12 Best Employee Engagement Software & Tools in 2026

Short answer: The best employee engagement software for a self-serve small or mid-size team on Slack or Microsoft Teams is Matter, which puts recognition, rewards, celebrations, and surveys in one native app with a Free plan for unlimited users and Basic at $1 per user/month, billed annually.

Bonusly suits accumulating points, Lattice and 15Five tie surveys to reviews, and Culture Amp or Qualtrics go deepest on benchmarks, by quote.

Employee engagement software is a platform that measures how connected people feel to their work and their company, then gives managers a way to act on it: pulse and engagement surveys, peer recognition and rewards, feedback and 1:1s, and analytics that turn answers into a plan. In 2026 the category has split into three kinds of tool.

Recognition-led platforms such as Matter, Bonusly and Achievers build the daily habit inside Slack and Microsoft Teams and add surveys on top; listening-led suites such as Culture Amp, Lattice and Qualtrics start from the survey and the driver analysis; comms-led intranets put the company feed first.

Most now deliver part of the experience in chat, and all of them sell analytics as the reason to pay.

This page is for the HR lead, people-ops manager or founder comparing employee engagement platforms, tools and apps for a team of 20 to 2,000. Every price below was read from the vendor’s own pricing page, every rating comes from G2, and where a vendor publishes no price we say so.

We also draw on Matter’s published data, with the disclosure that we build Matter and rank it first.

Last verified September 2026.

The short version

The best employee engagement software for a self-serve small or mid-size team on Slack or Microsoft Teams is Matter: recognition, rewards, celebrations and surveys in one native app with a Free plan for unlimited users and a published price.

Bonusly is the better pick if you want points that accumulate toward big-ticket rewards, and its free tier covers up to 8 users. For mid-market companies that want surveys tied to reviews and 1:1s, Lattice and 15Five publish per-seat prices; Workleap Officevibe and Leapsome sell bundles.

For enterprise listening with benchmarks and driver analysis, Culture Amp, Qualtrics Employee Experience and Workday Peakon Employee Voice go deeper than anything else here, at quote-only prices. Microsoft Viva Glint is the cheapest published survey SKU for Microsoft 365 shops, and Achievers and WorkTango suit large sales-led programs.

Quick comparison

Pricing verified September 2026 against each vendor’s pricing page; ratings from G2 as of September 2026. We do not print a G2 score for our own product.

How we evaluated employee engagement software

We build Matter, employee engagement software native to Slack and Microsoft Teams, so read our take on our own product with that in mind.

For every other platform we reviewed the vendor’s pricing page, integration pages and help documentation, plus named G2 reviews; most we have not used hands-on, so we rely on what each vendor publishes.

We scored each platform on five criteria: where employees actually use it (native to Slack or Teams, a connector that sends reminders, or a separate portal); how much of the engagement loop it covers; the depth of its analytics; how quickly a team can start without an IT or HRIS project; and whether the pricing can be read without a sales call.

Pricing verified September 2026 on each vendor’s pricing page; ratings from G2 as of September 2026.

Our own data shapes the weighting. In The Recognition Habit, Matter’s 2026 Benchmark Report, teams that build recognition around a weekly ritual give about 2.5x more recognition per member than ad hoc teams, and roughly 8 in 10 ritual teams stay active in nearly every month; the same report finds that over half of pulse responses arrive within the first hour and 87.5% within a day, which is why chat delivery weighs heavily here.

Matter’s State of Employee Recognition and Rewards 2026 survey of 1,021 U.S. professionals found that 33% are thanked monthly or less, and it reports a correlation between the workplace communication tool and recognition frequency: 56% receive recognition weekly or better at Slack workplaces and 47% at Microsoft Teams workplaces, against 39% where email is the only channel.

And before any demo of an AI-assisted platform: in Did AI Kill the Thank You, 63% of people say recognition means less when AI writes it. Methodology is on our research page.

