Performance Reviews

5 Best Leapsome Alternatives for SMBs

Looking for SMB friendly alternatives to Leapsome? Compare BuddiesHR, Betterworks, Synergita, Thrivesparrow, and Peoplelogic - covering reviews and engagement.

Fabien Pinel

Fabien Pinel

— 7 min read
5 Best Leapsome Alternatives for SMBs

Leapsome is known as a comprehensive performance management and HR system designed to help you manage every aspect of employee development. Combining performance reviews, 360 feedback, employee surveys, goals, and learning, the platform is ideal for medium- to large-sized companies that need a complete HRIS.

For SMBs, however, its features are on the heavy side, and you may want something that’s easier to implement, in a shorter timeframe, and is purpose-built for smaller teams or remote teams. Our list of alternatives provides five excellent alternatives to Leapsome in 2025.  

Quick Answer

Leapsome alternatives for SMBs in 2025 include BuddiesHR, Thrivesparrow, Synergita, Betterworks, and Peoplelogic. These tools are easier to set up, more affordable, and designed for small teams that want performance reviews, engagement, and feedback without enterprise complexity.

Table of Contents

  • Leapsome alternatives: Overview
    • BuddiesHR 
    • Thrivesparrow
    • Synergita
    • Betterworks
    • Peoplelogic

Leapsome alternatives designed for the needs of SMBs 

1. BuddiesHR 

Product Offering:

What you’ll like about BuddiesHR:

  • The mix-and-match apps that allow you to customize your employee experience to fit your culture.
  • How easy each app is to set up, customize, and manage.
  • The affordability provides a perfect entry point for SMBs to gather employee feedback and stay on top of employee engagement. 
  • Total team engagement with Slack and BuddiesHR, and the ability to gather engagement data. 
  • Improve company culture by keeping your values visible, and rewarding culture-positive behavior. 
  • You can keep growing, and BuddiesHR will still work for you.

What you might not like about BuddiesHR:

  • Focus on Slack. SMBs using Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams may find this a challenge. 
  • BuddiesHR skips more advanced features, such as in-depth analytics and development planning, in favor of streamlined employee engagement.

Pricing for 2025:

BuddiesHR has three options:

  • Modular apps - $0.8 per employee/pm (billed annually)
  • 7 app suite - $1.6 per employee/pm (billed annually)
  • Simpleperf - $3 per employee/pm (billed annually)

Customer testimonials and reviews for BuddiesHR

2. Thrivesparrow

Product Offering:

  • Goals (OKR): Goal management tools to drive team performance.
  • Perform (360 feedback): Seamless performance reviews for continuous performance management.
  • Engage: Gather feedback with employee surveys.
  • Kudos: Recognize, reward, and inspire the whole team from anywhere in the world.
  • Feedback: Drive team performance with feedback sessions.
  • Personal development plans - Create impactful development plans and exchange feedback in teams.

What you’ll like about Thrivesparrow:

  • All-in-one performance management platform.
  • Clean, intuitive, and modern interface.
  • Wide range of software integrations such as Slack, BambooHR, Google Workspace, and others. 
  • HR professionals will love the real-time heatmaps helping them identify patterns, analyze performance trends, and manage all HR data. 
  • Personalized action plans for talent management and team engagement in minutes. 

What you might not like about Thrivesparrow:

  • Quote-based pricing makes it difficult for SMBs to manage costs. 
  • Missing features like time tracking and automated vacation requests. 

Pricing for 2025:

Thrivesparrow has three plans in the works, but they are currently not published. You should fill out their contact form for personalized pricing. 

Thrivesparrow Reviews:

3. Synergita

Product Offering:

  • OKRs: Effortlessly strategize with the right goals using OKR software to optimize teams.
  • Perform: Fully automated software helps streamline goals, performance reviews, and employee appraisals into a real-time dashboard.
  • Engage: Tools designed to deliver a culture that people love. 

What you’ll like about Synergita:

  • You’ll be able to break down ambitious goals into achievable milestones, with real-time insights and goal tracking. 
  • Plan overarching goals between silos to ensure high-performing teams across the organization.
  • Get a bird’s eye view of company objectives at the press of a button. 
  • Collaboration tools that spark ideas and boost productivity.
  • Unbiased performance reviews and AI-based sentiment analysis.

What you might not like about Synergita:

  • While pricing is transparent, you are required to purchase different tiers to get all the features. Then 360 360-degree feedback is only available on the higher-priced plan, whereas with other platforms like BuddiesHR, it is included. 

