Energage

One survey that doubles as an award entry, with the raw answers kept by Energage

Benchmarks, included advice and rules that hide who answered

Named customers run from under 150 employees to about 2,500

Energage keeps the raw answers, and the two survey lines follow different rules

Three questions decide this purchase. Who keeps the answers? Who can read them? What do you agree to by signing? The cards below answer them. Some cover Energage and some cover Engagedly.

Fees follow user numbers, and leaving early without cause owes the rest of the term

Your fee follows the Users in your Service Order. Leaving early without cause costs the rest of the term. A User is any administrator, manager, employee, survey invitee or survey respondent. You may be invoiced pro rata for Users added during the term. Subscription services are invoiced annually from the Contract Start Date.

Energage may change its fees for Subscription Services at any time. A change applies from the start of the next Subscription Term. The exception is where you exceed the Quantity of Users stated in a Service Order. Energage also offers Top Workplaces participation, surveys and awards at no cost. Ask what the Workplace Survey costs for your Users.

Three public US contracts with Energage, LLC give a sense of scale. In 2019 the General Services Administration committed $7,000 for a Top Workplaces survey. It covered its Region 8 office at the Denver Federal Center. In 2017 the Department of Veterans Affairs committed $15,500 on a contract it described as a yearly requirement. In 2015 it committed $12,400 for a workplace survey report for the Boston area. Ask Energage for a quote for your own Users.

Engagedly charges per user per month, billed annually. Prices vary with employee count and bundling. The minimum is $7,500 a year. The Engage and Listen Suite costs $2 per user per month, billed annually. It includes the Engagement Survey, Butterfly EI Employee Surveys and Team Pulse. The Performance Suite costs $5 to $8 per user per month, billed annually. Engagedly also sells an Essential professional services package for setup, training and ongoing support.

A subscription renews automatically unless you cancel in writing at least 30 days before the term ends. Energage gives notice of renewal at least 60 days before each term ends. A renewal is invoiced at a price not greater than 10% above the previous term. That limit does not apply if the order sets the renewal prices.

Leaving mid-term without cause costs the balance. If you end the contract without cause before the Contract End Date, you owe the remaining balance of the subscription. One way out with a refund is a loss of service. If the service materially loses functions and Energage cannot restore them within 15 days, you may end the subscription. You then get a pro rata refund of prepaid fees.

Other rules apply too. Either party may end a subscription at the end of the term, with no refunds. Energage may end it for any reason on at least 90 days’ written notice. That brings a pro rata refund of prepaid fees. Energage may collect outstanding fees if you do not use the services within one year of purchase.

Some Energage services let you export Customer Data at any time during the term. Energage does not promise that all data can be exported. Only data the confidentiality notice or privacy setting allows is transferred. You may use exported Reports for internal purposes only. On written request, Energage deletes all Customer Data from its production environments. For Workplace Culture Products, an emailed deletion request is completed within 35 business days. Energage keeps backup copies for a period it sets. Aggregate Data may be made public and used after the contract ends if it cannot identify Users.

Nine questions to settle before you sign

1. Which terms cover the Engagedly surveys I buy, and what cap on your liability applies? Good answer: One named set of terms and a written cap in the order form.
2. Will you send a file of each person’s answers, with identifiers removed, when the survey closes? Good answer: Yes, written into the order form, in a stated file format.
3. Is the renewal price for each later year written into the order? Good answer: Yes, so the 10% limit never has to apply.
4. Does an AI opt-out also stop my answers from training your models under section 11.7? Good answer: Yes, in writing, covering the AI features we use.
5. What is the smallest group shown in each survey I buy, in Energage and in Engagedly? Good answer: One number for each survey, written into the order.
6. Who can view Team Pulse answers, and can we turn on anonymous private questions for HR? Good answer: A list of roles, with anonymous private questions switched on where we want them.
7. Which set of surveys forms the benchmark we would use, and how many does it hold? Good answer: A named industry and size group, with a survey count.
8. Will you tell us about new suppliers that handle our data without us opting in? Good answer: Yes, 30 days ahead, written into the data protection contract.
9. Does the Top Workplaces entry apply to our survey, and which recognition messages must we accept? Good answer: A clear answer for our contract, and the list of messages.

Alternatives to Energage, including buying nothing

Three alternatives follow, each tied to a place where Energage stops. Buying nothing is the last option.

Energage sells Pulse in addition to the Workplace Survey. Workleap suits a reader who wants short surveys all year. Its Officevibe product runs weekly pulse surveys, reminders to managers, custom questions and results by team.

Under its General Terms, Energage does not give you Raw Survey Data. Leapsome has an admin export of raw data, switched on before the first round. It shows respondent demographics per question and does not respect the anonymity threshold. If the export is on, participants are told the data can be exported.

Leapsome’s data processing agreement points the other way. It says anonymous surveys have technical restrictions that stop you reaching individual-level data by default. It also says any instruction to access or export such data, for example by bulk export, is outside the agreed scope. Ask Leapsome which applies to you. Decide who may switch the export on.

Quantum Workplace is the like-for-like second quote. It runs validated surveys, benchmarks results and helps managers act on them. Ask both vendors to quote for the same Users.

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

Buying nothing means no Top Workplaces entry. If you run a survey yourself, every response stays with you. Our market guide shows how to choose between these routes.