Betterworks Engage

Betterworks Engage is a survey tool sold beside its performance tools or on its own. It offers several survey types, comment AI, action plans and AI that is not on by default. Its documents disagree on data location, comment anonymity and template editing, and its benchmark base is small. It is priced by quote. Its contract carries a reference clause and a data-use right, and its documents give three deletion windows.

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

Betterworks sells the survey beside reviews and goals, and quotes the price

In one line

Betterworks Engage sends engagement surveys, reads the comments and starts action plans. Betterworks sells it beside its performance tools or on its own.

Buy it if

You want surveys and action plans from the supplier that runs reviews and goals. You want action plans that can link to goals in Betterworks Core. You want a smallest group that can go as low as 3, and AI that is not on by default.

Do not buy it if

You need one written answer on where survey data sits. You want benchmarks from a base larger than 1,200 US employees plus 60+ customers. You will not accept a customer reference and a mutually agreed press release in the contract.

Price

Engage has no listed price. The Performance plan is listed at $8 per user per month. The Enterprise plan includes Engage at custom pricing after a discovery call.

Engage sends surveys, reads comments and starts action plans

Engage covers the whole employee journey, not only a yearly survey. Survey types include engagement, onboarding, offboarding and alumni. Others cover candidates and hiring managers. The Engagement type is for regular assessment, with quarterly or semi-annual intervals recommended. Admins choose from 16 templates with set questions, or add custom questions. A pulse takes under two minutes.

Employees get surveys where they already work. Pulses are delivered by email, Slack and Teams. A bot called Betty sends Slack users the survey link. Engage also works with Beekeeper and Workplace, two staff messaging apps. Invitations and reminders go out only on the set business days and hours, in one time zone.

Results are built to lead to action. Reports cover voting patterns, favourability scores and comments. Dashboards display top drivers and built-in action plans. Driver Impact Analysis finds which questions go with an outcome question. You must pick that outcome question yourself. The analysis cannot run on template questions.

AI helps with the comments but works from fixed topics. It groups comments into topics with positive, negative and neutral sentiment. It also picks out comments that contain suggestions. Topics come from a predetermined list tied to keywords. Comments with no keyword go to a Miscellaneous topic.

Engage sits inside a wider suite. Feedback, review cycles in Conversations, 1:1s for check-ins and recognition sit beside it. Linking action plans to goals needs both Engage and Betterworks Core. That goal sync runs only at creation, one way from Engage to Core. Betterworks bought the survey company Hyphen on 20 February 2020. It said it would integrate Hyphen’s survey, polling and recommendation capabilities as Betterworks Engage. The employee engagement guide explains how the rest of this market splits.

Small-group limits, ready action plans and a contract that guards identity

Small groups stay hidden

Admins set the smallest group shown, and the lowest setting is 3. Groups below it are hidden, starting with the smallest, until the hidden total passes the setting. Each survey has a checkbox that makes responses anonymous to managers and super admins. If the box is not ticked, results display details such as email and employee ID.

Action plans arrive with templates

Betterworks provides about 150 action item templates. Each plan carries a due date, 30 days by default, with reminders. Digest emails remind admins and managers of open plans. With Betterworks Core, action plans can link to goals.

AI is not on by default

Under the AI Terms, AI features are not mandatory or on by default. Betterworks’s AI features use its own self-hosted language model in the Betterworks Amazon Web Services server. Employee data is never used to train its generative AI model. Customers can also choose a third-party option, covered under Where it stops.

The contract protects employee identity

The Engage subscription agreement bars the customer from identifying individual users from their input. In it, Betterworks indemnifies the customer against third-party claims of a breach of Proprietary Information. That includes any employee input or employee identity.

Certifications cover security and privacy

Betterworks holds ISO 27001, Data Privacy Framework and TX-RAMP certifications. TX-RAMP is at Level 2. Its security programme maintains compliance with SOC 2 reporting.

Frontline and office firms from 200 to 8,000 employees report results

Betterworks adds most value for organisations over 500 employees. Its examples mix large frontline and deskless workforces with office firms. They run from 200 to 8,000 employees. The results below are the customers’ own reports.