What to look for in employee engagement tools and platforms

• Where people will actually use it (Slack, Teams, email, mobile, a portal). Native means the survey is answered or the kudos sent inside the chat app; a connector means chat carries a reminder and the work happens in a browser. The difference shows up as response rate.
• Which kind of tool it is. Recognition-led, listening-led and comms-led platforms overlap on features but differ on what they do well. A survey suite with a shout-out button is not a recognition program, and the reverse holds too.
• Rewards economics. Whether budgets are funded separately from seats, whether points expire, and whether the vendor charges convenience fees on redemption.
• Setup path. Who approves the app in your Slack workspace or Teams tenant, whether an HRIS sync must come first, and whether launch takes minutes, weeks or months.
• Analytics depth you will use. Benchmarks and driver analysis matter at 1,000 employees; at 60, a participation report and a trend line do.
• Pricing you can read. Half of the platforms below publish no per-user price. Fine for enterprise procurement, a problem for a pilot next week.

The best employee engagement software in 2026

1. Matter

We build Matter, so weigh this accordingly. Matter is a recognition-led employee engagement platform that runs natively inside Slack and Microsoft Teams: peer kudos tied to company values, coin-based rewards, automated birthdays and anniversaries, and pulse, eNPS, onboarding and custom surveys, with no separate login because user management syncs from Slack or Teams.

Setup takes about two minutes; almost half of teams (46%) send their first recognition within 15 minutes of it. Feedback Friday™ (US Patent 12,199,935) prompts the team weekly; give-coins reset weekly, earned coins never expire.

On Teams, leaders can use Matter with Microsoft Copilot to surface recognition, celebrations, survey insights and reward activity in natural language.

Standout strength: The whole engagement loop in the app people already have open, at a published price: recognition, rewards with 10,000+ eGift card options across 200+ countries, celebrations and surveys, with a Free plan for unlimited users and a Teams App Store rating of 5.0 across 1,476 ratings.

Watch out for: Rewards, swag and challenges need Pro, surveys are a paid add-on, and HRIS sync is an Enterprise item (250+ HRIS integrations available; no HRIS project is required because user management syncs from Slack or Teams).

Analytics serve team leads and HR; Culture Amp and Qualtrics go deeper on benchmarks and driver analysis. Matter’s G2 reviews give the unfiltered view.

Pricing: Free plan for unlimited users. Basic is $1 per user/month, billed annually; Pro is $3 per user/month, billed annually; the Surveys add-on is $2 per user/month, billed annually, on Basic or Pro (Pro + Surveys totals $5).

Every paid plan starts with a 14-day free trial, no credit card, and Matter hasn’t raised prices in 8 years. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Slack and Microsoft Teams natively, including Slack Enterprise Grid and Slack Connect channels; surveys also deliver by email.

Best for: Small and mid-size teams, including remote and hybrid teams, that want recognition, rewards and surveys in one native app without a sales cycle.

2. Bonusly

Bonusly is the recognition-led platform most often shortlisted against Matter. Employees give points with a /give command in Slack, shop rewards and read company announcements without leaving chat, and on Teams they give recognition from a meeting, a chat, search or the Home tab.

Standout strength: 4.7 on G2 across 7,378 reviews, and a free tier for up to 8 users that includes both chat integrations. Aisxhel T. (July 2026): “The seamless integration with tools like Slack also makes recognition quick and meaningful instead of feeling like another administrative task.”

Watch out for: Rewards are billed separately, with an 8% convenience fee on pay-as-you-go and 5% on Flex prepaid unless you prepay $2,500 or more, and surveys are not part of the product.

Pricing: Free for up to 8 users. Team is $3 per user/month, or $30 per user paid annually; Team + Bizy, the AI add-on, is $5 per user/month; Organization + Bizy is custom. Free trial of 30 days on Team. Verified September 2026. See our Bonusly vs. Matter comparison.

