Employ
RecruitRippling vs Justworks
Do your lead programmers live in Prague? Is your entire marketing department in Melbourne and your sales force in San Francisco? If your organization includes a team of workers scattered across different states and countries, you’re not alone.
Since the work-from-home trend took off during the pandemic, nearly all employers are faced with the growing demand for remote or hybrid positions. While forming a distributed team allows you to focus on talent in your hiring rather than geographic limits, it can also create new challenges for your HR department – if you even have one! However, the same technologies that have made remote work possible have also been used to develop new management tools to help address these challenges.
What You’ll Discover:
- In-Depth Feature Analysis: A thorough breakdown of the features and usability of both platforms.
- Pricing Comparison: A detailed look at the costs associated with each service to assist with effective budgeting.
- Pros and Cons: Unbiased assessments of the strengths and limitations of Rippling and Justworks.
In this review of Rippling vs Justworks, we’ll let two technology-based service providers face off against each other to see where each one shines. We’ll also go deep into each one to explore their specific strengths and weaknesses. This should help you make the best choice of an HR service provider that can take care of all your organization’s needs.
Rippling vs Justworks Overview
Feature | Rippling | Justworks | Explanation |
User Reviews | G2: 4.8/5 Trustradius: 8.7/10 | G2: 4.6/5 Trustradius: 7.1/10 | Ripplings reviews are very good, while Justwork’s are somewhat mixed. |
Pricing | $500-600/ employee per month; unknown contractor price | $599/international employee per month; $39/ contractor per month | Rippling doesn’t post its prices online, so we’ve only uncovered some of them. Justworks is quite up-front about its basic prices and posts them publicly. |
User-friendliness | Very Good | Excellent | Justworks has excellent reviews for ease of setup and use, while Rippling is considered somewhat difficult to set up. |
Customer Support | 24/7 live chat and phone support | 24/7 live chat and phone support | Both providers offer live support at all times. |
Integrations | Excellent | Good | Rippling can integrate with 600 HR, accounting, and financial apps. Justworks currently integrates with just eight other apps. |
Data security | Excellent | Very Good | Rippling is GDPR and SOC2 compliant and both CSA STAR Level 2 and ISO 27001 certified. Justworks is compliant with SOC 1&2 controls. |
International hiring (EOR) | Very Good | Very Good | Rippling enables employee hiring in 29 countries and contractor hiring in 185. Justworks enables the hiring of employees in 100+ countries and contractors in 40+. |
Recruitment | Good | Good | Neither provider performs direct recruiting, but both include ATSs to help clients recruit on their own. |
Benefits administration | Excellent | Excellent | Both platforms help clients offer lots of benefits like health insurance and pensions to their employees. |
Payroll | Very Good | Very Good | Both providers offer comprehensive payroll services in the US and manage payments for contractors and international employees. |
Rippling Overview
Rippling was started in 2016 as an HRIS, a human resources information system, to help businesses manage all their employees and related HR functions in a single application. For this reason, this platform offers the complete functionality that small, medium, and even large businesses need to manage their human resources. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) that need to scale can easily add tens or hundreds of employees to their Rippling accounts and manage them easily. This platform features time-tracking, payroll, performance management, benefits administration, and all the other functions needed for an HR management system.
Rippling has also added contractor management, global payroll, benefits administration, and EOR services to its list of services. EOR or Employer of Record services allow companies to hire employees in countries where they don’t own entities by using the EOR’s entities and partners as the legal employers of local staff. Rippling’s EOR service is, however, limited to just 29 countries presently. It manages all employees’ needs relating to payroll, taxes, benefits, onboarding, and offboarding and maintains compliance with local employment and tax laws.
Its international contractor hiring services are more extensive. Rippling supports contractor hiring and payments in 188 countries which is basically the whole world over.
Back in the US, it also works as a PEO or Professional Employment Organization. As such, it manages payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance functions on behalf of its clients, essentially becoming an outsourced HR department that manages all of their workers.
Rippling also provides extensive benefits packages for both US and international workers. It lets employers offer mandatory benefits like health insurance and pensions as well as optional benefits that can improve their compensation packages.
Rippling doesn’t post its prices publicly; instead, it chooses to provide tailored quotes. However, we’ve uncovered a starting price of $599/employee per month for EOR services. The price for international contractors is unknown. Rippling also seems to charge $35/month to use its platform for payroll plus a fee of $8/month for each employee managed.
Rippling Pros and Cons
Rippling is an HRIS provider that has expanded into EOR and PEO services. Working with this service provider brings the following advantages and disadvantages:
- Pros
Because Rippling was originally designed as an HRIS, it’s packed full of functionality. This includes payroll, tax calculations, paid time off (PTO), time tracking, applicant management, and loads of other necessary HR functions.
Mobile app
Rippling’s mobile app for iOS and Android devices, Rippling HR, IT, and Finance, is a useful addition to its platform. It lets employees access benefits, request PTO, submit expenses, and view payslips.
Data security
Rippling is ISO 27001, ISO 27018, and CSA STAR Level 2 certified and compliant with SOC 1, 2, and 3 controls.
Benefits packages
Rippling provides add-on benefits packages that can be modified to comply with the legal requirements in any country where it works. These benefits include health, vision, dental, and life insurance, as well as pensions.
Extensive integration
Rippling can integrate with an incredible 600+ financial, HR, and communication apps to help smooth workflows.
- Cons
Complexity
While Rippling’s platform is rated very high for user-friendliness, it’s also very complicated and extensive. This means it can take a long time to learn how to use it effectively.
