15Five

15Five asks staff how they feel in two ways. Engage runs confidential surveys at $4 per user per month, billed annually. Pulse is one question in Check-ins, and everyone who can see the Check-in sees the rating. Payments are non-refundable and non-cancellable.

By Ashish Manchanda Published 28 Oct 2026 Last updated 28 Oct 2026

Confidential surveys, a visible Pulse rating and non-cancellable payments

In one line

15Five Engage runs confidential engagement surveys. The Pulse question lives in Check-ins and is visible to the reporting line.

Buy it if

You want engagement surveys that compare results with other employers. You accept paying for every person who answers.

Do not buy it if

You need answers that are anonymous, not confidential. You expect to cut paid users partway through a term.

Price

Engage starts at $4 per user per month, billed annually. Pulse needs a dearer plan, Perform or Total Platform.

Engage runs the surveys and Pulse rides inside Check-ins

15Five sells two ways to ask staff how they feel, on different plans. Engage runs survey campaigns. Pulse is a single question inside each Check-in. 15Five calls itself a performance management platform, so surveys are one part of a larger product. It announced on 27 April 2021 that it had bought Emplify for 50 million dollars. Engage is the former Emplify product.

HR Admins run every campaign, and staff answer scored statements. Only HR Admins can create an engagement campaign. It can repeat or run once. The core survey covers 17 drivers with 48 statements. Total Engagement, the most comprehensive core survey, has 66 scored statements plus eNPS. eNPS asks how likely staff are to recommend the organisation as a great workplace, on a 0 to 10 scale.

The kind of survey decides what HR gets back. 15Five groups surveys into core, driver, topic-based and custom. Topic surveys cover benefits, burnout, retention, diversity and inclusion progress and working from home. 15Five advises running a topic survey only when you plan to act on the results. A custom survey gives no engagement score or driver data. It takes only opinion-scale and text questions.

Staff can answer where they already work. In an engagement campaign, staff get an email, a text message or both. Slack and Microsoft Teams can deliver surveys too. Kiosk mode lets staff answer on a shared computer or tablet by searching for their name. Kiosk mode is not available to all customers, and 15Five Support switches it on.

Surveys can also follow an employee through the job. They run at set points, from joining to leaving. They start by hand or automatically from a hire date. They stay open 14 days by default.

Results come with a comparison. The default is the 15Five Global Benchmark. It also splits by industry, company size and region. A comparison needs data from at least 10 companies in a category.

Two AI tools turn results into next steps. One groups open-text comments into themes and labels each comment positive, neutral, negative or mixed. The other is the Predictive Impact Model. It estimates which survey statements would lift the overall score most. It draws on over 600,000 completed engagement surveys. Scores are worked out for each person and added up by team, department or custom group. Groups with low response counts may not display scores.

15Five’s own pages describe this model two ways. Its whitepaper calls it a correlational model. In a help article, the current model identifies predicted causal impact. Ask 15Five which one it stands behind.

Action Plans are 15Five’s follow-up plans, and the plan that includes them needs checking. They hold goals, actions, owners and progress tracking. A manager or admin creates and launches each one. None starts by itself. 15Five’s own help articles and pricing table disagree on the plan. The overview of plans from engagement results gives Engage and Total Platform. Two other help articles give Total Platform only. The pricing table marks planning for Perform and Total Platform and not for Engage.

Pulse works differently. It is one rating from 1 to 5 in every Check-in, with an optional written comment. Pulse comes with Perform and Total Platform. It is not part of Engage. An admin can switch it off or limit it to chosen groups. Nobody can remove it from a single Check-in. 15Five reports average Pulse scores by person, with Highest and Lowest tabs. It also reports morale trends for teams and the organisation. Staff can complete Check-ins, Pulse included, inside Slack.

Our guide to employee engagement software covers how the rest of this market handles privacy and contracts.

What Engage does well for the people who run it

Engage carries the survey tools

Engage includes surveys with eNPS, the Predictive Impact score and AI comment summaries. It also includes comparison with other employers and surveys at set points. Engage serves over 3,000 customers and 250,000 employees.