Pricing for 2025:

There are two modular pricing options available for 2025:

  • OKR:
    • OKR Starter - Free 
    • OKR Lite - $3 per employee/pm
    • OKR Growth - $6 per employee/pm
  • Perform:
    • Engage - $2 per employee/pm
    • Perform - $4 per employee/pm
    • Perform Plus - $7 per employee/pm

Synergita reviews:

4. Betterworks

Product Offering:

  • Performance management platform: Run performance reviews with facts, not memories.
  • Goals: Goals and OKRs updated day-to-day for immediate progress reports. 
  • One-on-Ones: Comprehensive discussions, assign next steps, and revisit priorities. 
  • Analytics and insights: Actionable insights and a comprehensive overview of team successes.
  • Feedback: Real-time feedback with AI-powered summaries.
  • Employee engagement: Build simple employee engagement surveys and see how people really feel.

What you’ll like about Betterworks:

  • Betterworks pulls in real-time goals so priorities stay clear and teams stay focused — helping you hit more targets, faster.
  • SMBs aiming to build a comprehensive people ops function, the tools can be a fast track to best practices. 
  • Calibration tools that reduce bias in 360 reviews and structured conversations through the 1:1 module. 
  • Bird's-eye view of how all employees are doing vs. OKRs, with goals visible to everyone.

What you might not like about Betterworks:

  • The weighty features may be overkill for small teams, and unlike other plug-and-play tools, Betterworks requires training and customization.
  • Enterprise and mid-market focused pricing with minimum starting thresholds (500-2500 employees).

Pricing for 2025:

Betterworks requires that you request a custom quote for one of its two subscriptions, namely:

  • Enterprise
  • Mid-market

Betterworks reviews:

5. Peoplelogic

Product Offering:

  • OKRs: Set, track, and accomplish meaningful goals—individually and as a team.
  • Reviews: Meaningful and highly customizable performance reviews. 
  • One-on-Ones: Transform meetings into effective engagement and development opportunities using structured agendas, shared notes, and clear action items.
  • Feedback and praise: Foster an environment of collaboration and mutual support.
  • Surveys: Design effective surveys without extensive experience

What you’ll like about Peoplelogic:

  • AI-driven insights that help managers and HR to spot patterns and trends and respond quickly. 
  • Generate key results and objectives with AI-driven prompts for every job.
  • Build team cohesion and strengthen culture through recognition and reward structures. 
  • Simplify survey creation through AI-generated questions.
  • Design the review process that works for your company, and include 180 or 360-degree reviews. 
  • User-friendly interface. 

What you might not like about Peoplelogic:

  • The annual set fee may be too high for small businesses and startups. However, as your company grows, this one-off cost may be more beneficial. 
  • Missing features such as time-tracking, leave requests and approvals, and automated check-ins.  

Pricing for 2025:

$3,588 a year for the full performance management platform for unlimited users. They offer startups a unique plan that requires a custom quote, and they also offer discounts. 

Peoplelogic reviews:

Conclusion

While Leapsome is a very good performance management platform for medium-sized enterprises that are rapidly scaling, it may be too complex if you just want simple, easy-to-implement software that is designed for smaller teams, remote teams, and startups.

Instead, try these alternatives:

  • Buddies HR - Budget-friendly, Slack first design for small teams, remote and hybrid teams.
  • Thrivesparrow or Synergita - Engagement-focused SMBs.
  • Betterworks - Rapidly scaling SMBs looking for a complete employee experience platform.
  • Peoplelogic - All-in-one employee engagement app that is budget-friendly.
👉
Want a tool that’s specifically built for SMEs from the ground up? Try BuddiesHR for easy-to-implement reviews, employee engagement surveys, kudos, PTO planning, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is leapsome not better suited for SMBs?

Leapsome is regarded as a comprehensive HR platform that goes beyond the basic functionality SMBs may require; therefore, as an entry point into enhancing employee engagement, you would pay for more than you need. 

2. Is Leapsome a legit company?

Yes, Leapsome is a legitimate and reputable HR technology company, with locations in Germany and the United States. It also has legitimate user feedback on sites such as G2 and Capterra.

3. What is the main benefit of using Leapsome alternatives for SMBs?

The main benefits SMBs will get from Leapsome alternatives are simpler platforms that are easier to implement in smaller teams. Leapsome can take weeks to get integrated into your processes because of its more complicated features. 

4. Which Leapsome alternative has the quickest setup?

SMB focused alternatives like BuddiesHR have the fastest setup and are the easiest to use. Built to integrate with Slack, providing a streamlined way to track employee performance, BuddiesHR also gives you the opportunity to automate review cycles, reducing manual work. 

5. Why is transparent pricing essential for SMBs when choosing people management software?

For SMBs and startups, predictable pricing matters because costs need to be kept low. Companies that use quote-based pricing can make it hard for smaller teams to plan ahead. Transparent pricing allows SMBs to plan costs up front and know exactly what the costs will be if they want to add apps or modules.

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