Cooleaf

Cooleaf is ITA Group’s recognition and rewards platform, and surveys are one tool inside it. An admin can reward answers with points. Before you buy it as your survey, check three things. Who can see answers and participation? Where does the data sit? What do the prepaid, non-cancellable terms commit you to? Cooleaf’s own help articles differ on anonymity.

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

A recognition platform with surveys as one tool

In one line

Cooleaf is a recognition and rewards platform. Surveys are one of its tools.

Buy it if

You want recognition, rewards and short surveys in one place. You want to reward answers with points. Your staff use Teams or a phone.

Do not buy it if

You need an outside benchmark with a named source. Ask Cooleaf for it first. You need data held outside the USA. You need an uptime promise that your agreement does not add.

Price

Ask Cooleaf for a quote. Under its Terms of Use, subscriptions are payable in advance. They renew automatically for periods equal to the first one, unless terminated before renewal. A Customer Agreement takes precedence over those terms if they conflict.

How Cooleaf runs a survey and who sees the result

A Cooleaf survey is one tool inside a recognition platform. ITA Group announced on 2 April 2024 that it had bought Cooleaf. It sells Cooleaf as a platform for building a work culture, not only engagement software. Surveys sit beside peer recognition, service awards, wellness challenges and internal communications. A Slack integration brings recognitions, posts, events and challenges into a Slack channel.

The two survey types do different jobs. A pulse survey is a short check on a team, and 3 to 7 questions is the advised length. It can go to everyone, to specific teams or to specific people. It can go on a fixed date or at a set time after hire. A performance survey goes out at hire-date points such as 30 days, 90 days and 1 year. It can ask eNPS or competency questions. eNPS asks how likely staff are to recommend the employer as a place to work.

Results reach managers in their own view. Sentiment data is available by team, geography and department. Managers also get a weekly digest and nudges. Ask about Enhanced Reporting. It uses Microsoft Power BI and may not be active for an account until requested from the account representative.

Two AI tools work on survey answers. ITA Group offers AI analysis of open text answers to identify focus areas. It also offers eNPS analytics with sentiment summarised by AI. A third tool, AI Assistance, gives feedback on how a recognition message is written. It applies only if the organisation has it enabled, and no user has to use it. The message goes to a separate copy of OpenAI’s gpt-4o-mini model run on Microsoft Azure. Under Microsoft’s policies, data sent to the Azure service is not used to train public models.

Skills Insights reads recognition messages and links skills to individual team members. It maps demonstrated behaviours to the Korn Ferry competency framework. An AI-generated narrative summarises competencies and suggests mentor and mentee pairings. Cooleaf advises that the insights should not be the sole basis for a performance or employment decision. It also advises against treating an AI-generated percentage or summary as a performance rating. A notice in the product warns that the summary may be inaccurate. Availability depends on the account’s set-up and reporting access.

Our guide to employee engagement software covers how the rest of this market handles surveys. If your HR system already includes a survey, read our guide for HR system owners first.

Points for answering, and links to Teams and HR systems

Points can reward answering

An admin can add points for completing a survey. The points arrive immediately on completion. ITA Group builds incentives into its surveys to increase participation.

Surveys reach Teams and the app

Notifications and surveys sit in the top right of the Teams app. The mobile app has a survey icon at the top right. The HR and Manager Panels are not available in the Teams app.

Staff data can sync from an HR system

Pre-built links include UKG, Workday, ADP and ServiceNow. Other applications connect through developer links (APIs) and automation tools such as Zapier. Group tags come from the employee census file or an HR system sync. Change a person’s details in the HR system. Edits made in Cooleaf revert at the next sync, unless the source data changes. That applies to a scheduled file transfer (SFTP) or a Workday link.

A launch can take weeks

Set-up can take as quickly as 4 to 8 weeks. Support and customer success are in house, and a dedicated success team helps with onboarding. Cooleaf tries to answer every support email within 24 hours, during regular business hours.

Where Cooleaf’s surveys stop

A buyer who wants a survey product should check seven points before choosing Cooleaf. Most cards below end on a question to put to ITA Group.

Cooleaf starts as recognition software

ITA Group presents Cooleaf as its recognition and rewards platform. The survey tool is one function among several. Cooleaf has two main survey types. Question types include single choice, checkboxes and short answer. Compare that with the survey set you need.

The team view compares with your own company

Cooleaf’s team engagement view compares a team with the customer’s own organisation. ITA Group also offers expert recommendations guided by best practices and benchmark data. Its eNPS results can be benchmarked over time. Ask which benchmark data that means, and whether it covers employers like yours.

Cooleaf’s own articles disagree on anonymity

The survey-types article calls performance surveys non-anonymous and tied to individual employees. The survey-completion article covers every survey. It calls responses anonymous, with no admin level able to see one person’s exact responses. The pulse article calls pulse surveys anonymous. Admins can click Results on a row of Assigned Surveys to see one user’s survey results. Ask which setting applies to which survey.