Survey answers stay in groups

The default smallest group shown is 5 respondents. Admins can lower it to 3 or 4. Answers from smaller groups still count in the overall score. 15Five does not reveal who took part or who declined.

Admins control who sees results

Results release about 2 hours after close, or HR Admins can hold them back. Individual contributors have no access to results. Managers see none until an admin turns on manager visibility.

Security certifications are held

15Five holds SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 certifications. The 2026 audit included AI functionality in scope.

Visibility, languages and AI are where 15Five stops

The cards below cover who sees an answer, which languages 15Five offers, and where staff words go.

Pulse ratings are visible

Anyone who can view an employee’s Check-in sees that employee’s Pulse rating and public comment. Everyone above an employee in the reporting line can see their Check-ins. Nobody can turn that off. Account admins can always see every Pulse rating. An employee can lock a written comment to manager-only.

Survey answers are linked to accounts

Engage survey answers are confidential, not anonymous. 15Five links each answer to an employee account and reports results only as group data. An employee-facing help article puts it differently, with responses compiled anonymously for the leadership team. The Predictive Impact whitepaper calls written responses always anonymous. A confidentiality article adds that no one in the organisation can see how a specific person responded. Lowering the smallest group raises the risk of identifying people in small groups.

Surveys at set points have no group minimum

Exit, onboarding and other triggered surveys use no confidentiality threshold. Account Admins can see individual responses. So can managers with the manager visibility setting on. Participants see a notice about whether their manager can see their answers.

Spanish covers Core surveys only

Spanish is available for the Core survey types only. 15Five Support must switch it on. People get the invitation in English and then pick Spanish on the survey page. Custom questions are not translated automatically.

Comments go to an outside AI provider

15Five sends open-text comments to an AI provider to write themes. It sends survey statements and driver definitions with them. As of July 2026 its AI providers include Anthropic, OpenAI and Pinecone. 15Five does not permit any of them to use customer data to train or improve their models. Under the generative AI terms, 15Five may use AI Content to provide, maintain, develop and improve its materials. Those terms add that it does not use AI Content to train third-party AI models. AI Content is a defined term in those terms.

AI output about people has a limit

Under the generative AI terms, output relating to a person has a limit. It must not be used for any purpose that could have a legal or material impact on that person. Employment decisions are one example. Output may not always be accurate. It should not be the sole source of truth.

AI switches depend on the plan

The AI settings section needs Perform or Total Platform. Sub-settings are not visible on lower plans. An Account Admin has one master toggle that switches off all 15Five AI tools for all users.

Customer data sits in the United States

15Five stores all customer data in US data centres that meet ISO 27001. Data goes to its AI provider entirely within the United States. Ask where each outside provider processes your data before you sign.

Some reports list managers by name

The Manager Summary Report covers each manager by name. It adds a score for each manager, an urgency level, risk areas and an AI summary. It combines engagement results, performance data and recent enablement activity into one prioritised view of managers who need support. A separate report tracks Pulse scores for top performers to surface early signs of burnout or disengagement.

Engage costs $4 per user per month and the term is fixed

This section covers what each plan costs, what you are bound to pay and where a dispute goes. Each plan is priced per user per month, billed annually. Engage is $4, Perform is $11 and Total Platform is $16. For every 100 paid users, that is $400, $1,100 and $1,600 a month. 15Five updated its pricing in February 2026 and notes that pricing is subject to change. Some optional add-ons may include minimum requirements.

Which plan you need depends on which half you want. Engage carries the survey tools and Perform carries Pulse. Total Platform carries both. Anyone who answers a survey needs a billed seat, which is 15Five’s term for a paid user. Extra seats are charged only when the number of billed people exceeds paid seats. Additional seats are prorated.

Once you sign, you are bound to the term. Under 15Five’s master subscription agreement, payments are in US dollars, and they are non-refundable and non-cancellable. Seats cannot be reduced during the current term. Deactivating a seat does not free up money. The account keeps the unoccupied seats for the rest of the subscription. 15Five does not offer refunds for people deactivated mid-subscription.

