The best employee onboarding software in 2026

The employee onboarding period is filled with information, forms, and meetings. It can get overwhelming—and not just for the new hires, but for managers and HR reps too. The right employee onboarding software can make this transition easier.

To help you find the best employee onboarding platform, I tested the most popular onboarding apps. Drawing from my experience working in internal communications, I zeroed in on user experience, personalization, and culture. The best software is practical and easy to use, while also delivering a rewarding experience for your new team members.

The best employee onboarding software

• Enboarder for ongoing, customizable experiences

• Continu for an interactive onboarding experience

• Innform for a fun, hybrid onboarding experience

• Waybook for document management

• BambooHR for an all-in-one HR tool with onboarding

• Gusto for onboarding and payroll

• Greenhouse for onboarding and ATS

• Connecteam for free onboarding

What makes the best employee onboarding software?

There are plenty of tools and apps out there that have an employee onboarding function. Tools like Leapsome and Deel, for example, offer employee onboarding inside a robust platform focused on other aspects of HR.

While I’ve included a handful of all-in-one platforms on this list, they had to meet my requirements for depth, engagement, and impact. My goal was to find the best, most engaging, and most purposeful employee onboarding tools out there that have:

• Ease of use. Whether you’re onboarding one new hire or hundreds, the onboarding tool needs to be user-friendly. It should help streamline your process and simplify it—not introduce complicated steps, awkward navigation, or challenging processes.

• Automated processes and workflows. Automating some (or all) of the tasks on your onboarding checklist saves you time and means everyone gets the same quality experience. I’ve looked for onboarding platforms that help you build a system that you can repeat over and over through traditional workflow automation or AI.

• Personalization options. Processes are great, but you also want to find ways to make the experience feel special and unique. From uploading images to customizing your dashboard, these apps empower you to make an impact through personalization.

• Self-service features. Your new hires should be able to find and upload documents quickly and easily, without fuss. I’ve prioritized apps that offer self-service features to help them get to know your company and make their way through the onboarding process smoothly. 

• Culture and engagement features. Going through a digital onboarding process can feel lonely. In my testing, I’ve looked for apps with features you can use to bring some of your company culture to life—like presentations, quizzes, and updates.

• Reporting. Once you have everyone signed up and engaging with your onboarding platform, you’ll want to know how they’re using it. The apps I’ve included offer reporting features that give you crucial insights into user engagement, activity, and effectiveness.

Some of these apps cater to one of the criteria above more than others. There are apps that feel vibrant, fun, and engaging—and others that help you perfect your onboarding workflows, so they feel like a delight to run. Which you choose will ultimately depend on your specific goals, company culture, and internal processes.

Throughout my time testing these apps, I created a new account, personalized my settings, and explored all the onboarding features they have to offer. I’ve also sought out experiences from real users, including both the positives and the negatives.

With all that, these are my top recommendations for the best onboarding software.

The best employee onboarding software at a glance

Best employee onboarding software for a supportive, engaging onboarding experience

Enboarder (Web)

Enboarder pros:

• Fun, engaging way to handle the onboarding process

• Excels in an environment where you have a buddy or mentor system

Enboarder cons:

What I noticed almost immediately about Enboarder was the strong focus on supporting both your new hires and managers through the onboarding process. Often onboarding apps are built to serve content to a new hire, but Enboarder shifts the attention to building workflows that support everyone through this transitional moment. 

Enboarder does this through an agentic AI orchestration builder. Instead of adding a task within a window, you prompt AI to create a journey that’s home to different tasks, activities, and assignments, then adjust from there. You can assign tasks and responsibilities to new hires and managers, as well as a built-in buddy role. I love this very visual approach to onboarding and milestones and think it’s ideal if you’re used to mapping out projects this way. 

Each journey pulls from two sources of information: your internal knowledge docs and over 100 native integrations. These connections let you generate journeys based on your internal processes and automate them across your tool stack. The integrations seem to mainly focus on HR information systems (HRIS) and ATS platforms, but there are also IT and communication tools to help capture the full onboarding experience.

Bots also lend a hand throughout the onboarding journey. Employees and HR can ask an AI assistant questions about their journeys and any uploaded internal knowledge. So, for example, a new employee could ask AI for a refresher on a document they reviewed or an overview of the next steps in their onboarding. Plus, AI agents adapt each step as a journey runs with human-in-the-loop safeguards.

If you want to plan, optimize, and roll out a highly detailed employee onboarding experience, Enboarder should make your shortlist. Its unique approach to workflows and creating a person-focused journey makes it stand out as a great companion for any HR team with similar goals.

