BambooHR Pricing
- HR pricing
- $10/mo at the smallest
BambooHR pricing starts at $10 a month, which is $120 over twelve months. There is no free plan, but there is a trial: 7 days. Every figure below was read from the vendor's pricing page on 9 August 2026.
Opens the vendor's own pricing page. Figures here were read from it on 9 August 2026.
BambooHR ranking and coverage
- Terms rank
- Unranked
- Referenced here
- 1 page
BambooHR is not ranked because there are too few same-currency products in its category to position its entry price honestly. How the rank is calculated.
BambooHR pricing at a glance
| Entry price | Core $10 per employee/month; Pro $17; Elite $25 |
|---|---|
| Smallest invoice | $10 a month, or $120 a year |
| How that is reached | Core at $10 a month |
| Seat minimum | None on the entry plan |
| Free plan | No |
| Free trial | 7 days |
| How it charges | subscription |
| Priced plans published | 4 rows on the vendor's page |
| Affiliate programme | No |
| Prices read from | The vendor's own pricing page |
| Last checked | 19 August 2026 |
Every BambooHR plan and what it costs
Read from the vendor's own pricing page on 9 August 2026. Charged as subscription. Free trial: 7 days.
| Plan | Price | Billing | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core | $10 | per month | per employee - Foundational HR records, time off, reporting and AI assistant |
| Pro | $17 | per month | per employee - Adds company policies and documents, deeper AI answers |
| Elite | $25 | per month | per employee - Adds benchmarks and advanced insights |
| Payroll and benefits Add-on | Add-on | per month | Quoted separately, per employee per month, on top of the HRIS plan |
What BambooHR actually costs over a year
A monthly price is not the same thing as a monthly contract. These are the plans above resolved both ways, per seat or unit where the plan is charged that way. Where a vendor quotes only a yearly figure it is divided by twelve rather than left out, and the Quoted column says which figure the vendor actually publishes.
| Plan | Quoted | Monthly | Over 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coreper employee | per month | $10 | $120 |
| Proper employee | per month | $17 | $204 |
| Eliteper employee | per month | $25 | $300 |
BambooHR pricing over time
Read from 11 archived captures of the vendor's pricing page , spanning June 2013 to August 2026. Every figure below links to the capture it came from, so you can check it against the page as it stood on the day.
Core
| Published price | Charged | Seen from | Last seen | Capture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | Not stated | 3 August 2026 | Single capture | Archive |
Elite
| Published price | Charged | Seen from | Last seen | Capture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $25 | Not stated | 3 August 2026 | Single capture | Archive |
Pro
| Published price | Charged | Seen from | Last seen | Capture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $17 | Not stated | 3 August 2026 | Single capture | Archive |
8 archived captures with no price we could read
The capture exists, but the figures on it could not be extracted - usually a page that renders prices in JavaScript, or a currency selector the archive did not record. Listed rather than dropped, because a gap in a price history reads as "nothing changed" and these are not that.
- 18 June 2013 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
- 5 January 2016 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
- 13 July 2019 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
- 30 November 2020 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
- 7 October 2022 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
- 24 February 2024 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
- 12 December 2024 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
- 2 October 2025 - capture - no plan name sat next to a published figure in this capture
Compiled 18 September 2026 from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Plan names were matched against the archived page text and the first currency-anchored figure within 160 characters was recorded, rejecting any figure with a competing plan name standing between it and the name it was matched to. The currency and the unit were read from each capture rather than assumed: captures served in a currency other than $, and captures where no plan name sat beside a figure, are listed as unread rather than dropped. Archived pages show the price as served to the archive's crawler, which may differ by region from the price you are shown.
BambooHR pricing against its competitors
Compared on the smallest invoice each vendor will accept, not on the advertised per-seat rate. Where a product has a seat minimum, the figure below is the minimum times the rate, because that is the cheque you would actually write.
| Product | Cheapest paid entry | Free plan | Against BambooHR |
|---|---|---|---|
| BambooHR | $10 a month | No | This product |
| Rippling | Quote only | No | – |
| Workday | Quote only | No | – |
Which BambooHR plan should you buy?
| Your situation | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You are replacing spreadsheets with a real HR record | Core | $10 per employee covers records, time off, onboarding and reporting. Enough for most. |
| You need performance reviews and policy management | Pro | $17 per employee, and performance management is the usual reason to step up. |
| You need compensation management and benchmarks | Elite | $25 per employee. Bought for the analytics rather than the HR basics. |
| You intend to run payroll here | Get the payroll quote before comparing | Payroll and benefits are separate per-employee charges on top of the tier price, and are the reason bills exceed the budgeted figure. |
| You have more than about 500 employees | Consider Workday instead | Workforce planning and multi-entity payroll are past BambooHR's ceiling. |
Verdict by who you are
Company of 20 to 500 employeesYes
Fast to implement, published pricing, and employees actually use it. This is the range it was built for.
Small US business needing payrollCompare first
Payroll is a quoted add-on here. A payroll-first product may be cheaper if HR records are secondary.
Large enterpriseNo
No serious workforce planning or complex multi-country payroll. You will outgrow it.
Company wanting HR, IT and spend on one platformNo
That is Rippling's proposition. BambooHR is deliberately narrower.
Should you buy BambooHR?
Buy BambooHR if…
- Companies between roughly 20 and 500 employees
- Teams replacing spreadsheets with a real HR record
- Buyers who want a published price and a fast implementation
Do not buy BambooHR if…
- Large enterprises needing deep workforce planning
- Companies wanting HR, IT and spend on one platform
- Organisations with complex multi-country payroll
What leaving BambooHR would cost
moderate lock-in
BambooHR scores on public API. Portability 5/10 ; lock-in is the inverse. How this is calculated.