Parx Casino surveys frontline staff yearly

Parx Casino has a workforce of nearly 3,000, most of them frontline staff. Another Parx figure is 2,600+ employees. Parx uses Engage for an annual engagement survey and reports 71% voluntary participation. It reports an engagement score of 79 this year and 80 the year before. Offline employees get a room with 25 computers to take the survey.

Mott texts surveys to a deskless team

Mott is a mechanical engineering company in Plainville, Connecticut, with 200 employees. Its workforce is largely deskless manufacturing staff. Mott sends survey messages by SMS and email. Employees answer from the text, the mobile app or a desktop browser. Mott reports that responses on management surveys rose 20% to a 98% response rate.

Delta Dental reports lifted sentiment

Delta Dental is a health insurer in Los Angeles with 5,000 to 8,000 employees. It reports survey response rates averaging 85% in the first year. It also reports a 20% increase in employee sentiment from manager action plans.

Third Bridge answers in Slack or mobile

Third Bridge is a London finance company with 1,500 employees across the globe. Its Engage surveys can be completed in existing channels such as Slack, in the mobile app, or on a desktop. Driving Force Group of Companies has 600+ employees in Canada and the US. It reports that AI-powered surveys surface key themes.

Its documents give different answers on data, anonymity and editing

These are the points where Betterworks Engage stops. Some come from its own documents giving different answers. Others are limits on reach, benchmarks and AI. Each one is a question for the order form.

Two answers on where data sits

Betterworks has data centres in the US (North Virginia) and the EU (Ireland). Betterworks offers the EU for customers who require it. Under the Engage privacy policy, data is kept on servers located in the US. Under the Engage Addendum, Engage Customer Data is hosted outside the Betterworks Services. Engage Customer Data and Betterworks Customer Data may also be combined or transferred between the two.

Anonymity reads differently by document

Under Betterworks’s support articles, reports never attach individual results to a name. The Engage privacy policy carries the wording that votes or comments are connected to their authors. The Engage Addendum carries it too. Private messages to comment authors are on by default. Report viewers can send a private message that goes to the participant who wrote a comment.

Benchmarks rest on a small base

Betterworks benchmarks come from a panel of 1,200 US employees plus 60+ customers. They are cut by industry and company size. They are updated each year. They come with the three Engagement templates. Editing template questions may affect benchmark comparison. Its support articles disagree on whether DEIB questions have benchmark data.

Three answers on editing template questions

One passage in the survey creation article makes template questions editable. Another passage in the same article bars editing or removal. The survey types article bars editing but allows removal. Ask what your own survey will allow before you plan custom wording.

One send time zone

Invitations go out only on set days and hours, in one time zone. Staff elsewhere get them on that single schedule. A spread-out workforce may receive them at an awkward hour.

Staff without email take extra steps

A user without an email address can be given a placeholder address. Surveys can be sent by SMS once an admin switches it on. The mobile app is for legacy customers. Betterworks refers to a Kiosk feature in Engage in its 2023 release notes. Some organisations have enabled it.

Comment AI works in English

Non-English comments are translated into English with Amazon Web Services before scanning. Only survey questions appear in the user’s language. Seven languages are pre-translated for the three Engagement templates. Multi-language surveys must be enabled by Betterworks.

Some AI can pass through OpenAI

The AI Terms give a private option and a third-party option. OpenAI’s terms govern the third-party option. OpenAI is the current third-party provider. Under OpenAI’s business terms, OpenAI will not use business data to train its models. The AI features may only be used in the jurisdictions on OpenAI’s supported-countries list.

People may read AI inputs

Under the AI Terms, inputs may be shared with and manually reviewed by a person. That includes third-party contractors located around the world. The AI Terms tell customers not to provide sensitive information, including personal data. Betterworks does not guarantee the accuracy of AI output. Its Responsible AI Policy puts the duty to review AI output on users.

A quote, a reference clause and three deletion windows

The quote is only part of the cost. The contract also adds publicity duties and a data-use right. Ask for the whole first-year bill. Engage has no listed price. The Performance plan is listed at $8 per user per month. The Enterprise plan includes Engage at custom pricing. A quote follows a discovery call. Engagement can be bought as a stand-alone.

