits, restrictions on editing employee forms once saved and more, according to all reviews on this element.
Custom Report Filters: According to 100% of reviews on reports, it doesn't provide any option to customize report filters.
Payroll Processing and Management: All reviews mentioning this element noted that the software lacks an in-house tool for payroll processing and management.
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In HR, you're responsible for a lot of paperwork for core functions like recruiting, tax filing, payroll and performance management (just to name a few). Trying to keep every document organized and secure the old-fashioned way might feel like managing the Smithsonian.;TriNet can alleviate your document management woes by keeping everything in one place in the cloud.Its platform includes HR management and administration tools, recruiting, payroll and benefits. Overall, I found the design practical and simple. It didn't leave me guessing where to find things.;Manage access to folders and documents, create custom folders and specify which employees have access. In the upper right corner, you'll find your profile along with an arrow that reveals menu options. The top right also features your inbox, notifications, help and a handy search bar.It has separate tabs for worker and company documents. Creating folders to stay organized is easy with the bright orange "Create New Folder" option. Each document allows you to hover over it, where you can click the pencil icon to edit or the trash can icon to delete.Manage employees’ benefits eligibility, view benefit costs and change enrollment details. Scroll down and see everything covered under your plan, from dental and vision to life insurance. To get employees on board, set your open enrollment dates and automate notifications.;Customize email invites, preview the employee experience and ensure no one misses enrollment – once it’s open, they’ll see it as a task at the top of their dashboard.;There’s no guessing when it comes to employee costs, the company contribution and total because it’s laid out clearly in the monthly cost breakdown. Plus, when enrollment time rolls around, there’s a start renewal link, side-by-side plan comparisons and a quoting tool.;My favorite feature is the step-by-step guide because even if you’ve gone through the labyrinth of benefits enrollment seemingly a hundred times, there’s still a lot of ground to cover, which makes setting everything up less overwhelming. Make your enrollment setup unforgettable with benefits checklists that ensure employees don’t miss important options.The payroll module is reasonably straightforward. The layout is on the simple side, featuring main menu optionhs including Overviews, People, Timeline, Reports, Taxes, Forms and Settings.;Just like conveniently passing by a coffee shop on your way to work, essentially every payroll task you have to check off is connected and easy to find. Manage employee notifications, download payroll reports and approve payroll — all in one place.;The candidate landing page is simple. It shows the person’s name to the very left; on the right, you can view their contact info (there’s a phone icon and email icon), location, workflow status, source (like your career page) and the date they applied.So, what happens after clicking a candidate's name? You get directed to their profile and, from there, view their resume, scorecard, assessments, emails and documents. There are options at the top to reject or advance candidates. Once they move to hiring, you select their start date and press hire candidate, and ta-da — you’re greeted with virtual confetti.;I like that there are conveniently automated communication options like sending text messages. It's especially helpful if you’re hiring multiple people and don’t want to lose track of candidates or get anyone stuck in one of the hiring steps.;While everyone learns things at their own pace, from my perspective, I found TriNet a good fit for beginners.;

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BambooHR provides hiring, onboarding, compensation administration, performance management and employee self-service capabilities to companies of all sizes and industries. Reviews suggest that it has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. Employee self-service and a simplified onboarding experience are some noteworthy capabilities. The most repeated drawbacks include the absence of crucial functionality and the inability to customize report filters. Moreover, in-house payroll processing and management isn’t included. It can be a solid choice for companies willing to integrate with a third-party payroll provider.

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Screenshots

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