BambooHR Pricing: Core, Pro and Elite Per Employee
BambooHR costs $10, $17 or $25 per employee per month on its Core, Pro and Elite plans. Companies with 25 employees or fewer are charged a monthly minimum instead, starting at $250 a month.
That minimum is the number most comparison articles leave out, and it changes the arithmetic completely at small headcounts. A ten-person company does not pay $100 a month for Core. It pays at least $250, which works out to $25 per employee.
BambooHR plans at a glance
| Plan | Per employee/month | Job openings | AI Assistant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core | $10 | 5 | HR data questions |
| Pro | $17 | 25 | Core plus company policies and docs |
| Elite | $25 | 50 | Pro plus benchmark questions and analysis |
Under 25 employees, all three are billed as a monthly minimum starting at $250. Volume and non-profit discounts are available.
Core
$10 per employee per month. Employee records, standard and custom reports, workflows and approvals, an applicant tracking system with five open job postings, email and offer letter templates, new hire packets, onboarding checklists, e-signatures, time off management and the time off calendar. The AI Assistant answers questions about your HR data.
Core is a complete HRIS. It is not a payroll system, which is the point most people miss.
Pro
$17 per employee per month. Everything in Core, plus 25 open job postings, an AI Assistant that also reads your company policies and documents, and the employee experience tooling around satisfaction and wellbeing.
The jump from five job openings to 25 is the practical difference for a company hiring steadily. At $7 more per employee, a 60-person company pays $420 a month more for it.
Elite
$25 per employee per month. Everything in Pro, plus 50 open job postings, AI-powered data insights, and the most capable version of the AI Assistant, which handles benchmark questions and analysis for forecasting and scenario work.
Add-ons
Four capabilities sit outside every plan and are quoted rather than published:
- Payroll. Direct deposit, flexible pay schedules, federal and state tax filing, a specialized support team. US employees only.
- Benefits Administration. Self-guided configuration, open enrolment, life events and new hires, election review and approval, carrier connections. US employees only.
- Time & Attendance. Shift scheduling, meal and rest breaks, project tracking and billable hours, automated approvals, overtime calculations, iPad time kiosk.
- Global Employment, powered by Remote. Global cost calculator, contractor management, employer of record.
Combining Payroll and Benefits Administration with any plan earns a 15% bundle discount for US-based employees.
What the pricing page glosses over
Payroll is not in any plan. The page opens by describing BambooHR as one platform for “everything HR, payroll, and benefits,” and then prices payroll as an add-on on every tier. A company buying the advertised outcome is buying a plan plus two quoted add-ons, and neither add-on price is published.
The under-25 minimum inverts the per-employee logic. Below 25 employees you pay a monthly minimum starting at $250, so the effective per-employee rate falls as you hire rather than staying fixed. At 25 employees on Core the published $10 rate finally matches the minimum.
The job posting caps are hard numbers, not soft ones. Five, 25 and 50 open roles by tier. A recruiting-heavy quarter can push a company up a tier on the ATS limit alone.
AI capability is tiered, and the differences are real. Core answers questions about HR data. Pro reads company policies and docs. Elite adds benchmark analysis and scenario forecasting. If the AI Assistant is part of why you are buying, that decision sits at the top of the price list.
Discounts exist but are not self-serve. Volume and non-profit discounts are noted on the page with no figures, so both require a quote.
Is BambooHR free?
No. There is no free plan and no published free tier. BambooHR offers a free demo and a free price quote, and pricing is confirmed through its sales team. The published $10, $17 and $25 rates apply from 25 employees upward.
When BambooHR isn’t the whole answer
BambooHR is a well-built HRIS and the per-employee pricing is honest for a company past 25 people. If you want employee records, onboarding, time off and an ATS in one system, Core does that job at a fair price.
What it does not touch is the coordination around all of it. The offer letter that needs a nudge on day three. The new hire whose first week has to be scheduled across four managers’ calendars. The quarterly review cycle that lives in someone’s inbox as a list of names. HRIS software stores the record. Somebody still writes the emails.
That is where Carly fits. Zapier-style workflows are free, so a rule like “when an offer is accepted, send the onboarding sequence and book the first-week introductions” runs without adding to the bill. Booking pages and connected calendars are unlimited, so scheduling a hiring loop across five interviewers does not mean five seats. Every Gmail and Outlook account connects as its own authorized connection, so the emails go out from the address that owns the thread. The agent that reads the thread and books the meeting starts at $35 a month, and Carly connects to thousands of apps, BambooHR included.
FAQ
How much does BambooHR cost per employee? $10 per employee per month on Core, $17 on Pro and $25 on Elite, for companies with more than 25 employees.
What does BambooHR cost for a small company? Companies with 25 employees or fewer are billed at a monthly minimum starting at $250, rather than per employee.
Does BambooHR include payroll? No. Payroll is a paid add-on on every plan, as are Benefits Administration, Time & Attendance and Global Employment. Bundling Payroll with Benefits Administration earns a 15% discount.
What is the difference between BambooHR Core and Pro? Pro raises the ATS limit from five to 25 open job postings, extends the AI Assistant to company policies and documents, and adds the employee satisfaction and wellbeing tooling.
Does BambooHR offer discounts? Yes. Volume and non-profit discounts are available, both quoted rather than published.
Is there a BambooHR free trial? BambooHR does not publish a self-serve free trial. It offers a free demo and a free price quote through its sales team.
More: Best AI tools for HR teams · AI agents for HR and people ops · Claude BambooHR integration · ChatGPT BambooHR integration
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