Limited support for international hiring
While Rippling lets businesses hire contractors in over 180 countries, it only enables full-time employee hiring in 29 countries, which is quite limited for an EOR.
No pricing online
While many competitors are open about their prices, Rippling chooses not to publicly post its prices, which means potential clients have to spend time asking for tailored quotes.
Justworks Overview
Justworks was founded in 2012 as a PEO in the US, and it continues to offer payroll and PEO services in all 50 states. Justworks is an IRS-certified PEO and holds Employer Services Assurance Corporation (ESAC) accreditation, showing compliance and financial management at a high level. If clients don’t need full HR support, they can also opt to pay for just multistate payroll service ($50/month base fee plus $8/person per month), which covers salary calculations, tax filings, and payment transfers.
It has also expanded its services to improve its functionality and help organizations hire internationally. It can now help businesses hire full-time employees (FTEs) in over 100 countries worldwide. While this is extensive, it’s also far less than the 150-180+ some competitors offer. Justworks uses a network of its own entities and partners to legally employ local staff and maintain constant compliance with labor laws. It creates contracts, onboards staff, runs payroll, manages benefits, pays taxes, and sees to all other aspects of HR for its clients’ employees. It also lets them hire and pay contractors in just over 40 countries.
Like many competitors in the HR services space, Justworks doesn’t offer active recruiting services. However, its platform includes an applicant tracking system (ATS) which helps clients manage their own recruiting process.
Justworks provides a wide spread of benefits packages like medical, dental, and vision insurance, mental health coverage, HSAs, FSAs, and 401(K) plans. These benefits help to fulfill state and federal obligations or can be optional add-ons to help entice quality employees.
Justworks Pros and Cons
Justworks is an HR service provider with PEO, payroll, and EOR offerings. Its specific strengths and weaknesses include the following:
- Pros
Mobile app
Justworks’ mobile app for iOS and Android devices helps employees view their pay stubs, make time off requests, and access their insurance cards.
Benefits packages
Justworks offers extensive mandatory and optional benefits packages that are compliant in all 50 states. Many are also available for international employees and contractors.
Transparent fees
This provider boldly publishes most of its package and add-on fees online, which helps potential clients compare its offerings to those of other providers.
Extensive administration tools
This platform includes features like onboarding, offboarding, time-tracking and attendance, PTO management, e-signature collection, payroll management, and benefits administration.
- Cons
Limited global reach
Justworks provides international FTE hiring in just over 100 countries which is a lot less than many competitors. It also enables contractor hiring and payments in a very limited 40+ countries though it promises to expand soon.
Limited integrations
The Justworks platform can integrate with only eight software applications for HR and financial management. This is far fewer than many competitors and limits the smooth flow of data between clients’ tech stacks.
Head-to-Head Comparison: Rippling vs Justworks Features
Now that we’ve examined the services that each provider offers and what their individual strengths and weaknesses are, it’s time to compare them directly. This should help you get a good idea of where each one shines so that you can make an informed choice about which provider would be the right match for your organization.
User-friendly platform: It’s a tie
Both of these platforms have garnered excellent ratings for ease of use and administration. Rippling is rated as slightly easier but Justworks is not as hard to set up and implement. The differences are small, however, and we think it’s too close to call.
Resources: It’s a tie
Rippling has tools for analytics, global spend, and headcount, and also has educational resources like Rippling University, webinars, and a blog.
Justworks offers up a blog, e-books and small business guides, global hiring guides, and workplace management videos. While these resources are different, they’re both extensive and equally useful for clients.
Integration with other software: Rippling Wins
There’s really no contest here. Justworks offers integration with only eight HR and finance apps, including Quickbooks, Xero, Greenhouse, Lever, and JazzHR. However, Rippling is on a whole other level. Its platform can integrate with over 600 apps, including Asana, Checkr, GitHub, Slack, Salesforce, and hundreds of other well-known finance, HR, and communications solutions. Rippling wins hands-down.
International hiring: It’s a tie
Justworks supports full-time employee hiring in over 100 countries and contractor hiring in over 40. Rippling, strangely, has things reversed. Rippling supports employee hiring in just 29 countries but lets companies hire contractors in 188.
We’ve found Ripling’s prices, and both providers are similar, so we’re calling it a tie in this category. It really depends on whether your organization is planning to hire more employees or contractors.
PEO Solution: It’s a tie
Justworks offers two different models for its PEO service. Its PEO basic covers almost everything except for benefits admin at $59/person per month while its PEO Plus service adds benefits admin for $109/person per month.
Rippling’s PEO price isn’t available online but it suggests that PEO services should cost between $500-1500/year which is comparable to Justworks. Since both offer similar services, we’ll call it another tie.
Employee Benefits: It’s a tie
Both of these providers offer various packages for benefits administration within their payroll, PEO, or EOR services. Their lists of benefits are very similar so without specific pricing we need to call this category a tie as well.
Payroll Management: Rippling Wins
Users rate both platforms very highly for ease of payroll management. They provide similar services for FTEs in the US and abroad but Rippling allows businesses to pay their contractors in 188 countries in local currencies or the currencies of their choice. This gives Rippling a slight boost.
Our Verdict: Rippling vs Justworks
The goal for this assessment was not to find an overall winner but instead to highlight the areas in which each service provider does a better job. This was certainly a close race, but some differences do exist between these providers.
When to choose Rippling
Rippling is a highly integratable platform that can also scale easily for larger businesses. For those organizations looking to hire contractors in the US and around the world, Rippling is a solid choice.
When to choose Justworks
Organizations looking for an effective PEO and payroll provider in the US can hire Justworks with confidence. It’s also a better choice for SMBs looking to add to their teams by hiring FTEs around the world.