Works in: Slack and Microsoft Teams natively.

Best for: Mid-size companies that want points accumulating toward larger rewards and will fund a rewards budget on top of seats.

3. Culture Amp

Culture Amp is the listening-led platform larger HR teams name first: engagement and effectiveness surveys, performance cycles, benchmarks and driver analysis. Its Slack and Teams apps deliver invitations, reminders and announcements; surveys are completed in the Culture Amp platform.

Standout strength: A mature suite, 4.5 on G2 across 1,613 reviews. Ryan H., a people operations systems manager (August 2026), calls it “a pleasure to work with.”

Watch out for: Quote-only pricing billed annually, with no figures printed, and chat is a notification channel rather than where surveys are answered. Bryan M., a head of IT (March 2026): “It sometimes felt like there was way too much to fill out, and a lot of it ended up being skipped or never used.”

Pricing: Quote-based, billed annually; depends on employee count, product and service tier, with tiers for under 200 employees, 200 to 999, and 1,000 or more. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Web; Slack and Microsoft Teams for invitations, reminders, announcements and (for Performance customers) feedback.

Best for: Organizations of several hundred or more that want benchmarked engagement analytics and can run an annual procurement.

4. Lattice

Lattice is a performance-and-listening platform: 1:1s, weekly updates, reviews, goals and OKRs, with Engagement sold as its own product: pulse, onboarding and exit surveys, eNPS, action planning and AI analysis. In Slack, pulse surveys are answered inside the Lattice app home tab; on Teams the integration carries notifications and feedback.

Standout strength: A published per-seat price for Engagement inside a well-reviewed performance suite, 4.6 on G2 across 4,123 reviews. Heather M., a head of people (May 2026): “will implement and use Lattice over and over!”

Watch out for: The minimum annual agreement is $4,000, billed in USD only, which puts the $4 seat price out of reach for small teams.

Pricing: Engagement is $4 seat/month; Foundations, the most popular bundle, is $13 seat/month; Performance $10 and Goals & OKRs $8 seat/month; all billed annually with a $4,000 minimum annual agreement. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Web; Slack (pulse surveys, feedback, 1:1s, weekly updates); Microsoft Teams (notifications and feedback).

Best for: Mid-size companies that want engagement surveys tied to performance reviews and 1:1s in one HR platform.

5. Workleap Officevibe

Workleap Officevibe is the listening-led suite most people still call Officevibe, now sold as part of the Workleap platform with Performance and Compensation. Its weekly pulse survey, feedback prompts and 1-on-1 reminders arrive as Slack or Teams direct messages; reports live in the web app.

Standout strength: A manager toolkit rather than a survey alone. Shruti T. (May 2026), on G2, where Workleap holds 4.3 across 1,090 reviews: “one of the most truly one-stop platforms/tools for bringing employee experiences together.”

Watch out for: The old per-user Officevibe price is gone; the suite starts at $4,999 USD per year with no per-user or free tier printed. Duncan J., a managing director (September 2025): urgent support tickets “can take up to three days to be resolved.”

Pricing: Standard starting at $4,999 USD, billed annually; Pro starting at $11,999 USD, billed annually; Enterprise custom for organizations with more than 250 employees. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Web; Slack and Microsoft Teams direct messages for pulse surveys, reminders and 1-on-1 prompts.

Best for: Mid-size companies that want an HR-owned suite with manager coaching at a bundle price.

6. 15Five

15Five is a performance-management platform that sells engagement surveys as a module. Check-ins, High Fives recognition and feedback run inside Slack; engagement surveys are delivered by email or SMS and completed in the web app; the Teams app covers High Fives only.

Standout strength: Published per-user pricing, a survey tier with heat maps and benchmarking, and 4.6 on G2 across 1,927 reviews. Dollie B., a senior UX product designer (May 2026): “The platform's intuitiveness is its biggest strength.”