Enboarder pricing: Custom pricing

Best employee onboarding software for an interactive onboarding experience

Continu (Web)

Continu pros:

• Journey segmentation for fully custom onboarding experiences

• Plenty of interactive elements, including virtual class elements and quizzes

Continu cons:

Based on my new-hire experiences over the years, what companies call “interactive onboarding” is often just a slideshow and pop quiz, because that’s all their tech stack can do. Continu gives employers more options by combining a course builder and a journey creator for onboarding experiences where employees can click, watch, write, and create their way to competency.

I really like how the drag-and-drop content authoring tool gives options to mix video, audio, quizzes, and PDFs into a single course. Even the quizzes themselves have a lot of customization. For example, you can ask new employees to upload a video or document as their quiz answers instead of the typical multiple-choice answer.

With so many folks working hybrid now, the option to add live, instructor-led workshops to onboarding experiences comes in handy. This option syncs with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, so meeting links appear right alongside self-paced materials.

Eddy, Continu’s AI learning agent, turns every part of the onboarding journey into a back-and-forth by enabling new hires to ask it questions about their new job. After you upload your internal knowledge docs, Eddy can provide answers in Continu or linked communication apps. Built-in analytics then show you what topics employees ask Eddy about, helping you improve your onboarding and training processes.

Continu Insights covers the rest of the platform’s analytics, including completions, quiz scores, and drop-off points. So if one of your onboarding modules isn’t doing its job, you’ll see why.

While Continu doesn’t openly list its monthly cost, all these features reportedly come with a price tag to match. But if you get a quote that fits your onboarding budget, the investment could be worth it.

Continu pricing: By request

Best employee onboarding software for a fun, hybrid onboarding experience

Innform (Web, iOS, Android)

Innform pros:

• Gamify the onboarding process with points, levels, and leaderboards

• Empower new hires to take ownership over their onboarding journey

Innform cons:

While many companies now embrace remote work, sometimes you’ll want to add in-person meetings or training sessions to your onboarding process. This is something that Innform accounts for brilliantly, while also bringing a sense of fun and gamification to the experience. 

When you load up Innform, you’re first brought to the learner dashboard. This is a great introduction to the app, and shows you exactly what your new hires will see when they join you. Innform’s dashboard is clear, bright, and easy to navigate. 

One of the first features you’ll notice is the leaderboard. Innform takes onboarding and online learning and brings a healthy sense of competition to the mix. Your learners (or new hires!) can earn points for completing modules and training courses, causing them to rise up the leaderboard. This leaderboard is visible to everyone, so it’s a great incentive to work through your company training content. If you want to introduce gamification to your culture, this is a fun way to do it.

Creating content for your onboarding experience feels smooth and easy with Innform. I appreciated how fast the app runs, and loved the autosaving and quick preview features. It didn’t take long to create my first modules, and there’s a good mix of content types and editing features. Editing happens on the page too, so you can see what your content will look like. 

A unique feature is the ability to create learning paths or “journeys.” These user journeys can be assigned to new hires—either individually or based on a property or category. Use this to create pathways of online modules, or try the “blended learning” feature for hybrid onboarding. Used this way, you can schedule online learning modules and virtual calls with all the details included, as well as details about in-person meetings and sessions. This helps streamline and organize the onboarding experience and creates a better experience for your new hires.

It feels like the focus is very much on individuals “owning” their onboarding experience and learning journeys. Once you’ve assigned content, your new hires can find this in their dashboard and work their way through it. You can also create brightly colored “highlights” that draw their attention to specific content. After they’ve completed modules, they can be viewed at any time if you choose to turn them into manuals. This means you can build an easy-to-use self-service center filled with useful information about your company, culture, and benefits.

If you’re looking for a tool that helps you organize your online-only or hybrid onboarding process, Innform is a fantastic choice. It’s a great mix of practical, useful features (like creating learning journeys) and fun elements (like your company leaderboard). 

And it’s easy to connect Innform to your other HR apps with the help of its Zapier integration. You can do things like automatically create and assign users and assignments based on activities in your other apps, or kick off workflows straight from your favorite AI assistant.

Innform pricing: Free plan available; paid plans starting from $1.40/person/month

Best employee onboarding software for document management

Waybook (Web)

Waybook pros:

• AI-powered assistance that streamlines the document creation process

• Ideal for teams with information-heavy policies, procedures, or workflows

Waybook cons:

One of the challenges HR teams and managers encounter in the onboarding process is just how much information you need to share with your new hires—like policies, processes, values, and culture. Waybook gives you a home for all your onboarding documents, plus an intuitive way to share it with your new hires.