The published price, and what sits outside it
Three tiers, all charged per employee per month: Core $10, Pro $17, Elite $25. BambooHR describes this as “one low monthly payment” with automatic volume discounts, and the footnote under the plans adds that volume and non-profit discounts are available, so larger organisations and charities should expect to pay less than list.
What the tier price does not include is payroll and benefits administration. Those are separate per-employee charges quoted on request, and they are the reason a BambooHR bill often exceeds the figure people budget from the pricing page. If you intend to run payroll here, get that quote before comparing against anyone else.
Note also that the published rates carry an asterisk on Bamboo’s own page, which is a reliable signal that the number depends on terms.
A time-limited payroll offer was running when we checked
Re-checked on 19 August 2026, the pricing page advertised Payroll free until January 2027 for customers who buy BambooHR Payroll together with the Elite plan on a minimum 12-month agreement, for purchases made between 1 and 31 August 2026. The per-employee fees are waived through 31 December 2026. Implementation, multi-state and additional payroll service fees were excluded, and customers who had previously been billed for Payroll or Elite were not eligible.
The window closes on 31 August 2026 and BambooHR has published no extension beyond it. We checked the terms again on 19 August specifically to see whether the offer had been rolled into September, as monthly promotions often are, and it had not. If Payroll on Elite is a purchase you were going to make anyway, the date is the deciding factor rather than the discount.
We record it because it materially changes first-year cost, and we date it because it expires. If you are reading this after August 2026, assume it has gone and ask what has replaced it. The terms are listed with their source under Provenance below, recorded as what was offered during that window rather than as a live offer.
Where the ceiling is
BambooHR is built for the range where an HRIS should be simple: employee records, time off, onboarding, reviews and reporting done well, with a mobile app employees will actually open. Somewhere around 500 employees, requirements usually shift towards workforce planning, complex compensation structures and multi-entity payroll, and that is Workday territory rather than Bamboo’s.
Going the other direction, a very small US company whose real problem is running payroll correctly may find a payroll-first product a better fit than an HRIS with payroll attached.
Against Rippling
Rippling does considerably more, joining HR to device management and spend, and publishes no prices at all. BambooHR does less, does it simply, and tells you what it costs. For a company that wants an HR system rather than a platform strategy, that trade is usually the right one.
BambooHR questions, answered
- Is BambooHR worth it?
- BambooHR is the sensible choice for a company that has outgrown spreadsheets and does not want a platform project.
- How much does BambooHR cost?
- Core $10 per employee/month; Pro $17; Elite $25. The cheapest paid tier we recorded is Core, published at $10 a month, which works out at $10 a month or $120 over a year. Verified against the vendor's pricing page.
- Does BambooHR have a free plan or free trial?
- BambooHR has no free plan. A free trial is available: 7 days.
- What is the best BambooHR alternative?
- It depends on the job. Rippling: Far broader platform covering IT and spend, but quote-only. Gusto: Better if payroll is the primary need rather than HR records. HiBob: Similar mid-market positioning with stronger culture features.
- Can I self-host BambooHR?
- No. BambooHR is a hosted service only, so your data lives on the vendor's infrastructure.
Opens the vendor's own pricing page. Figures here were read from it on 9 August 2026.
What this profile is based on
Every claim below is about our work, not about BambooHR. A "no" is recorded rather than omitted, because the difference between a tested review and careful desk research is the reader's to weigh. How we research a profile.
-
Prices read from the vendor : yes
Read from BambooHR's own pricing page on 19 August 2026
-
Plans and terms recorded : yes
4 rows, each with its billing period
-
Original screenshots : yes
2 captured by us: pricing page, homepage
-
Sources cited and dated : yes
1 primary source, each with the date it was read
-
Product used first-hand : no
Not tested. This profile is desk research from primary sources
-
Alternatives used first-hand : no
None, so comparisons here rest on published facts rather than use
-
Vendor contacted : no
Not contacted for this profile
Where BambooHR appears on this site
One other page here references BambooHR, and it is listed below.
- Another profile Rippling names it as a competitor
Counts pages on this site that name the product by choice - price guides, pricing question pages, deal records and other profiles. Category and directory indexes list everything automatically and are not counted.
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Provenance and freshness
When each fact was last checked
- Pricing ·
- Plans ·
- Free trial
- Features
- Platforms
- Integrations
- Affiliate programme
- Company details
Individually sourced claims
-
Between 1 and 31 August 2026, BambooHR offered to waive Payroll per-employee-per-month fees through 31 December 2026 for customers buying Payroll together with the Elite plan on a minimum 12-month term
-
The waiver excluded customers who had previously been billed for Payroll or Elite, and excluded implementation, multi-state and additional payroll service fees, which were charged at standard rates
What has changed
-
August 2026
- Re-read the payroll waiver twelve days before its window closes. BambooHR has published no September extension: the offer still ends on 31 August 2026 and the waiver still runs to 31 December
- Moved the offer from timeLimited to claims. The terms are now recorded as a dated observation that stays true after the window closes, rather than a live assertion that would have failed the build on 1 September and blocked every deploy until someone edited this file
-
August 2026
- Re-verified the Elite payroll waiver. The 1 to 31 August purchase window is unchanged and the waiver runs through 31 December 2026. Recorded the full eligibility terms, which exclude customers who have previously had Payroll or Elite billing.
- Per-employee prices re-checked at $10, $17 and $25.
-
August 2026
- Per-employee pricing verified, including the volume and non-profit discount footnote
- Recorded a payroll promotion that expires 31 August 2026
- Added plan picker and verdicts
Sources & verification
Facts on this page were read from the sources below on the dates shown. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, we record it as not disclosed rather than estimating it.
- BambooHR pricing - checked 19 August 2026
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we will re-check it. Corrections are logged on the page.
