Skills Base

Skills Base builds a skill level from two ratings, the employee’s own and their manager’s. The level is the average of the two. A level records what two people think, not proof of ability. Its AI drafts the skill list and writes insights, but never sets a level. Teams costs $2.25 a person a month.

By Ashish Manchanda Published 16 Sep 2026 Last updated 16 Sep 2026
In one line

A skills chart with public prices. Staff rate their own skills, and managers rate them too.

Buy it if

You want levels for technical, field-service or consulting staff. You want a price you can plan around before you talk to sales. Your managers will keep up regular rating rounds.

Do not buy it if

You want a skill to appear without anyone rating it. You need proof of ability from a test, not from the person or a co-worker. Your managers will not rate their staff. Then the level shown is the employee’s own rating alone.

Price

Teams costs $2.25 a month per person. Enterprise costs $4 a month per person. Both prices are as of 14 September 2026. Get the currency in writing. The Free plan costs nothing, for up to 25 people. Ultimate and the AI Module are priced on request.

A level averages a self-rating with a manager’s rating

Skills Base is a skills chart, run as software. First, you build a list of skills to track. Each person then gets the skills they will be rated on. These come from their team, their role, a custom list, or the whole list. The employee can rate themselves on each skill. A setting can also let them rate their own interest in it. Their manager can rate them too. Both ratings are optional. Inside the app, only the employee can give their own rating. Nobody else can enter it for them there, not even an administrator.

Each skill can hold a self-rating, a supervisor’s rating and a target level. The level shown uses only the two ratings. You pick the scale, anywhere from two levels up to eleven, with 1 to 5 as the default. The level Skills Base shows is the average of the latest self-rating and the latest supervisor rating. If more than one supervisor has rated the same person, only the newest rating counts. If no supervisor has rated someone, the level shown is just the employee’s own. A supervisor’s rating of zero is averaged in like any other rating. So if an employee rates themselves 2 and their supervisor rates them 0, the level shown is 1. You can also switch a screen to show only supervisor ratings.

Skills Base compares a person’s current level with their target level. It calls the difference their “competency”, shown as a percentage up to 100%. By default, each person is due for a new round on a set schedule, counted from their last round. Ratings do not have to wait for the next round, though. Employees and supervisors can both update a set of ratings on one screen at any time. An ad hoc review also lets someone raise their own rating right after a project, a training session, or coaching.

Skills Base’s AI drafts a list of skills from your HR system, job descriptions or performance data. Your team reviews it before it goes live. There is also a paid add-on called the AI Module. With it, the AI writes short insights from the ratings. It also answers open questions about your data, through an assistant called Sam. Sam runs on Anthropic’s Claude AI model, hosted on Amazon’s cloud service. Without the AI Module, Sam still answers support questions. On your own data, though, it can only answer the questions already suggested on your screens.

Skills Base pulls staff records from your HR system on a set schedule. On paid plans, self-ratings and manager ratings can also be imported in bulk from spreadsheet files. On certain plans, almost any other data can move in and out through a programming interface. That is a technical connection that lets other software send and receive data automatically. Skills Base only runs as cloud software. By default, it is hosted on Amazon Web Services in the United States. Germany or Australia are available on request.

A level with a manager’s rating behind it carries more weight. Before you use a level in a promotion or pay decision, switch the screen to supervisor ratings. See how many there actually are.

Skills Base Pty Ltd owns and builds the product, and it is a small company. It was set up in Australia in 2013, and is based in North Geelong, Victoria. It was already selling licences by 2014. It has between 11 and 50 staff. Its chief executive, Nick Stanley, wrote in January 2025 that the business pays for itself. It has no venture capital behind it. He also wrote that its revenue grew 30% in 2024. Your contract might be with Skills Base Pty Ltd, or with Educrowd Pty Ltd. Both sell the product from the same address. Either way, the contract follows the law of Delaware, a US state. Have a lawyer review that before you sign. Because the supplier is small, use that review to add support and continuity promises to the contract.