When you first sign up for Waybook, you’re asked what your goals are. This helps to personalize the experience and allows you to start learning how to use the software for the context you need. 

Your onboarding journey lives within documents on the platform. These are simple to create, with a responsive document builder that autosaves your progress—perfect for when you’re working on a long policy or procedure. I appreciate the thoughtful touches that make creating and editing content easy, like the “split step” feature that allows me to turn one process step into two instantly.

While the platform is document-based, it doesn’t lack creativity or flexibility. Personalize documents with tables, files, blockquotes, code snippets, and emojis. You can add images from a range of sources, including Unsplash. Or you can create a quiz or checklist to make your internal knowledge more interactive.

One of the best features of Waybook is the way it embraces AI to streamline the process. Employees can use “Waybook Ask” to surface answers to their questions quickly, without asking someone else for help. The built-in AI writing tool also works well to suggest content ideas for your policies, documents, and courses.

The platform is great for teams of any size, and its built-in admin commenting features, audit log, and approval workflows make it a useful contender for enterprise teams that need greater visibility over content updates.

Enhance the experience by linking Waybook with Zapier, so you can automatically send data to other platforms for a more streamlined onboarding and people management experience. And if you connect Zapier to your favorite AI tool, you can reference your Waybook documents right in the chat and kick off workflows across your tech stack.

Waybook pricing: From $119/month for Waybook Core.

Best employee onboarding software in an all-in-one platform

BambooHR (Web, iOS, Android)

BambooHR pros:

BambooHR cons: 

Most standalone onboarding software tools are designed around courses and sharing information with new hires. If you’re looking for a system that combines essential HR paperwork with an onboarding experience, you’ll want an all-in-one platform like BambooHR.

BambooHR is a popular HR software platform that includes a robust onboarding and offboarding feature. This allows you to not only add a new hire to your HR system but deliver an impressive first impression too.

Within the platform, you’ll find onboarding features designed to streamline the experience for both manager and employee. Create a new hire packet, onboarding checklists and tasks, and invite employees to share more about themselves with new team members.

BambooHR’s built-in eSignatures allow you to sign contracts and forms without paying for an extra tool. And with access to other features for recruitment, payroll, time management, and employee engagement, BambooHR gives you one place to work from, instead of multiple apps.

Bamboo AI ties all these features together with an assistant that answers questions about your BambooHR data or your company documents. It can also analyze that information for companies that invest in the highest-tier Elite plan. Plus, depending on what plan you use, new employees can ask Bamboo AI questions about their onboarding process or role. 

When you connect BambooHR with Zapier, you can do things like automatically add time-off requests to Google Calendar or post new employees to Slack channels. And you can automate your HR workflows from your AI assistant,  without leaving the chat window. Learn more about how to automate BambooHR.

BambooHR pricing: From $10/employee/month for the Core plan

Best employee onboarding and payroll software

Gusto (Web, iOS, Android)

Gusto pros:

• HR, payroll, and onboarding in one platform

• Designed for global businesses with remote teams and contractors

Gusto cons: 

If you’re a global business or a big team with remote workers or contractors, simplifying processes is the goal—and sometimes adding another tool to the mix isn’t top-of-mind. For businesses that want a great onboarding feature alongside HR and payroll, Gusto is my top pick.

Gusto’s hiring and onboarding feature is one of the best out there for a non-dedicated onboarding app. Create intuitive onboarding flows and checklists from built-in templates, or create and customize your own. You can also send and sign documents with electronic signatures. 

One feature that I really appreciated was the ability to set up software provisioning without leaving the app. This allows you to make sure your new hires have access to the right tools in just a few clicks, without storing IT assets in yet another app.

In addition to onboarding, Gusto can take care of time and attendance management, hiring, talent management, and employee benefits. The software also has a range of useful built-in reports to help you monitor what’s happening. Gus, Gusto’s AI assistant, can answer questions about payroll and benefits during onboarding, although Gusto’s new agent, Cofounder, seems to mainly perform tasks related to operations, not onboarding.

Unlike other platforms that include payroll integrations, Gusto actually offers full-service payroll. This is yet another tool you can cross off your list if you move to this all-in-one platform. 

For remote businesses and HR teams that work with contractors, Gusto is an ideal match—not just for handling onboarding in a smooth way, but for bringing clarity to your HR operations. 

Gusto pricing: From $49/month plus $6/employee/month

Best employee onboarding software with an applicant tracking system (ATS)

Greenhouse (Web, iOS, Android)

Greenhouse pros:

Greenhouse cons: 

Greenhouse is an application tracking system (ATS) that also handles onboarding beautifully. The software handles everything from sourcing to onboarding, creating a seamless experience not just for your HR team but your new hires too.