The term then renews by default. The agreement renews automatically for terms equal to the initial term. That holds unless a party gives notice of non-renewal at least 30 days before expiry. A seat reduction for a renewal term needs at least 30 days’ notice too. Renewed services are subject to current pricing as of the renewal date. 15Five may choose not to renew with 30 days’ notice, based on outdated terms or pricing and product structures.

A dispute follows California rules. California law applies. Disputes go to binding arbitration, not court, other than small claims court. Any action by the customer must come within one year after the cause arose. A longer period applies if applicable law requires it. 15Five’s aggregate liability is capped. The cap is the amount paid for all subscriptions under the agreement in the 12 months before the cause arose. Service descriptions and pricing are subject to change at any time without notice, at 15Five’s sole discretion.

15Five also keeps rights over your usage data. The agreement grants 15Five a perpetual, irrevocable right to collect and analyse anonymised usage data. It may combine that data with data from other customers into an aggregated dataset.

Your data has to leave while the term still runs. When the term ends, access ends. The customer must download its data before expiry, as the service allows. Admins can download up to ten CSV reports after an engagement survey ends. The All Survey results download is a ZIP file of raw response data in Excel format. The Feedback report CSV holds comment text, the related statement and driver, and sentiment. Comparison percentiles are frozen when a campaign ends.

Under the data processing addendum, 15Five deletes customer personal data within 90 days of termination or expiry. Data it must retain is excepted. A company account is wiped 90 days after deactivation. Survey responses from an active campaign are removed when a user is deactivated.

You could also run survey steps with agents built on your own systems. We have mapped what that looks like. The HR Agent Map

Eight questions to put to 15Five before you sign

Which plan holds Action Plans for engagement results? Good answer: One named plan, written into the order form.
Who on our side can see each Pulse rating? Good answer: A written list of roles.
Does your contract call survey answers confidential or anonymous, and which wording governs? Good answer: One term in the contract that matches what staff are told.
Which languages besides Spanish can we add to Core surveys, and who translates custom questions? Good answer: A named list, and a named owner for custom questions.
On Engage alone, which AI switches can our admin reach? Good answer: The master switch and every sub-setting, on our plan.
May you use our comments to develop your own materials, and can we opt out? Good answer: No for our comments, or a written opt-out.
Does Predictive Impact find a correlation or a predicted cause? Good answer: One answer with the method written down.
Where does each outside provider process our data, and can any of it stay outside the United States? Good answer: A named region for each provider, and a written commitment.

Alternatives to 15Five, including buying nothing

Three stops decide the alternatives to 15Five. They are who can see a Pulse answer, which law governs the contract and which survey languages are offered. Workleap, Humaans and Viva Glint each answer one. Buying nothing is a fourth route.

Look at Workleap if Pulse answers must not carry a name. Its Officevibe scores appear only in aggregate once at least 3 active members have answered. Written answers appear one by one without the author’s name, and the author can choose to reveal who they are. Executives see written answers for the whole company, including exports. Onboarding survey written answers are non-anonymous. The exit survey tells the departing employee it is not anonymous. Its pulse survey runs weekly with 5 questions.

Look at Humaans if you want the contract under English law. 15Five’s agreement applies California law and sends disputes to binding arbitration. Humaans’ Terms of Service define Humaans as Humaans Software UK Ltd. They are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

Look at Viva Glint if survey language decides the purchase. 15Five offers Spanish for Core surveys. Viva Glint supports over 60 languages in its survey and results screens. Its language table marks some languages as not supported right to left in the results screens.

Buying nothing means giving up two things and avoiding two. You give up the Predictive Impact Model, which draws on over 600,000 completed engagement surveys. You also give up a Pulse rating in each Check-in. You avoid sending comments to 15Five’s AI providers. You also avoid survey answers linked to employee accounts inside 15Five.

If your HR system already runs a survey, read our guide for companies whose HR system already runs surveys.

More in this guide

The Employee engagement guide
Compare the 40 researched products how each asks staff, who sees the answers, what it costs and the contract terms.
Mid-market companies which engagement products suit 200 to 2,000 people, what they cost and what to ask.
Enterprise companies which engagement products suit 2,000 people or more, what they cost, how contracts run and what to ask.
Companies whose HR or performance system already runs surveys what the survey part of an HR or performance system covers, what it costs and what else exists.