# Culture Amp

Culture Amp is an employee experience platform rated 4.6/5 on G2 (1,100+ reviews). Profile: engagement surveys, performance management, analytics, pricing, funding, leadership.

**Category:** Employee experience / engagement and performance platform  
**Vendor:** Culture Amp Pty Ltd  
**Founded:** 2009  
**HQ:** San Francisco, California, US / Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (dual HQ)  
**Website:** https://www.cultureamp.com  


## About

Culture Amp is an employee experience platform built around four interconnected products: employee engagement surveys, performance management, goal-setting (OKRs), and employee development. Founded in 2009 in Melbourne, Australia by Didier Elzinga, Rod Hamilton, Jon Williams, and Doug English, the company started with a clear thesis that companies need continuous feedback loops from their employees, not just annual engagement surveys, and that the resulting data should directly connect to people management decisions. Culture Amp went on to become the defining company in the employee engagement software category, popularizing the concept of the continuous listening platform. Headquartered jointly in San Francisco and Melbourne, Culture Amp has raised $404 million in total funding including a Series F in 2022 that valued the company at $1.5 billion, and serves more than 6,500 organizations globally.

## Ratings

| Source | Score | Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| G2 | 4.6/5 | 1,100+ |
| Capterra | 4.6/5 | 230+ |
| Gartner Peer Insights | 4.5/5 | 160+ |
| TrustRadius | 8.6/10 | 250+ |

## Funding

~$404M across 6 rounds (Seed through Series F)

| Round | Amount | Date | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | $3.2M | 2013 | Felicis Ventures, Index Ventures |
| Series A | $6.3M | 2014 | Felicis Ventures, Index Ventures |
| Series B | $27M | 2015 | Felicis Ventures, Sapphire Ventures |
| Series C | $40M | 2017 | Sapphire Ventures, Blackbird Ventures |
| Series D | $100M | 2019 | TDM Growth Partners, Sequoia China |
| Series E | $100M | 2020 | Sequoia Capital (US), TDM Growth Partners |
| Series F | $100M | Nov 2022 | PSG Equity (at $1.5B valuation) |

## Viability

Low risk. Culture Amp is the category-defining company in employee engagement software, with $404 million raised, a $1.5 billion valuation, and 6,500+ customers globally. The founding team remains at the helm more than 15 years in, which is unusual and positive for product continuity. The company's benchmark dataset (80 million survey responses) is a genuine competitive moat that newer entrants cannot replicate. The main risk is the employee experience market becoming increasingly commoditized as HRIS platforms like Workday and Rippling add native engagement survey features; Culture Amp's response has been to go deeper on performance and development, which appears to be working.

## Pricing

Culture Amp's pricing is structured per employee per month and varies by module selection and company headcount. For engagement surveys alone, expect roughly $5 per employee per month, which works out to $60,000 per year for a 1,000-person company. Adding performance management and development features typically brings the all-in cost to $7-$10 per employee per month, depending on the contract.
Contracts are annual, with enterprise agreements often carrying multi-year commitments in exchange for volume discounts. The per-employee model is predictable and scales linearly, but it means Culture Amp gets expensive relative to alternatives as headcount grows past 2,000. For companies using only the engagement module, there are cheaper alternatives; the ROI case for the full platform requires actually using performance and development features, which takes deliberate internal rollout effort.

| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Engage | ~$5/employee/mo (est.) | Employee engagement surveys, continuous listening, benchmark comparisons, and action planning; no performance management |
| Perform | ~$7/employee/mo (est.) | Adds structured performance reviews, 360 feedback, goal-setting (OKRs), and development plans |
| Develop | ~$8/employee/mo (est.) | Full platform including Skills Coach AI, manager effectiveness insights, and career development pathways |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom deployment with dedicated people science support, advanced reporting, API access, and enterprise SLAs |

## What reviewers say

_1,100+ G2 reviews at 4.6/5 and 230+ Capterra reviews at 4.6/5, plus Gartner Peer Insights and TrustRadius synthesis_

**Praised:**
- Survey science and benchmark data are the consistently top-cited strengths: Culture Amp's question libraries, survey design guidance, and industry benchmark comparisons are described as significantly better than DIY SurveyMonkey alternatives or basic HRIS survey tools
- The action planning workflow between survey results and manager actions gets strong marks; the platform closes the loop between 'we got the data' and 'managers know what to do with it' in a way most employee feedback tools miss
- Admin experience is cleaner than comparable platforms: HR teams credit Culture Amp with making it possible to run a company-wide engagement survey without a full-time program manager or an external consultant