The onboarding feature is designed to maximize efficiency and productivity. It features a resource hub that you can populate with key employee documents, a place to introduce new team members, and the opportunity to explain your company culture before the new hire joins you.

Greenhouse’s onboarding flow includes automated tasks, reminders, and checklists for a smooth and effective process. I liked that you can also create and customize onboarding or welcome emails, then send them at just the right time in the process.

As it’s part of your recruitment software, Greenhouse’s onboarding feature enables you to create a smooth onboarding journey for new hires. They’ll get to enjoy the same experience right through the interview, selection, contract, and onboarding process.

For businesses that want to align their onboarding flow more closely with their recruitment tool, Greenhouse is a great option. You’ll still want to connect to an HRIS for everyday HR needs, but Greenhouse’s integrations make this easy.

You can streamline your onboarding even more when you connect Greenhouse to Zapier, so you can build a fully automated onboarding system and work directly from your favorite AI tool.

Greenhouse pricing: Custom pricing

Best free onboarding software

Connecteam (Web, iOS, Android)

Connecteam pros:

• Onboarding features that automate contracts, forms, and hiring packets

• All features free for 10 team members or fewer

Connecteam cons:

Most onboarding tools with “free” plans limit most features or keep the number of available users small, not unlike the “free” streaming apps that constantly interrupt my shows with dog food ads. Connecteam, on the other hand, puts the cap at 10 team members—a reasonable number for a lot of small businesses on a budget. And it doesn’t hold back any features on the free plan.

Connecteam’s onboarding features cover the most time-consuming steps of the process. New hires can fill out and eSign contracts, W-4s, and I-9s right in the app, and role-specific onboarding packets walk them through what’s required before they can get payroll. The free plan includes up to 10 eSigned documents and multiple onboarding packs—not unlimited, but a good start for a small team looking to automate onboarding. My favorite part is the shared progress view, which shows all onboarding steps, so both you and your new hire can see how far you are in the process.

The free plan also includes hiring and training features that complement onboarding. On the hiring side, a candidate you screen and move through the pipeline converts into an active employee with one click, and their info copies right over to their onboarding pack. Once your team member finishes onboarding, Connecteam’s Courses feature lets you assign role-specific training with quizzes or lean on the built-in AI course creator to build one fast.

While Connecteam is also free for teams of 11-30 people, it cuts features such as its onboarding tools, so you would then have to switch to at least the $35/month plan to get access back. (Kind of like how I can pay for a video app and still get the dog food ads.) But if you don’t have many people on your team, Connecteam could be quite the deal.

You can also use Connecteam with Zapier and automatically create users, update PTO time, and send messages based on activity in your other apps. You can also access your Connecteam data and kick off workflows across your tech stack directly from your AI chat window.

Connecteam pricing: Free plan available; Paid plans starting at $35/month for one hub and up to 30 team members

Other app options for when you don’t need a dedicated employee onboarding software platform

My goal with this piece was to introduce you to what I feel are the best apps that either focus solely on employee onboarding or do it exceptionally well. But outside this, there are plenty of other apps that tackle only one aspect of onboarding—and I wanted to include those too.

If you already have an employee management system that handles the onboarding process and simply want a new way to add fun to the journey, or a place to store information, try these apps:

• Goosechase. This unique app is inspired by the concept of scavenger hunts. Set up themed hunts or use built-in prompts. Ask your new hires to venture out into the world, snap photos, and submit them to complete missions.

• Scribe. Looking for a fast way to document processes? This app can help you record a process and turn it into a step-by-step guide in moments—ideal for sharing workflows with new hires.

• Whale. Create an internal knowledge base, document procedures, and train your team all in one place.

• Trainual. Share your SOPs, train new hires and existing employees, and document your company knowledge.

• Worksuite. If you work with freelancers, a dedicated platform like this gives you a hub for onboarding, management, and payment.

• Tally. Create engaging forms in a clean and simple way. Ideal for a minimalist approach to the onboarding workflow, or for collecting data to feed into your HR system or onboarding software via Zapier.

• Docusign. Send contracts and forms to employees to sign and return electronically. Great if your software doesn’t have a built-in eSignature tool.

And with Zapier, you can securely connect all of the apps your employees use—for onboarding and beyond—to automate your employee management workflows. Automatically email and message your new employees with their onboarding tasks, assign buddies to them, add their details to other apps, and more—and you can kick it all off from your AI chat window if that’s where you spend your time.

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This article was originally published in July 2022. The most recent update, with contributions from Melissa King, was in September 2026.