Energage vs Culture Amp pricing is two quote-only vendors that price on different things. Energage gives the Top Workplaces award away at no cost and sells the survey platform, insights, employer branding and talent modules behind it by quote. Culture Amp prices on number of employees, product chosen and service tier, bills every product annually, and lets your headcount band decide how much support comes with the contract. Neither publishes a rate, so the useful work before signing is knowing what each quote is built from and what it has to beat.
We read energage.com, topworkplaces.com and cultureamp.com/pricing on 22 October 2026. Neither vendor gave us a quote, neither is affiliated with us, and we run no award program. Every total below is our arithmetic on prices other vendors publish, labeled where it appears.
Is Energage cheaper than Culture Amp?
Nobody outside a sales call can say, because neither vendor publishes a rate. What you can say is that they charge for different things. With Energage, the award survey is free and you pay for the platform and services on top. With Culture Amp, you pay from the first employee, and the number scales with headcount, product and service tier.
So the honest comparison is not award against platform. It is Energage's paid platform against Culture Amp's paid platform, and both are quotes you have to request.
The purchase most people leaders make is a survey tool with dashboards and pulse checks. Energage sells that as Workplace Culture (Pulse, Workplace Insights and Workplace Survey). Culture Amp sells it as Engage. Ask each for that product alone, at your headcount, for a twelve-month term, and compare those two numbers before anything else gets added.
Does Energage publish pricing?
No. energage.com/pricing returned a 404 when we checked on 22 October 2026, and every call to action on the site is "Request a Free Demo". There is no rate, tier, minimum or per-employee figure anywhere on energage.com. The only thing Energage prices publicly is the award, and that price is zero.
What Energage does publish is a product menu, which tells you what a quote can contain. Workplace Culture covers Pulse, Workplace Insights and Workplace Survey. Employer Branding covers employer branding and Top Workplaces. Talent Management is a long list: 360 Surveys, Behavioral Assessment, Compensation, Connect, Learning, Performance, Succession and Talent Insights. Services cover Consulting, Partnerships and Support Services. There are separate Enterprise and SMB pages by company size.
So the first question for Energage is which of those lines your quote includes. Our Energage pricing breakdown lists what to ask module by module.
Is Top Workplaces free?
Yes. Topworkplaces.com says "there's no cost to nominate, participate, or win awards" and calls Top Workplaces "the only no-cost employer recognition program". One survey qualifies a company for all eligible awards within 12 months. As read in September 2026, a company needs at least 35 employees and a 35 percent response rate to be eligible.
The process has four steps on the site: nominate anytime, survey employees, receive the outcome, and winners are announced. Programs run with regional newspapers and media partners across the US, with regional, national, culture and industry awards. Topworkplaces.com also says participation is private and only the names of winning companies are published, so a company that does not place is not named.
The free part is the recognition. The insights, pulse and employer branding tools sit in the paid platform, so if you go in for the award and come out wanting the full results, the next conversation is a sales call. We walk through eligibility and the paid add-ons on our Top Workplaces award guide.
An award also does a job after it lands. Winners put the badge on careers pages and job ads, and more applicants is usually the point. Someone then has to read those applications, so if your recruiting team is two people, line up an AI recruiter that screens and books candidates before the logo goes on the job board, not after the inbox fills.
How much does Culture Amp cost per employee?
Culture Amp publishes no per-employee rate for US buyers. Its pricing FAQ says, verbatim, "Pricing depends on the number of employees, product chosen, and service tier. All Culture Amp products are billed on an annual basis." Every route on the page is a quote request. The only per-user figures Culture Amp ever published were in a UK government framework document, and that service is now withdrawn.
Culture Amp Limited listed Employee Engagement and Performance Management Software on the UK G-Cloud 15 Digital Marketplace. The listing says Culture Amp stopped offering that service on Wednesday 9 September 2026, with existing contracts still valid. Its pricing document gave an average price per user per month, the mid-point of a range, by user band. The figures are in pounds sterling, for UK public-sector buyers under that framework. They are not a US price, not a current price, and we do not convert them to dollars.
| User band (UK G-Cloud 15, GBP, withdrawn 9 September 2026) | Engage, average per user per month | Perform, average per user per month |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 100 users | £4.47 | £8.15 |
| 101 to 500 users | £3.87 | £6.75 |
| 501 to 1,000 users | £3.07 | £5.79 |
| 1,001 to 2,500 users | £2.47 | £4.73 |
| 2,501 to 5,000 users | £1.90 | Not listed |
Read it for the shape, not the numbers. The per-user rate falls as headcount rises. Perform runs close to twice Engage per user in every band where both appear. Engage in that document included Customer Success, and People Science was priced separately. If a US quote comes back flat across headcount, or with Perform at the same rate as Engage, ask why, because the only first-party document Culture Amp ever published had neither.
What does Culture Amp include in every plan?
Every Culture Amp plan includes AI Coach, a multilingual platform, SSO and encryption, Shoutouts, HRIS integrations, 1-on-1 templates, Slack and Microsoft Teams integrations, enterprise-grade security, and GDPR and SOC 2 compliance. The FAQ adds that 1-on-1 conversations, Shoutouts and Skills Coach are always included, and every customer gets 24/5 chat and email support.