Managers rated 41% of assessments, and 72% of people got rated

Most of the numbers Skills Base publishes come from its own 2026 report on its customers.

41.4% of assessments rated by a supervisorSkills in Practice Report 2026

In the report’s detailed sample of customers, supervisors had rated 41.4% of assessments on average. The median was 47%. Some organisations had a supervisor rate as many as 97% of assessments. This figure shows how much of a skills record carries a manager’s view as well as the employee’s.

71.8% of people assessedSkills in Practice Report 2026, wider sample

In the wider sample, an average of 71.8% of the people customers set out to rate had actually been rated. The median was 82%. At a typical customer, that leaves close to one person in five without the rating they were meant to get. Getting people rated is a separate job from switching the software on.

400+ enterprise customersSkills Base, January 2025

Skills Base counts more than 400 enterprise customers. Separately, it counts over 2,000 users of its free version.

Training time cut from six months to threeVodafone Retail New Zealand, 2020

Vodafone Retail New Zealand used Skills Base to cut training time for new hires from six months to three. Skills Base’s customer stories mostly describe it being used to plan training and to assign people to projects. A promotion or a pay decision needs more evidence than a training plan gives.

Paid plans cost $2.25 or $4 a person, and contracts renew automatically

Skills Base publishes prices for three of its four plans. As of 14 September 2026, Teams costs $2.25 a person a month, and Enterprise costs $4 a person a month. The Free plan costs nothing. Ultimate is priced on request. So is the AI Module, which adds the AI insights and the full version of the Sam assistant.

Get the currency, the billing period and any minimum number of people in writing. The licences are described elsewhere as yearly subscriptions.

Past 25 people, features decide which plan you need, not headcount. Teams adds target levels, bulk import, custom fields, and the programming interface. Enterprise adds single sign-on, which means logging in with the same account staff already use for other work tools. It also adds competency reports, multiple roles, scheduled reports, and fixed dates for assessments. C1, one of Skills Base’s published customers, upgraded from a basic plan to Enterprise to get single sign-on.

Every person’s record counts as a paid seat from the moment it is created. It also counts from the moment you send an invitation. This is true whether or not they ever log in or add any data. If you load your whole workforce on day one, you pay for everyone from the start. For a large rollout done in stages, Skills Base may agree to hold licence capacity up front. This covers people who have no login yet. That is Skills Base’s choice, not a right. Get those terms in writing before you import anyone.

The Free plan, which Skills Base calls “Free Forever”, covers up to 25 people and 250 skills. It does not include the data exports that come with paid plans.

The price list leaves out the contract terms that can cost you money. The contract renews itself automatically, unless you notify Skills Base at least 90 days before your term ends. At renewal, fees can go up. The rise is capped at a percentage set in your order form. If there is no order form, Skills Base decides the amount. If you end the agreement early, you owe the fees for the rest of the term straight away. The price you agree is also confidential. Put a cap on renewal rises in your order form. Mark the date 90 days before your term ends in your diary.

Leaving is mostly a question about your contract. You own your data. On every paid plan, it exports as spreadsheet files, with the full change history for each person’s level. Still, three things need planning before you sign. First, the skill export leaves out skills that people inherit from their team or role. You get those through a separate tool called the Report Builder instead. Second, your access ends with the contract. At that point, you have to request an export in writing. Anything left behind can be deleted for good after that. Take your export before the end date. Third, if a paid licence lapses, the account drops to the Free plan. Past 25 people, the account also locks. Administrators can still log in and take an export. If you want to stay but move to a cheaper plan, contact Skills Base support. The software will not do it for you.

You could also build this on your own systems. We have mapped what that looks like. See it as an agent

Seven situations where Skills Base is not built for you

You want skills to appear without anyone rating them

Every skill level starts as a rating someone made. It might be typed into Skills Base, uploaded from a spreadsheet, or sent in from another system. For skills that appear on their own, look at a different kind of tool.