Watch out for: Surveys are not answered in Slack or Teams, and the same reviewer found “an advanced customization or reporting option was locked behind a more expensive version.”

Pricing: Engage is $4 per user/month, Perform $11 per user/month and Total Platform $16 per user/month, all billed annually. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Web, iOS and Android; Slack for check-ins, High Fives and feedback; Microsoft Teams for High Fives only; surveys by email and SMS.

Best for: Companies of 100 to 1,000 whose real need is manager effectiveness, with engagement surveys attached.

7. Leapsome

Leapsome is a modular people platform: reviews, surveys, goals, learning, compensation and an HRIS, bought module by module. Slack shortcuts cover praise, feedback requests and 1:1 talking points; on Teams the integration delivers reminders and posts praise to a channel.

Standout strength: The highest G2 rating on this page, 4.8 across 2,568 reviews, and a 14-day free trial with no credit card, unusual among the suites. Abhishreya S., an engineer (August 2026), on G2: “all in one place.”

Watch out for: Surveys are not answered in chat, Teams setup needs an Azure AD Global Administrator and supports one team per instance, and Moe B., a QA associate (February 2026): “HR admins often struggle with the complex backend settings and steep learning curve during initial setup.”

Pricing: Modular, quote-based pricing with a 14-day free trial and a minimum one-year term; no per-module prices are printed. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Web; Slack for reminders and shortcuts; Microsoft Teams for reminders and a praise channel.

Best for: Growing companies that want surveys bundled with reviews, goals and learning from one vendor.

8. Achievers

Achievers is enterprise recognition-led engagement: monetary and non-monetary recognition, a global rewards marketplace, years-of-service and nomination awards, and an AI-personalized newsfeed. A slash command starts a recognition in Slack, employees post to the live feed without leaving Teams, and Outlook is covered too.

Standout strength: The largest review base here, 4.6 on G2 across 9,596 reviews, and a Teams App Store rating of 4.6 across 979. Nathan K., a technical analyst (April 2026): “Setting it up is very simple, with no issues integrating within the Microsoft Teams app store.”

Watch out for: No prices are printed. Fatima K., a head of sales (November 2025), cites “Limited reward options and low point values” and “points expiring too quickly.”

Pricing: Custom quote only; the vendor states no hidden fees and no annual points commitment required. Verified September 2026. See our Achievers vs. Matter comparison.

Works in: Slack and Microsoft Teams natively, Outlook, Viva Connections, web, mobile.

Best for: Large enterprises with an HCM integration, a dedicated program owner and a global rewards budget.

9. Qualtrics Employee Experience (People Engage)

Qualtrics Employee Experience, sold as People Engage and formerly EmployeeXM, is listening-led at enterprise scale: unlimited engagement and pulse surveys per annual subscription, lifecycle surveys and industry benchmarks. The Slack add-on lets employees take surveys inside a channel; Teams distribution sends a link that opens in a browser tab.

Standout strength: Benchmarks and dashboards. Kaela A., a director of human resources (November 2024), on G2, where it holds 4.4 across 463 reviews: “The benchmarks to compare your organization's results to other organizations in the same industry is extremely helpful.”

Watch out for: Pricing is by employee count with no figures published, and Slack and Teams delivery are each an add-on outside the standard license. Duke K. (April 2026): “It is really difficult to get accurate employer data into the platform.”

Pricing: Based on employee count, quote-only, with Slack and Teams delivery as paid add-ons. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Web; Slack (surveys taken in a channel, add-on); Microsoft Teams (link by direct message, add-on); the Qualtrics XM mobile app serves dashboards.

Best for: Large enterprises with a people-analytics team, especially those already running Qualtrics for customer experience.

10. Microsoft Viva Glint

Microsoft Viva Glint is Microsoft’s listening-led survey product, added to a Microsoft 365 enterprise subscription through a Microsoft representative. The Teams app brings invitations, reminders and results notifications into Teams; the survey opens from a link, with QR codes for frontline staff.