**Complaints:**
- Performance management module gets more mixed reviews than the engagement module; some teams find it functional but not differentiated from cheaper or free tools like Lattice's lower tiers or even Google Forms-based review processes
- Pricing for the full platform (engagement plus performance plus development) can stack significantly, and some reviewers feel the modules are better bought separately if you only need engagement surveys
- Mobile experience for employees taking surveys and receiving feedback is functional but not optimized; managers at companies with non-desk workforces flag the web-first design as a gap

## Compliance

- **SOC 2:** Yes (SOC 2 Type II)
- **GDPR:** Yes
- **HIPAA:** No
- **SSO:** Yes (SAML SSO on all paid plans)

## Integrations

- Workday
- BambooHR
- Rippling
- ADP Workforce Now
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Google Workspace
- Lattice
- Greenhouse
- Zapier

## FAQs

### What is Culture Amp primarily used for?

Culture Amp is used primarily for employee engagement surveys and performance management. The engagement module lets HR teams run regular pulse surveys, full engagement surveys, onboarding surveys, and exit surveys, then analyze results against Culture Amp's global benchmark dataset. The performance module covers structured reviews, 360-degree feedback, manager-employee check-ins, and goal-tracking. Most customers start with engagement surveys and expand into performance features over time.

### How does Culture Amp's benchmark data work?

Culture Amp aggregates anonymized engagement survey response data from its 6,500+ customer organizations (80 million survey responses as of 2024) into industry, company-size, and geographic benchmarks. When you run an engagement survey, your results automatically compare against the relevant benchmark cohort, letting you see not just whether your engagement score went up or down, but how it compares to companies like yours. This benchmark dataset is built over 15+ years and is genuinely hard for competitors to replicate.

### Can Culture Amp replace a traditional annual performance review process?

Yes, and that is one of the primary use cases. Culture Amp's performance module supports annual, semi-annual, or quarterly review cycles with customizable question sets, calibration workflows for managers and HR, and structured 360 feedback. It can fully replace a spreadsheet or email-based review process. Whether it replaces a dedicated performance management tool like Lattice depends on how much your team uses goal-tracking and development features; if you only need reviews, Culture Amp is sufficient. If OKR management is central, evaluate both.

### Is Culture Amp GDPR-compliant?

Yes. Culture Amp is GDPR-compliant and offers data processing agreements for EU-based customers and employees. The platform supports regional data residency options for enterprise customers. Culture Amp also holds SOC 2 Type II certification and supports SAML-based SSO across all paid plans. Culture Amp does not hold HIPAA certification.

### How long does it take to launch a Culture Amp engagement survey?

For a straightforward company-wide engagement survey using a pre-built template, most HR administrators describe a 1-2 week setup timeline from account configuration to survey launch. This covers HRIS data sync, survey customization, manager notification setup, and communication planning. The platform's template library and in-app setup guidance reduce the timeline compared to building a survey process from scratch. More complex multi-segment surveys with custom questions and phased rollouts typically take 3-4 weeks of preparation.


## Sources

- [G2: Culture Amp reviews](https://www.g2.com/products/culture-amp/reviews): 4.6/5 across 1,100+ reviews, read live
- [Capterra: Culture Amp](https://www.capterra.com/p/147321/CultureAmp/): 4.6/5 across 230+ reviews, sub-scores and demographics
- [Gartner Peer Insights: Culture Amp](https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/voice-of-the-employee/vendor/culture-amp): 4.5/5, 160+ reviews in Voice of the Employee market
- [TrustRadius: Culture Amp](https://www.trustradius.com/products/culture-amp/reviews): 8.6/10, 250+ reviews
- [Crunchbase: Culture Amp](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/culture-amp): Funding rounds, investors, valuation, founding details
- [Wikipedia: Culture Amp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_Amp): Company history, founders, funding, products, dual HQ
- [LinkedIn: Culture Amp company page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/culture-amp/): Employee count, HQ, specialties, industry
- [Culture Amp: Series F announcement](https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/series-f): November 2022 Series F at $1.5B valuation, led by PSG Equity