What changes with size is the human support. Under 200 employees, customers get group Customer Success, on-demand training resources and 24/5 chat and email. From 200 to 999 employees they also get one-on-one Customer Success, and an implementation project manager (as read on 15 October 2026). At 1,000 and above, enterprise customers add manager and executive trainings, a results call with a People Scientist, one-on-one and group coaching, and a pre-launch review.
People Science consulting is an add-on to Engage and Perform, not part of the base. So a 180-person company should expect group support and should ask whether one-on-one help can be bought. A 210-person company crosses into the next band, and the quote should show what that buys. Our Culture Amp pricing page covers each product and band in more detail.
How the two quotes compare line by line
| Energage | Culture Amp | |
|---|---|---|
| What is published | No price, rate, tier or minimum; pricing page returns 404 | No rate; pricing basis and support bands are published |
| Pricing basis | Not published; quote by request a demo | Number of employees, product chosen and service tier |
| Billing | Not published | All products billed annually |
| Support by size | Separate SMB and Enterprise pages, Support Services listed; no tiers published | Under 200 group Customer Success; 200 to 999 adds one-on-one; 1,000+ adds People Scientist, coaching, trainings |
| Award | Top Workplaces, no cost to nominate, participate or win | None |
| Survey and engagement | Workplace Culture: Pulse, Workplace Insights, Workplace Survey | Engage |
| Performance and talent | Talent Management: 360 Surveys, Performance, Compensation, Succession and more | Perform, plus Develop and retention insights |
| Consulting | Consulting listed under Services | People Science, an add-on to Engage and Perform |
If Great Place To Work is also on your list, it is a third model again: a paid certification with no published price and a pass mark of 7 in 10 employees responding positively on its Trust Index. We compared it with Culture Amp in Great Place To Work vs Culture Amp.
What should a quote from either vendor beat?
Five vendors that sell the same job publish prices. By our arithmetic at list, year one for engagement surveys alone runs $2,400 to $15,000 at 100 employees and $6,000 to $17,287 at 250, depending on vendor. If either quote lands above that band for the survey product alone, ask what the extra pays for.
| Published card | Year one at 100 employees (our arithmetic) | Year one at 250 employees (our arithmetic) |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Viva Glint, $2.00 per user a month standalone | $2,400 | $6,000 |
| Lattice Engagement, $4 a seat a month, $4,000 minimum | $4,800 | $12,000 |
| 15Five Engage, $4 per user a month | $4,800 | $12,000 |
| Workleap Standard, $4,999 a year plus $32 per manager a month | $9,991 (13 managers) | $17,287 (32 managers) |
| Quantum Workplace, $15,000 minimum annual package | $15,000 | $15,000 |
| Lattice Performance plus Engagement, $14 a seat a month | $16,800 | $42,000 |
| 15Five Total Platform, $16 per user a month | $19,200 | $48,000 |
The Workleap rows assume one manager per eight employees, rounded up, which is our assumption and not Workleap's. Lattice prices were read on 19 October 2026, 15Five and Quantum Workplace in September 2026, Viva Glint in August 2026 and Workleap in October 2026. The last two rows are the like-for-like line for Culture Amp Engage plus Perform. Quantum Workplace is the closest model to Energage, since it also runs an award program, Best Places to Work, and publishes its floor. More options sit on our Energage competitors page.
What to ask before signing an annual term
Ask both vendors the same five questions in writing. What is the per-employee rate, or the flat fee, for the survey product alone at our exact headcount? What does year two cost, and is there a cap on the increase? Who counts as an employee for billing: everyone on payroll, or only those surveyed? Which support tier comes with that number, and what does the next tier cost? What is excluded, consulting and People Science above all?
With Energage, also ask which award survey results you keep without the platform. With Culture Amp, ask where your headcount sits against the 200 and 1,000 lines. If you expect to hire past 200 within the term, ask whether the support band moves mid-contract or at renewal.
Which is better for a company under 200 employees?
Under 200 employees, start with what you need. If the goal is recognition for recruiting, Energage's free Top Workplaces survey costs nothing to try, provided you have at least 35 employees and can reach a 35 percent response rate, as read in September 2026. If the goal is an ongoing engagement program, compare both paid quotes against the yardsticks above.
Culture Amp under 200 means group Customer Success rather than a named person, plus on-demand training and 24/5 chat and email. That suits an HR team that runs its own surveys, less so a first-time buyer. Energage publishes no comparable tiers, so ask what support a company of your size actually gets, by name and by hours.
Where AssessmentCloud fits
AssessmentCloud is not an award and not a full engagement suite. We cannot get anyone onto a Top Workplaces list, and we do not run reviews, pulses or recognition programs. What we sell is a whole-company diagnostic: it scores culture and engagement, process maturity, digital maturity, skills gaps and compliance readiness into a 0 to 100 report benchmarked against an industry median, with a prioritized action plan. Respondents spend about 4 minutes per area.
The Business plan is $119 a month, with all 4 assessment areas in one report and up to 500 respondents a month, so the price does not rise with headcount up to that cap. Year one is $1,428 at the monthly rate, by our arithmetic. It is diagnostic input, not a certified audit. If you want a baseline read on the company before committing to an annual engagement contract, see our flat monthly pricing.
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