You need proof of ability that does not come from the person or their manager

Skills Base’s method combines a self-rating with a manager’s rating. It says objective measurement of ability should generally come from a formal exam run by an independent body. Where a role needs proven skill, find the proof somewhere else.

A lapsed certificate has to stop someone working

Skills Base can track certificates people have finished, are working on, or are nominated for. This sits in an optional feature called the “Qualifications module”. The Free plan does not include it. By default, you type each certificate in as plain text. Staff with the right permission can edit their own record. If you sign up for expiry alerts, you get one notice a day. It lists every certificate due to expire a week later. A lapsed or withdrawn certificate may have to keep someone off a job. If so, look at a product built for regulated, frontline records.

A level is only as recent as the last round

In Skills Base’s 2026 customer report, the gap between rating rounds averaged 9.5 months, with a median of six. Employees can also unsubscribe from the reminders meant to bring them back for the next round. Only Skills Base staff can switch on one setting, and only at an administrator’s request. It takes chosen skills out of someone’s assessment and fills them in automatically with their old rating. So an old number can carry into a new round without anyone looking at it.

AI insights can lag behind the ratings

The AI insights use the same self-ratings and manager ratings. They also use certificates and training records. After a rating changes, an insight can take up to seven days to catch up. Until then, it may describe old ratings as if they were current. Skills Base’s contract gives no guarantee about what its AI produces. It tells customers to confirm any facts in the AI’s output before they rely on it.

Your HR system will not keep it up to date on its own

A scheduled file upload keeps employee records up to date, and does nothing more. Workday supports it without any extra work. Single sign-on can fill in someone’s role, location or staff ID, but only at the moment they log in. Beyond that, the programming interface on certain plans lets a developer build a link. Skills Base does not usually build these links for you. Two other ready-made connections exist too. Skills Base’s own support team can connect your account to Credly. This needs Credly Workforce, and it brings in digital badges as certificate records. Delaware, a consulting firm, has separately connected Skills Base to SAP SuccessFactors.

Your security review may want the supplier’s own ISO 27001 certificate

ISO 27001 is a worldwide standard for keeping information secure. Skills Base describes itself as “ISO 27001 Aligned”. That means it follows the standard’s rules and controls. Its security papers also list SOC and ISO 27001 certificates. SOC stands for System and Organization Controls, a US audit standard. But these certificates belong to the data centres that host its software, not to Skills Base itself. If your review needs a certificate in the supplier’s own name, request it before the demo.

Two smaller limits need an answer before you sign. If your IT policy says software must run on your own servers, Skills Base cannot meet that. Still, sign-in details can stay on your own servers. You also need to settle on a rating scale before your first round of ratings. Skills Base can rewrite stored ratings to fit a new scale. This happens if you change the scale after people have been rated. You cannot undo that change.

It suits technical, field and consulting staff whose managers rate them

The customers in Skills Base’s 2026 report are mostly Fortune 500 businesses. Their median rollout was 1,262 people. The average was 3,198, and the largest was nearly 19,000.

It works where managers rate their people

Some organisations in Skills Base’s 2026 report had a manager rate as many as 97% of assessments. So a skills record with real manager input is possible, if your managers take part. Where they do, a level carries their view as well as the employee’s. Where they do not, the record holds only the employees’ own ratings.

Technicians, engineers and consultants are its named users

Skills Base’s customer stories include Trane’s service technicians and C1’s engineers. They also include consultants at Delaware. Another story covers the cyber security team at an unnamed “Top 4” accounting firm. Skills Base also serves manufacturing, engineering, mining, energy, technology and government. Trane ran a pilot with 250 technicians. That later grew to 2,926 service users, in its commercial heating and air-conditioning business in the Americas. C1 is a company of 1,000 to 5,000 employees. There, the average time to assign engineers to projects fell from three days to 30 minutes.

