What each tool is actually for
Harmny
All-in-one people management platform
Harmny started as a performance management platform and has grown into a full people operations suite: performance reviews, OKRs, 1:1 meetings, career frameworks, and engagement surveys, alongside HRIS-adjacent operations (time off, attendance, org chart, onboarding, compensation, compliance, and recruiting).
Primary user: Managers, employees, founders, HR generalists running performance cycles and day-to-day HR operations
Culture Amp
Employee engagement analytics platform
Culture Amp's primary products are engagement surveys, organizational health analytics, and benchmark data: the infrastructure for measuring how employees feel about their work, manager, and company. Performance management (reviews, goals) is a secondary product added later. HR operations (time off, onboarding, compliance) are out of scope.
Primary user: People Analytics teams, CHROs, HR business partners measuring organizational health
This distinction matters for the comparison. Culture Amp remains the deeper engagement-benchmarking tool, while Harmny covers substantially more of the HR stack and adds AI capabilities Culture Amp doesn't have.
Feature comparison
Pricing as of September 2026.
| Harmny | Culture Amp | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free / $8/user/mo | Custom quote (~$9–15/user/mo est.) |
| Free tier | ✓ Up to 10 users | ✗ |
| Self-serve | ✓ No sales call | ✗ Demo required |
| Performance reviews | ✓ Full cycle + calibration | ✓ Module (secondary product) |
| Goals / OKRs | ✓ Cascading goals | ✓ Goal module (secondary) |
| 1:1 meetings | ✓ Shared agendas + history | ✓ Basic |
| Competency frameworks | ✓ Employee-visible career paths | Limited |
| Career pathing | ✓ Live gap analysis, self-serve | ✗ |
| Development plans | ✓ Connected to career framework | ✗ |
| Engagement surveys | ✓ eNPS + pulse + lifecycle + heatmaps | ✓ Best-in-class + benchmarks |
| Exit / attrition classification | ✓ Attrition Forecast: predictive flight risk + 90-day forecast | ✓ Regrettable exit classification |
| Action plans on survey results | ✓ Assign owner, due date, track progress | ✓ Admin action dashboard |
| Industry benchmark data | ✗ (internal trends only) | ✓ Largest benchmark dataset |
| Org health analytics | ✓ Exit classification, flight-risk scoring | ✓ Flight risk, mgr effectiveness, DEI |
| AI 1:1 prep | ✓ AI-drafted talking points before each 1:1 (Growth plan+) | Focus Agent (top-3 action items) |
| 9-Box talent calibration | ✓ Built-in | ✓ Performance module |
| AI assistance | ✓ Org Brain chat + AI drafting tools (Growth plan+, BYOK) | ✓ AI Assist + Focus Agent |
| Benefits & rewards | ✓ XP, badges, streaks + redeemable rewards catalog | ✗ |
| Announcements | ✓ Company-wide with read tracking | ✗ |
| Time off management | ✓ Custom policies, one-click approvals, team calendar | ✗ |
| Attendance tracking | ✓ Work hours and attendance | ✗ |
| Org chart | ✓ Reporting structure visualization | ✗ |
| Automations | ✓ Trigger-action rules on HR events | ✗ |
| Onboarding checklists | ✓ Structured checklists | ✗ |
| Compensation | ✓ Salary bands, job architecture, merit adjustments, Total Rewards | ✗ |
| Recruiting & offer letters | ✓ E-sign offers + auto-convert to onboarding | ✗ |
| Compliance (I-9, EEO-1) | ✓ Consent forms + audit trail | ✗ |
| HRIS integrations | Core (Slack, Google, SSO) | ✓ Deep (BambooHR, Workday, etc.) |
| Total Rewards statements | ✓ Base + benefits + bonuses + recognition value (PDF) | ✗ |
| Succession planning | ✓ Nominee tracking with readiness levels | ✗ |
| Job architecture + salary bands | ✓ Job families, salary bands, compa-ratio | ✗ |
| Attrition Forecast | ✓ Predictive flight risk + 90-day forecast | Exit surveys only (reactive) |
| Meeting rooms | ✓ Bookable rooms, duration, recurring | ✗ |
| Best team size | 10–500 | 200–10,000 |
Where Harmny wins
Engagement surveys plus AI Harmny actually ships
Culture Amp measures what employees say about their engagement through quarterly or bi-annual surveys, pulse check-ins, and eNPS. Harmny runs the same survey types (eNPS, pulse, and lifecycle surveys that fire automatically at 30, 60, and 90 days after hire and on exit) with department and segment heatmaps to see where engagement is strong or slipping. Harmny also has gamification (XP, badges, streaks, and recognition) that Culture Amp doesn't offer, though that measures participation and recognition activity, not a replacement for a survey-based engagement score.