Taking part feeds the manager view

Pulse surveys are anonymous, yet taking a survey counts as activity in manager views. A survey is among the actions that stop a team member showing as ‘Not Active’ in the weekly digest. That digest includes up to 10 direct reports who have not engaged in the last 30 days. The Team Engagement Snapshot uses colour marks and recommends managers reach out personally to red or yellow users. Its activity measure includes surveys. Ask whether a manager can tell who skipped a pulse survey.

Surveys arrive by email and the app

Recipients get an email notification and a survey icon in the web platform. The icon sits at the top right corner of the mobile app. Users can register with their work login credentials. Instant recognition on the mobile app supports participation by deskless roles. Ask how staff without a work email reach a survey.

Language choice covers fixed text

Supported languages include English, French, Canadian French, Japanese, Spanish and Simplified Chinese. A user’s language choice affects only the platform’s pre-defined text. AI Assistance for recognition messages supports English only. Ask how a survey you write reaches staff in other languages.

Data sits on servers in the USA

ITA Group’s servers are in the USA. ITA Group takes part in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, the UK Extension and the Swiss-US framework. It has also put the European Commission Standard Contractual Clauses in place for transfers from clients in the EEA. A third party named Pendo may collect information about a user’s activity on the platform.

Who ITA Group’s customer stories point to

ITA Group’s two customer stories point to two kinds of employer. One pays for answers with points. The other added a bottling plant soon after launch. Each story is ITA Group’s own account of one customer.

67% adoption in week 1

ITA Group reports this for an unnamed maker of kids’ beverages and snacks. It adopted Cooleaf for corporate staff and soon after acquired a bottling plant. ITA Group also reports 31% active participation in week 1. It puts similar programmes at 38% adoption and 5.2% active participation at 2 weeks. These are ITA Group’s own figures for one customer.

A 5-question eNPS with points

Stability Healthcare simplified its survey to a 5-question eNPS and rewarded participation with points. Quarterly eNPS surveys run on the platform. The results pointed to a wish for more internal updates.

Prepaid, renewing and non-cancellable unless your agreement says otherwise

Cooleaf’s Terms of Use are a contract with ITA Group, Inc. Their published terms are prepaid, renew automatically, are non-cancellable and give no uptime guarantee. A Customer Agreement takes precedence over the Terms of Use if they conflict. So your leverage sits in that agreement. Ask Cooleaf what a subscription costs and what period it covers.

Under the Terms of Use, paid subscriptions are payable in advance for the period you select. They renew automatically for periods equal to the first one, unless terminated before renewal. All purchases are non-cancellable and all charges are non-refundable. A user may end a subscription at any time, and fees paid in advance are not refunded. If ITA Group generally terminates the platform, a subscriber receives a pro-rated refund of pre-paid fees for the unused term.

ITA Group does not guarantee any uptime or availability of the platform. Its total liability is capped at the greater of the fees paid in the prior 12 months or fifty dollars. Iowa law and controlling US federal law govern the Terms.

Leaving also has a clock. After any termination, ITA Group may let the Administrator request a download of the User Content for 30 days. Survey results download as a CSV file. Cooleaf may keep anonymised or aggregated data for analytics.

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 for the demo

What subscription period do we sign, and what do we pay at renewal? Good answer: A stated period and a written renewal price in the order.
Will you add an uptime figure to our Customer Agreement? Good answer: A written figure, with a remedy if it is missed.
Which of our surveys are anonymous, and which identify the person? Good answer: A written list by survey type, with who sees each result.
Can a manager tell from the weekly digest who took a pulse survey? Good answer: No. Participation appears only as a group figure.
Which benchmark data do you use, and who supplies it? Good answer: A named source and the employers it covers.
How does a survey we write reach staff who use another language? Good answer: Each person reads it in their own language, tested before launch.
Which outside companies, such as Pendo, collect activity data about our staff? Good answer: A named list, and what each one collects.
After the contract ends, how long do we have to download our results? Good answer: A fixed window written into our agreement.

Alternatives to Cooleaf, including buying nothing

Lattice answers one point where Cooleaf’s surveys stop. Winningtemp answers another. Buying nothing is a third route.

Lattice answers the benchmark limit. Cooleaf’s team view compares a team with your own organisation. Lattice benchmarks compare a customer with other Lattice customers, plus Mercer’s global data set. Custom questions are not eligible for benchmarking.

Winningtemp answers the manager view. Cooleaf counts taking a survey as activity in the weekly digest and the Team Engagement Snapshot. In Winningtemp, managers cannot see who took part, only the count. Its help centre adds that a manager can view responses in a Guided Temperature meeting, because they are not anonymous.

Buying nothing means giving up what Cooleaf adds around the survey. You would lose points for answering. Peer recognition, service awards, wellness challenges and internal communications would need another home. You would also skip a subscription that is payable in advance. Under its Terms of Use, it is non-cancellable, unless your Customer Agreement differs.

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.