You can see the price and try it before a sales call

The per-person prices are on the website. The Free plan lets up to 25 people try it out before anyone signs a contract. Ellucian rolled Skills Base out to more than 500 employees without running any formal training for them.

Every level comes from a person, never from the AI

Every level comes from the employee’s rating, the supervisor’s rating, or both. Skills Base’s AI never rates anyone itself. An employee can always trace a number back to a person.

What to ask before you sign

  1. Can the manager’s rating become the official level, instead of the average of the two? Good answer: Yes, confirmed in writing before your first round.
  2. Which of our skill levels currently have no manager rating behind them? Good answer: A report or a screen you can filter to supervisor ratings only.
  3. Can a colleague’s rating or a test result set a skill level, instead of the usual two ratings? Good answer: A clear yes or no. If yes, where that rating sits in the level.
  4. Are the $2.25 and $4 prices in US dollars or Australian dollars, billed monthly or yearly? Good answer: One named currency and one billing period, in writing.
  5. If we load our whole workforce before anyone logs in, do we pay for everyone from day one? Good answer: No, with agreed licence capacity for people who have not logged in yet, in writing.
  6. Would our contract be with Skills Base Pty Ltd or Educrowd Pty Ltd? What cap on renewal price rises goes in our order form? Good answer: One named company, and a percentage cap in writing.
  7. What does the AI Module cost, and what can our HR team do with Sam without it? Good answer: A price for the AI Module, and a clear list of what Sam can do without it.
  8. If we leave, does the export include skills people inherit from their team or role, and the full rating history? How long do you keep our data after the contract ends? Good answer: A full export with inherited skills and full history. A stated number of days data is kept afterward.

Test Skills Base with one team on the Free plan first

AG5 is built for certificates on regulated sites. Microsoft People Skills and TechWolf take a different approach. They read what staff actually do at work and turn that into a list of skills. You could also run one rating round on the Free plan and buy nothing at all.

Run that round with a single team before you buy anything. The Free plan covers up to 25 people. Get Skills Base to confirm it includes supervisor ratings. Those are what you are testing. The Free plan has no data export and no Qualifications add-on. So treat it as a test of your managers, not the start of your real records. Learn how far managers’ ratings differ from the employees’ own. If managers do not rate anyone, do not buy yet.

Microsoft People Skills works out people’s skills from what they do in Microsoft 365. If you pay for Copilot or Viva, it costs $0 extra, so far. Microsoft itself is clear that People Skills is not designed for promotion or pay decisions. Its proficiency levels, meaning how skilled someone is rated as being, are not described in Microsoft’s People Skills documentation. TechWolf also works out skills from people’s work. Its skill scale has five levels by default, adjustable from three to eight. Its price is not published. The smallest customer it names in a case study has about 5,000 people. That is about four times as many people as Skills Base’s median customer rollout.

If your record has to prove that certificates are still valid on a regulated site, look at AG5 too. It is built for industrial and frontline workforces, and for manufacturing organisations. Renewi, an AG5 customer, found it worked better when operations owned compliance and HR supported them. So if certificates are the problem, bring operations into the decision before you draw up a shortlist.

A new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system may be coming. Skills Base’s exports can carry your data across when it goes live. Plan separately for the skills people inherit from their team or role, because the skill export leaves those out.

Our skills intelligence buying guide reviews the other tools that lean on people rating themselves. Read it to decide whether you need that kind of product at all.

Sources and method

Every statement about Skills Base comes from its own website, help centre, contract, customer stories and Skills in Practice Report 2026. It also comes from articles its chief executive has published, its LinkedIn company page and the Australian Business Register. All of it was read on 14 September 2026. What Skills Base publishes about its own product is taken as its description of that product. AG5’s description of itself and its Renewi case study come from AG5’s website, read the same day. Facts about Microsoft People Skills and TechWolf come from the sources at the end of this list, each with its own date.

Skills Base website
Skills Base help centre and contract
Other sources
Microsoft People Skills and TechWolf