On top of the survey data, Harmny's AI 1:1 prep reads a direct report's open goals, recent feedback, and the last several 1:1s, then drafts talking points before the meeting, with a tone you choose (supportive, curious, direct, or celebratory). It's a drafting aid a manager edits before the meeting, available on the Growth plan and above, not a proprietary behavioral-data product. Culture Amp's Focus Agent works at the org level, recommending top-3 focus areas from survey results; Harmny's AI 1:1 prep works at the level of a single upcoming conversation.
Surveys built into one system, not a standalone product
Harmny's engagement surveys aren't a bolt-on: eNPS, pulse, and lifecycle surveys live next to reviews, goals, and 1:1s, so a manager can see survey trends alongside the same person's ratings and goal progress instead of switching tools. Surveys support three anonymity modes (anonymous, confidential, identified), a template library, AI-generated questions from a one-sentence prompt, department and segment heatmaps, CSV export, and action plans with an owner and due date. Culture Amp's survey and analytics product is more mature and includes true external benchmarking, which Harmny doesn't attempt. For a team that wants one system covering surveys, reviews, and HR operations, Harmny's breadth is the win; for a team whose primary need is benchmarked engagement analytics on its own, Culture Amp's specialization is the win.
Career frameworks and career pathing
Harmny's career pathing is a year-round, employee-facing system: every employee can see their current competency ratings vs. next-level requirements, explore alternative paths, and create development goals directly from career gaps. Culture Amp has no equivalent feature. For teams where "employees can see their career path" is an objective, Harmny is the only option in this comparison.
Full HR operations: not just performance and engagement
Culture Amp is scoped to engagement measurement and performance reviews. Harmny now covers the operational HR layer Culture Amp doesn't touch: custom time-off policies with one-click approvals and a team calendar, attendance and work-hours tracking, org chart visualization, structured onboarding checklists, full compensation management (salary history, merit adjustments), recruiting with e-sign offer letters that auto-convert to onboarding workflows, and compliance document management (I-9, EEO-1, policy acknowledgments with audit trail). Automations fire on HR events, so a new hire triggers an onboarding checklist and a performance review closing triggers a compensation review, without manual follow-up.
Redeemable rewards catalog
Harmny's Benefits and Rewards module goes beyond badges and XP: employees earn stars redeemable for real perks, wellness benefits, learning budgets, and team experiences. Culture Amp has no recognition or rewards layer.
Price and accessibility
Harmny is free up to 10 users, $8/user/month for the Starter HR suite beyond that, no sales call, no contract. AI features (Org Brain, AI-drafted plans and summaries, AI 1:1 prep, flight-risk scoring) and the client portal require the $16/user/month Growth plan. Culture Amp is quote-based and enterprise-priced: no public pricing, billed annually with no month-to-month option, and no free trial. Third-party pricing trackers estimate roughly $9 to $15/employee/month once a Perform or Develop module is added, with a typical small-team annual floor around $4,500/year, though that's an estimate, not a published price, and getting a firm number requires a sales call. For companies growing from 20 to 200 people, Harmny's self-serve pricing scales with them from day one.
Where Culture Amp wins
External benchmark data
Culture Amp's most irreplaceable advantage: a benchmark dataset built from millions of survey responses across thousands of companies, enabling statistically valid comparisons against industry peers. "Is an eNPS of 42 good?" is a question Culture Amp can answer credibly by company size, industry, and geography. Harmny's engagement surveys measure what's happening inside your company; they don't contextualize your numbers against the external market. If "how do we compare to peers" is a board-level reporting requirement, this matters.
HRIS integrations depth
Culture Amp has deep integrations with established HRIS systems (BambooHR, Workday, Rippling, ADP) for bi-directional employee data sync. Harmny's integrations are core (Slack, Google, SSO). For large enterprise teams already running a heavyweight HRIS, Culture Amp's integration layer is more mature.
Who should choose each
Choose Harmny if:
- ✓ Team is under 500 people and you want one platform instead of multiple tools
- ✓ Performance reviews, goals, and career frameworks are a primary need
- ✓ You need HR operations: time off, attendance, onboarding, compliance, compensation
- ✓ Employees should see their career path and growth gaps
- ✓ AI-assisted reviews, development plans, and 1:1 prep are valuable
- ✓ You want engagement surveys built into the same system as reviews and goals
- ✓ No sales call, and you want to start today
- ✓ Budget is a real consideration
Choose Culture Amp if:
- • 200+ employees and "how do we compare to industry peers" is a board-level deliverable
- • External engagement benchmark data is your primary requirement
- • Already running Workday, BambooHR, or ADP and need deep HRIS integration
- • Already in a Culture Amp enterprise procurement process
- • Willing to add a separate tool for HR operations and career frameworks
For more options: 8 Culture Amp alternatives and Lattice alternatives.