Lattice vs 15Five

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Lattice and 15Five are both popular choices for HR teams, but they serve different needs. Lattice is best known as a Performance management with strengths in Goals and OKRs, Reviews. 15Five is a Performance management that is notable for 1-on-1s, Engagement surveys.

We compare the options in our employee engagement survey tools guide.

This breakdown covers Lattice and 15Five pricing, strengths, weak spots, and best-fit use cases.

Editor's Take

Both moved performance management away from annual reviews, but with different emphasis: one is heavier on structured reviews, goals and compensation workflows, the other on continuous check-ins and manager habits. Teams that want a system of record for performance lean to the former; teams trying to change how managers behave often prefer the latter.

Lattice vs 15Five: at a glance

Pricing note: the figures in this guide are the vendors' published list prices as of September 2026. This page covers Lattice vs 15Five. Vendors change pricing without notice, so treat these numbers as a starting point and confirm current pricing with the vendor before you buy.

Feature	Lattice	15Five
Starting price	$11/person/mo	$4/person/mo
Category	Performance management	Performance management
Best for	Performance-focused teams	Engagement and performance
Free trial	Varies / demo	Varies / demo
Payroll included	Add-on / integration	Add-on / integration

Where Lattice and 15Five differ

Performance reviews and engagement

Lattice focuses on Goals and OKRs, Reviews, Career paths. This makes it a strong fit for teams that need Performance-focused teams. 15Five, meanwhile, emphasizes 1-on-1s, Engagement surveys, Affordable, which appeals to Engagement and performance.

Ease of use and setup

Both platforms offer modern web interfaces, but Lattice tends to be easier for non-HR admins to pick up quickly. 15Five offers more depth, which can require more onboarding.

Pricing model

Lattice starts at $11/person/mo, while 15Five starts at $4/person/mo. For most small teams, the total cost will depend on employee count and required add-ons. Always request a quote for exact pricing.

Lattice vs 15Five: pros and cons

Lattice vs 15Five pricing compared

Lattice Pricing

Lattice pricing: Performance Management + OKRs starts around $11/person/month. Engagement surveys and compensation tools are add-ons. Volume discounts available.

15Five Pricing

15Five pricing: starts around $7/employee/month for basic features. Full suite (reviews, OKRs, engagement) is $12+/employee/month. Custom quotes available.

Bottom line on pricing: For a 50-employee company, Lattice's total platform cost (including payroll if applicable) is typically around Custom ($8–$15/employee/month), while 15Five comes in around Custom ($7–$12/employee/month). The gap changes significantly depending on which modules you need and your employee count. Always request written quotes from both before deciding.

Daily user experience

Lattice Best-in-class performance review workflow — customizable templates with smart automation

15Five Adoption is its strongest card. The weekly check-in gets managers writing feedback every week, and that cadence is where it competes against heavier performance suites.

Where these two diverge in daily use is admin workload. Lattice pushes self-service: employees edit their own records, bank details included, without filing tickets. With 15Five, more everyday changes route through an admin first.

Integrations and add-ons

Lattice integrates with: BambooHR, Workday, ADP, Rippling, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Salesforce

15Five integrates with: BambooHR, Workday, ADP, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira

Which ecosystem you already live in should shape this choice. For most teams that means asking whether Lattice or 15Five plugs straight into the payroll, storage, or ticketing apps they run today. Budget for middleware only if neither Lattice nor 15Five covers a system you cannot replace.

Setup and implementation

Lattice implementation: Lattice implementation takes 2–3 weeks. Review templates and OKR frameworks are customizable. HRIS integration setup adds some time.

15Five implementation: 15Five setup is fast — 1–2 weeks. The weekly check-in habit is the key driver of adoption; plan a rollout communication strategy.

Do not ignore implementation length when budgeting. Whichever of Lattice and 15Five deploys faster frees your team for strategic work sooner — price that in.

Our verdict: Lattice or 15Five?

Choose Lattice if:

• You are Mid-size companies focused on performance management and OKRs
• Best-in-class performance review workflow — customizable templates with smart automation
• Excellent OKR tracking that connects individual goals to company objectives
• Integrated compensation management (merit, bonus, equity cycles)

Choose 15Five if:

• You are Small to mid-size companies wanting continuous performance management
• Weekly check-in feature creates a genuine feedback habit — better adoption than most tools
• Strong manager development content (courses, coaching)
• Good engagement survey tools with actionable insights

This is not always a one-winner decision. one tool often handles reviews while the other carries continuous feedback. Whichever platform your data lives in is the one that deserves the budget and the admin time.

Two different theories about why performance management fails

These are frequently treated as interchangeable performance tools. They are built on incompatible diagnoses of the same problem, and which one fits depends on where your reviews actually break down.

One starts from alignment. The theory: people underperform because goals are unclear or drift out of sync with company priorities, so the fix is making objectives visible, linked and reviewed on a cadence. Reviews then become a structured conversation against those goals. This model suits organisations where the real complaint is “nobody knows what we are aiming at.”

The other starts from the manager relationship. The theory: performance problems surface in the weekly one-to-one long before they reach a review form, so the fix is giving managers a standing agenda and a lightweight way to capture what came up. Engagement surveys then measure whether it is working. This model suits organisations where the real complaint is “my manager has no idea what I am doing.”

Why the distinction matters commercially. Reported pricing here sits around $11 and $4 per user per month respectively, with broader per-employee estimates in the $8–15 and $7–12 bands. The cheaper tool is not a subset of the expensive one — it is a different bet. If your failure mode is alignment, buying the one-to-one tool leaves the actual problem untouched, and the low price becomes the reason it was hard to justify fixing properly later.

Both share a dependency worth naming. Neither works unless managers hold the conversations. Software can prompt, structure and record; it cannot substitute for a manager who avoids the discussion. The strongest predictor of a wasted investment here is not price — it is whether managers were consulted before the purchase.

Where each is the wrong tool

The goals-first tool is the wrong choice if objectives are not stable enough to track. Quarterly OKRs assume a planning horizon. Organisations in constant reprioritisation will spend more time maintaining the goal tree than using it.

The goals-first tool is the wrong choice below roughly 30 people. The alignment problem it solves scales with headcount. Smaller teams usually coordinate without it.

The one-to-one tool is the wrong choice if you need formal review records. It captures ongoing conversation well. Compliance-grade documentation and calibration across a large review cycle are not its centre.

Either is the wrong choice if managers will not be trained. This is the most common reason these deployments stall, and it is unrelated to which tool is chosen.

What to verify before you commit

1. Name your actual failure mode first. “People don’t know the priorities” and “managers don’t talk to their reports” point at different tools. Write the sentence down before the demo.
2. Confirm whether per-user or per-employee pricing applies to your roster. Both figures appear on this page in different forms; ask which one your contract will use.
3. Ask what the survey and review cadence looks like in practice. Frequency drives fatigue. A tool that prompts weekly is a different commitment from one that prompts quarterly.
4. Check the export before you need it. Performance history is hard to reconstruct and easy to lose during a switch.

Plan contents and pricing change; verify current details with each vendor directly.

Frequently asked questions