Standout strength: The cheapest published engagement-survey SKU on this page, and Viva Pulse, Microsoft’s short manager-run survey tool, sits in the $6.00 bundle.

Watch out for: A 50-seat minimum, Teams licenses required for notifications, no Slack, no recognition or rewards, and the survey is answered in a browser rather than inside Teams. G2 shows 4.6 across only 42 reviews, too few to quote a named reviewer.

Pricing: Microsoft Viva Glint is $2.00 user/month, paid yearly; Viva Workplace Analytics and Employee Feedback, which adds Viva Pulse, is $6.00 user/month, paid yearly; a 50-seat license minimum applies. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Microsoft Teams for notifications; web via survey link; email; no Slack.

Best for: Microsoft 365 enterprises that want an HR-run survey program with Teams-delivered reminders at a low per-user price.

11. Workday Peakon Employee Voice

Workday Peakon Employee Voice, the product that began as Peakon, is a continuous-listening platform inside the Workday estate. Employees can open and complete their survey directly within Teams; the Slack integration sends survey and reminder notifications and daily suggestion summaries to managers.

Standout strength: True in-Teams survey completion plus a manager feedback loop, rated 4.6 on G2 across 117 reviews. Cesar Y. (December 2025) likes “collecting employee feedback in real time through the frequency of surveys.”

Watch out for: No public pricing anywhere on workday.com and no trial. Peter E., a learning and development manager (October 2020), found a bespoke survey “very difficult without going into a much higher tier that we didn't need.”

Pricing: Quote-based via Workday sales; no plans or figures are published. Verified September 2026.

Works in: Web; Microsoft Teams (survey completed inside Teams); Slack (notifications and manager summaries).

Best for: Large organizations, especially Workday HCM customers, that want listening tied to their HR system of record.

12. WorkTango

WorkTango combines recognition-led and listening-led engagement: peer recognition with a rewards marketplace the vendor describes as zero markup, plus unlimited surveys with anonymous conversations. Employees send recognition from within any Slack or Teams channel. WorkTango announced its acquisition by BI WORLDWIDE on July 20, 2026 and keeps its name.

Standout strength: Surveys and recognition from one vendor with points billed only as redeemed, and 4.7 on G2 across 1,329 reviews.

Watch out for: Quote-only pricing with a 12-month minimum, a 4 to 6 week launch, and no Microsoft Teams app store listing. Chris H., a sales manager (April 2026), says it does “seem to lack engagement by a lot,” and James W. (September 2025) notes that “points expire at the end of the quarter.”

Pricing: Custom quote for each of three plans (Employee Surveys & Insights, Recognition & Rewards, Full Employee Experience Platform), 12-month minimum contract. Verified September 2026. See our WorkTango vs. Matter comparison.

Works in: Web and mobile apps; Slack and Microsoft Teams for recognition and the feed; surveys are not described as answerable in chat.

Best for: Mid-size to enterprise HR teams that want surveys and recognition under one annual contract.

What employee engagement software costs in 2026

Three pricing models run through this category. Published per-user pricing is the self-serve model: Matter at $1 per user/month, billed annually for Basic and $3 for Pro, Bonusly at $3 per user/month for Team, Lattice at $4 seat/month for Engagement, 15Five at $4 per user/month for Engage, and Microsoft Viva Glint at $2.00 user/month, paid yearly.

Bundle pricing is the mid-market model: Workleap Officevibe from $4,999 USD per year. Quote-only pricing is the enterprise model: Culture Amp, Qualtrics, Workday Peakon, Achievers, Leapsome and WorkTango print no figure and most expect an annual contract.

Minimums change the arithmetic for small teams: Lattice’s $4,000 minimum annual agreement means a 30-person company pays far more than $4 a seat, Viva Glint has a 50-seat minimum, and WorkTango and Leapsome require a one-year term. Matter bills only for members of the connected channel, pro-rated daily, with no minimum and no setup fee.