Pricing is tailored by workforce size, packages, implementation, integrations and support. Implementation is a one-time cost on top of per user per month pricing. Signature Support costs extra.

AI may add a fee. The AI Terms reserve the right to charge fees for AI features. Betterworks’s pricing FAQ answers yes to whether AI is included in the solution and pricing. Ask which one applies to your term.

You sign up to an Initial Service Term in the Order Form. The agreement renews by mutual agreement. Betterworks can change fees at the end of a term on 30 days’ notice. Ask for the renewal price before you sign. Either party may terminate for material breach on 30 days’ notice. California law governs the agreement.

You also agree to some publicity. The parties will work together in good faith to issue at least one mutually agreed press release. They will also conduct a joint webinar within 90 days of the Effective Date. The customer agrees to reasonably cooperate to serve as a reference account on request.

Betterworks may analyse data about use and performance of the Services to improve its services. That includes data derived from Customer Data. It may do so during and after the term. Aggregated Anonymous Data is Betterworks’s technology under the Addendum. Engage Customer Data is to be void of the sensitive personal information set out in the Addendum. Check that list before you load data.

A customer that does not agree to a new outside supplier can terminate for convenience. The customer still owes the current term’s fees and gets no refund.

The service level agreement promises 99.9% availability each calendar month. The SLA sets a remedy in days of service when monthly uptime falls below 99.9%, 99.0% or 95.0%. Ask what it is worth. It is the only remedy you get. The remedy is lost unless you request it within 30 days after the month ends. Betterworks does not warrant that the services will be uninterrupted or error free. Liability is excluded above the fees paid in the 12 months before the act, subject to listed exceptions.

Live email and web support runs from 5:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time. It runs Monday to Friday and excludes US public holidays. Staff in other time zones may find those hours short.

Betterworks gives three deletion windows. Under the Engage privacy policy, deletion happens within 90 days of account termination. Betterworks’s security information puts deletion or anonymisation at 30 days from contract termination. Its support articles put removal of all customer data at 7 days from contract end. The overview report exports as PDF or CSV. Deleting a user deletes their survey responses.

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

Ten questions to settle in writing

Which region holds our Engage data, and can any of it move to the other? Good answer: One named region in the order form, with any transfer written out.
Can anyone with report access link a comment to its author? Good answer: A written answer that covers the privacy policy wording and the private message setting.
Can the private message to comment authors be switched off before launch? Good answer: Yes, and the order form records the setting.
Which AI features does our order switch on, and does any text go to OpenAI? Good answer: A named list, with the OpenAI option off unless we choose it.
Will you charge a fee for AI features during our term? Good answer: No fee during the term, in writing.
What do implementation and Signature Support cost in year one? Good answer: Both appear as separate lines in the quote, with the per user price.
Can we remove the reference account, press release and webinar clauses? Good answer: Yes, they are struck from our order form.
Which deletion window applies to us, 7, 30 or 90 days? Good answer: One window in the contract, and a full export of responses before it starts.
Can we read the SOC 2 Type II report itself? Good answer: The report, with its date and scope.
In which languages can employees answer, and how are comments in each one read? Good answer: A named list, and a clear route for comments in each language.

Alternatives to Betterworks, including buying nothing

If Betterworks Engage comes off your shortlist, look at TINYpulse and Perceptyx. Each answers one point where Betterworks stops. Buying nothing is a third route.

TINYpulse answers the send schedule. Betterworks sends invitations and reminders only on set days and hours, in one time zone. TINYpulse pulse surveys open on Wednesdays at 10:00 am by time zone.

Perceptyx answers the benchmark question. Betterworks draws on a panel of 1,200 US employees plus 60+ customers. Perceptyx’s 2026 Benchmark Database holds more than 23 million responses across 490 organisations and 113 countries. Standard benchmarks come in every Perceptyx tier. Premium benchmarks are purchased separately.

Buying nothing avoids the duty to work on a mutually agreed press release. It also avoids the joint webinar within 90 days. You would not serve as a reference account on request. You would give up action plans that link to goals in Betterworks Core. You would also give up the Betty bot that sends survey links in Slack. If your HR system already runs surveys, read the guide for HR system owners.

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.