Workativ

Workativ costs $349 a month and bars health data

GoTo reports 84% of all requests and 80% of HR questions resolved without a person

Workativ’s GoTo case study reports 84% of employee requests resolved automatically. Its Workday page reports 80% of HR questions resolved automatically. Both figures come from GoTo. GoTo has 5,000 employees and more than 50 applications. It uses Workativ in Slack for IT and HR.

The first figure covers all employee requests. The second covers HR questions only. Ask Workativ for a customer of your size that will share its own figure.

A public price, and no training on your employees’ data

The price is public. You can read $349 a month and the plan limits before you talk to anyone. Few vendors in this market do that.

Workativ does not use your employees’ personal data to train its models.

The contract bars health data and limits refunds, damages and disputes

Fees do not come back. All charges are non-refundable. There is one exception. You get a pro-rated refund if you end your account because Workativ broke the terms in a serious way.

The subscription renews on its own for the same length of time. The renewal uses Workativ’s standard price at that date. That price can differ from the one you signed.

Damages stop at the lower of two amounts. One is twelve months of fees for the service in the claim. The other is what you paid before the first event. Workativ also provides the service “as is” and “as available”. It does not promise the service will run without breaks, stay secure or be free of errors.

A dispute that mediation cannot settle goes to one arbitrator. Workativ appoints that person. The arbitration is in the State of Delaware.

Your plan buys 500 sessions, and data goes after two months

The $349 buys 500 AI chat sessions. Workativ counts a session as one conversation between the AI and a user. The user can ask many questions in it. It lasts until the session expires.

The Enterprise plan has a custom price. Workativ sells it for large companies with complicated HR processes.

When you leave, Workativ keeps your data for two months after your account ends. Then it deletes it. Contact Workativ inside those two months to export your data. Once deleted, the data cannot come back.

Workativ hosts its servers in data centres run by Amazon Web Services.

Eight questions for the demo

1. Your data agreement bars health and religion data. What should an employee do when a question mentions either? Good answer: A written instruction for employees, and a stated way the chatbot treats such a message.
2. Do the 500 sessions in the Business plan count per month, and what do extra sessions cost? Good answer: A monthly count and a price for each extra block, written into the order form.
3. How long does a session last before it expires? Good answer: A stated number of minutes, so we can estimate how many sessions our employees use.
4. What is an Action, and which of our HR tasks use one of the 5 in the plan? Good answer: A list of the tasks we need, with a count of Actions each one takes.
5. The contract renews at your standard price at the time. Can the renewal price be capped? Good answer: A cap or a fixed price for the next term, written into the order form.
6. Can a dispute go to a court in our country instead of one arbitrator you appoint in Delaware? Good answer: A court or an arbitrator we both agree on, in our own country.
7. Which shared inbox receives the conversations the chatbot cannot handle, and who sees them there? Good answer: A specific inbox tool, and a list of the roles that can open it.
8. We want our chat history when we leave. In what format, and how fast, before the two months end? Good answer: A stated file format and a delivery time of days, written into the contract.

Four alternatives to Workativ, and buying nothing

Moveworks, Leena AI, Applaud and Wisq Harper do a similar job. Buying nothing is a fifth choice.

Leena AI charges a flat yearly price per employee with unlimited use. It gives a quote within one business day. That suits you if you want one price that does not move with use. Workativ’s plan counts sessions.

Applaud charges per user per month. A company can start with as few as 500 users. Moveworks sells by custom quote. It works with Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM Cloud and UKG Pro.

Wisq Harper resolves routine cases from start to finish and flags sensitive topics to HR. Under its data agreement the customer agrees not to provide any sensitive data. Check this limit with every vendor you compare.

Buying nothing is the last option. Your HR team keeps answering the same questions by hand. Our market guide shows which questions suit software.