Rewards are almost always funded separately from seats. Bonusly bills rewards outside the subscription with an 8% convenience fee on pay-as-you-go or 5% on Flex prepaid unless you prepay $2,500 or more; Achievers states no annual points commitment; WorkTango bills points only as redeemed; Matter charges for rewards only when an admin approves a redemption, and custom rewards cost nothing.

Add-ons stack too: Matter’s Surveys add-on is $2 per user/month, billed annually, and Qualtrics sells Slack and Teams delivery separately. The full breakdown is on Matter’s pricing page.

What is genuinely free: Matter’s Free plan for unlimited users covers kudos, the kudos template library and Feedback Friday; Bonusly is free for up to 8 users; Leapsome and Matter each offer a 14-day free trial with no card. Everything else requires a purchase or a sales conversation first.

How to choose employee engagement software for your company size

Under 50 people: buy nothing you cannot start this week. Matter’s Free plan or Bonusly’s free tier gets recognition running, and Matter’s Surveys add-on covers pulse and eNPS when you are ready to listen.

Lattice, Officevibe and the enterprise suites are the wrong answer at this size; their minimums exceed what the whole program should cost. If your team runs on email rather than Slack or Teams, Matter is not the right fit; 15Five, which delivers surveys by email, is.

50 to 500 people: the kind of tool matters most here. If the gap is recognition and a weekly habit, Matter and Bonusly are the two published-price options, and Bonusly wins if you want accumulating points.

If the gap is manager effectiveness, Lattice and 15Five publish per-seat prices for surveys attached to reviews and 1:1s; Workleap Officevibe and Leapsome bundle the same with more coaching.

Matter is right when you want recognition, rewards and surveys in one native app, and wrong when you need driver analysis, industry benchmarks or a performance review cycle.

500 people and up: a listening-led suite earns its price. Culture Amp and Qualtrics Employee Experience go deepest on analytics, Workday Peakon Employee Voice fits Workday customers, and Microsoft Viva Glint is the low-cost option for a Microsoft 365 tenant.

For recognition at that scale, Achievers and WorkTango run global, budgeted programs with the sales process to match. Many enterprises pair such a suite with a chat-native recognition tool; the annual survey and the weekly thank-you are different jobs.

For program design, see our guides to employee engagement programs and to employee engagement more broadly.

Employee engagement metrics the software should report

Whichever employee engagement tools you pick, the dashboard should give a manager a small set of numbers they can move. These seven cover most of what the platforms above measure; ask in the demo which ones ship out of the box and which need an export.

• Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). How likely people are to recommend the company as a place to work, trended by team. Pair the score with a follow-up question so you learn the reason, not only the number.
• Survey response rate. Participation is itself a trust signal: a falling rate usually means people stopped believing results lead to action. Short surveys delivered in chat keep it up.
• Satisfaction and engagement scores. The core rating questions, kept identical across cycles so the line means something, with open-text feedback beside them to explain a dip.
• Recognition frequency. How often each person gives and receives recognition. Recognition-led platforms report it natively; on a listening suite it is often missing.
• Participation in programs. Who joins recognition, feedback and celebration activity, by team, which shows where a program has taken hold and where it has not.
• Turnover and retention. Read beside the survey data: a team with sliding scores and rising exits is the one to visit first.
• Goal and task completion. Not an engagement measure on its own, but performance-led platforms such as Lattice, 15Five and Leapsome put it next to the pulse so you can see the two move together.

How to roll out employee engagement tools in seven steps

The software is the easy part. Most rollouts stall on ownership, leadership habit or a missing integration, so plan the launch before the purchase.

