Striven HR Review and Pricing 2023

Striven isn’t exclusively a human resources platform. It’s a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite that strives to solve most aspects of a small business’s day-to-day operations.

The platform boasts wallet-comforting lower-than-average per-user pricing. But, since the platform doesn’t branch out its functions individually, you’d need to rely on Striven exclusively for many elements to justify its cost. Otherwise, it’s not worth paying the $20 per user starting cost only to use its HR features and nothing else.

However, if the price is right for your commercial dreams, we reckon Striven delivers a supreme value that’s hard to beat. Just don’t expect advanced analytics or complex perks for the exceptionally affordable cost.

Striven offers three subscription tiers tied to the number of users (rather than employees). Each tier includes every business solution and feature, with no option to purchase functions individually. This is superb for businesses needing a straightforward, one-and-done approach, but people needing a perfectly tailored package will be sorely disappointed.

Even with the flat hosting fee included, Striven still boasts lower-than-average per-user costs in the ERP software category. For example, if you add 55 users, this averages about $19 a month per person ($550 in total user costs plus $499 hosting, divided by 55). Six employees average out to $36.50 a user monthly, as another example.

For comparison, similarly modest ERP package Zoho One bills $37 a month per employee (regardless of actual user count). Meanwhile, the more powerful Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite starts at $70 monthly per user for its small business offerings.

For its highly affordable price, Striven doesn’t deliver the rich analytics seen in top industry names, like Oracle or Microsoft Dynamics 365. But that was never the intent.

Instead, the digital suite squarely dishes out a modest but complete business software package that prioritizes cost savings, especially as an organization expands. In particular, the platform’s human resource management tools deliver exceptional value as recruiting, payroll, and talent management functions are included by default. For comparison, many traditional HR platforms charge extra for these crucial elements.

Simply put, Striven is perfect for a resource-strained small business that needs an easily implemented all-in-one digital tool for day-to-day tasks. Business owners wanting greater analytical depth, long-term forecasting tools, or rich artificial intelligence-powered perks should look elsewhere, though.

While many traditional HR platforms segregate recruiting as a premium upsell, Striven natively excels at getting people hired and onboarded.

For no additional cost, the software suite automates many repetitive elements of the hiring process. This liberates HR professionals from the tedious process of manually sorting through job applications—a task that’s an unmanageable avalanche for a small-business owner working single-handedly.

Striven also sorts applicants by customizable fields, like education level and engineering experience. This makes it much easier to hone in on the highest-quality candidates perfectly tailored to your unique needs. Plus, the platform includes in-house personality assessments, snubbing the commonplace dependence on third-party testing services.

For an additional monthly cost, Striven provides limited guest access to the platform to streamline client transactions. Ranging from $49 to $499 flat per month, the Portals feature allows contracts to be signed, invoices to be paid, and job applicants to submit new-hire documentation, to name a few use cases.

While Portals isn’t unique to Striven, it eliminates the excessive dependence on third-party integrations seen in many other low-priced business software applications. This makes the feature an attractive, convenient time-saver that stays faithful to an ERP’s mission of eliminating the need for extra software purchases.

When it comes to human resource management support, Striven undeniably dishes out a strong value proposition.

Beyond the attractive recruiting features mentioned above, the platform’s HR element also serves up:

• Org charts
• Time tracking and hourly wage cost analysis
• Encrypted legal document signing (similar to DocuSign)
• Employee self-service portal
• Live feed of company events
• Contractor payment processing
• Searchable employee database, organized by skill set and other custom fields

These are just some noteworthy features, in addition to the bedrock HR must-haves like detailed employee profiles and payroll.

One drawback to all this administrative goodness is the platform’s lackluster analytics. While the software suite does an impressive job of documenting a person’s background and salary data, there is little ability to create meaningful reports with this highly detailed information.

Instead, the platform serves up 90s era bar charts using generic information, like total employees on payroll or the top job applicant sources. This poses a frustrating opportunity cost since it can be an uphill battle to make money-saving, high-level decisions based on Striven’s shallow, mediocre analytics.

Striven’s below-average pricing is a boon for any business owner’s wallet, but the low cost reflects the suite’s lack of deep analytical features. Plus, if you only need one or two solutions, like human resources alone without other elements, the platform’s all-inclusive, non-customizable price tag will feel wasteful.

As a result, if you’re looking for a lean, no-nonsense solution for a smörgåsbord of business elements, Striven is a superb choice. But, if you have deeper pockets and demand more complexity and analytical juice, there are much better options elsewhere.

Related read: Timely App Review

Want to be an employee benefits master? Take a look at our top HR picks for employee benefits software.

We examined Striven by looking for essential ERP features needed in a modern enterprise setting. We also compared its pricing to other top providers on the market. Finally, we examined third-party user and professional reviews to confirm and validate our research.

Disclaimer

At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don't guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.