1. Name the goal. Raise recognition frequency, lift eNPS, cut first-year turnover: one target the tool will be judged on.
2. Pick for the goal, then pilot. Use the company-size guide above, then run the tool with one team for a month before a company-wide launch.
3. Get leaders using it first. Adoption follows behavior: a leader who sends recognition in a team channel or shares a pulse result in an all-hands does more than any announcement.
4. Train in 20 minutes, not a day. A short live session plus a one-page guide covers a chat-native app; suites need more, so budget for it.
5. Integrate where people already work. Slack, Microsoft Teams and the HRIS: if the tool needs a separate login, usage decays within weeks.
6. Watch adoption weekly. Active users, recognition sent, survey response rate, by team. Share the numbers so the tool's value is visible.
7. Ask and adjust. After 90 days, run a pulse about the tool itself and fix what people report before the habit fades.

Frequently asked questions about employee engagement software

Is there free employee engagement software?

Yes, with limits. Matter has a Free plan for unlimited users that includes peer kudos, a kudos template library and the weekly Feedback Friday prompt in Slack or Microsoft Teams; surveys and rewards are paid. Bonusly is free for up to 8 users, including its Slack and Teams integrations.

Leapsome offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card. The other platforms here publish no free plan.

What is the difference between an employee engagement platform, engagement tools and an engagement app?

The words describe scope. An employee engagement platform is the broad suite (surveys, recognition, performance, analytics) that HR owns, such as Culture Amp or Lattice. Employee engagement tools are the individual capabilities, such as a pulse survey or a recognition feed, which may come from several vendors.

An employee engagement app is what employees touch, usually inside Slack, Teams or a phone, such as Matter or Bonusly. Platform buyers usually need a suite; app buyers usually need adoption.

How much does employee engagement software cost?

Published prices run from $1 per user/month, billed annually, for Matter’s Basic plan to $16 per user/month for 15Five’s Total Platform, with Bonusly at $3, Lattice Engagement at $4 seat/month, 15Five Engage at $4 and Microsoft Viva Glint at $2.00 user/month, paid yearly.

Workleap Officevibe starts at $4,999 USD per year, and Culture Amp, Qualtrics, Workday Peakon, Achievers, Leapsome and WorkTango quote privately. Rewards budgets, minimums and add-ons sit on top.

What is the best employee engagement software for remote teams?

Remote employee engagement software has to live where remote work happens, which is Slack or Microsoft Teams. Matter and Bonusly run natively in both, so recognition, rewards and (on Matter) surveys reach people without a new login. Lattice answers pulses inside Slack; Workday Peakon completes surveys inside Teams.

Platforms that only send a reminder into chat, such as Culture Amp, still work remotely but depend on people clicking through.

What is the difference between employee engagement software and employee recognition software?

Employee recognition software does one job: it makes appreciation frequent, visible and, often, rewarded. Employee engagement software is the wider category that includes recognition alongside surveys, feedback, 1:1s and analytics.

Recognition-led platforms such as Matter and Bonusly start from the daily habit and add listening; listening-led suites such as Culture Amp start from the survey and add a shout-out feature. A silent culture needs recognition first; an unmeasured one needs surveys first.

Which employee engagement solutions work in both Slack and Microsoft Teams?

Matter, Bonusly, Achievers and WorkTango give recognition natively in both Slack and Teams. Culture Amp, Leapsome, Workleap Officevibe, Lattice and Workday Peakon connect to both, mostly for reminders; Qualtrics supports both as paid add-ons; Microsoft Viva Glint is Teams-only. Our roundups of Slack apps for employee engagement and Microsoft Teams apps for employee engagement cover each platform in detail.

The bottom line

The best employee engagement software is the one your people are still using in month six, which depends more on where it lives than on its feature list.

If your company runs in Slack or Microsoft Teams and you want recognition, rewards and employee listening in one place at a price you can read, that is what we built Matter to be.

If you need benchmarked workforce analytics, a performance cycle or a global awards program, Culture Amp, Lattice or Achievers is the better choice. Either way, the weekly habit is the part that pays off.