Performance management software compared: Australia and New Zealand 2026

Some HR systems include performance management. For some teams, that’s enough. For others, the built-in tools are too basic, too rigid or difficult to set up.

That’s where dedicated performance management platforms fit. They work alongside your existing HR system, with a greater focus on goals, check-ins, reviews and development.

Below, we compare CentricMinds (ours), Lattice, 15Five, PerformYard, Employment Hero, ELMO and Worknice, and say where each fits best.

The short answer

There are really two options: buy an HR system with performance included, or buy performance management that sits alongside the HR system you already have.

The first makes sense if you’re replacing your HR system anyway. One platform, one vendor, and reviews come with it.

The second makes sense if your HR system is working well but its performance reviews aren’t. Maybe they’re too basic, don’t work the way you need them to, or aren’t easy for mobile and frontline staff to access. You keep the system you already have and improve the part that isn’t working.

• Choose Employment Hero or ELMO if you want HR, payroll and performance together in one platform.
• Choose Worknice if you want a new Australian HR system and are happy to add performance as a paid add-on. It doesn’t do payroll. It connects to the payroll you already use.
• Choose Lattice if you’re looking for a large specialist performance platform with deeper enterprise capabilities such as compensation and calibration.
• Choose 15Five if continuous feedback, weekly check-ins and manager coaching are central to how you want to manage performance.
• Choose CentricMinds if you’re keeping the HR systems you already have and need frontline and mobile staff to complete the same performance process as everyone else, from their phone.

Performance management software comparison

About this comparison: This article is published by CentricMinds, one of the vendors compared. Competitor prices and features are taken from each vendor’s public website, checked on 6th October 2026, and shown in the currency each vendor publishes (US$ is US dollars, A$ is Australian dollars). Where a vendor doesn’t publish pricing, we’ve said so rather than estimating. Vendors change their plans and pricing, and quotes can differ from list prices, so check directly with each vendor before you decide. If anything here isn’t right, let us know and we’ll fix it. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.

When a dedicated performance management platform makes sense

Goals and check-ins in the same place as reviews

CentricMinds connects goals, check-ins and reviews into the same performance cycle. Goal progress and updates flow straight into the review, so everything that happened during the year is already there when the conversation happens.

Both employees and managers add check-ins, each one linked to a goal or a section of the plan, with attachments if needed. Every check-in records who wrote it, their role, and the date.

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This is often called continuous feedback. You don’t need a dedicated continuous feedback platform to get it. CentricMinds builds check-ins and feedback into the same cycle as your goals and reviews.

You need a process that fits your organisation

Performance processes aren’t identical. Some organisations review against company values or behaviours, some run development plans alongside goals, and some need different plans for different teams. The question is whether your current tool fits the way you manage performance, or whether you end up working around it.

CentricMinds can be set up around the performance process you already use. A plan might include goals, values, career development, action plans, evaluations, check-ins and sign-off. You include what you need, leave out what you don’t, and choose which sections employees see.

You can tailor the questions and fields too, including your own dropdown options. So if goals need to align with your company’s strategic priorities, you can use those rather than predefined categories. Once a plan is set up, it can be saved as a template and reused for future cycles.

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The timing is flexible too. You can set deadlines for employee goals and manager reviews, decide when goals lock after approval, add a mid-year review if you need one, set the annual review date, and choose how often employees and managers check in.

You need to reach frontline employees

Plenty of performance tools offer a mobile app. The question is how much of the process actually works there, and whether staff who don’t sit at a desk end up on a different, thinner version of it.

In CentricMinds, employees complete the whole performance plan on a mobile device. Goals, values, career, development, action plan, evaluation, sign off and check-ins. An employee can:

• see their goals and current progress
• add a check-in against a goal or plan section, with a file attached
• see when their next check-in is due
• review previous check-ins
• create or update goals
• see manager and teammate feedback
• complete and sign off their review

Managers review their team’s plans on mobile and add their own check-ins.

Access doesn’t depend on a company email address either. Employees can use a personal email address, and organisations using Microsoft Entra ID can provide SSO instead.

So the office team and the people in stores, care environments, warehouses, on the road or across sites run the same process, not two versions of it.

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You want a clear performance history

Ask any experienced manager how to handle a difficult performance conversation and you get the same advice: follow up with an email summarising what was discussed and what happens next. Keep the paper trail. It protects both people and stops it becoming a he said, she said situation later.

That paper trail usually lives in individual managers’ sent folders. When it’s needed, someone goes looking for it.

CentricMinds timestamps check-ins throughout the cycle, from both the employee and their manager, each recorded against a goal or plan section with the author’s name and role. Sign-offs are also timestamped, and a performance process must be signed off before it progresses to the next status. Completed performance records are locked.

This creates a dated history of the performance process rather than relying only on the final review.

HR can export a complete record for an employee, so when it’s needed it’s one file rather than a search through inboxes.

If your process ever needs to be evidenced, in an audit or a Fair Work matter, a dated and locked history is what gets asked for.

What happens after HR starts a performance cycle?

One of the biggest administrative jobs in performance management isn’t creating the review. It’s getting everyone to complete it.

CentricMinds lets HR configure notifications and reminders as part of the performance cycle. Depending on the cycle, these can include:

• a notification when the cycle begins
• reminders for employees to draft and submit goals before the deadline
• notifications to managers when employee goals are submitted for review
• reminders for managers to complete reviews
• reminders before an annual review period closes
• escalation to HR when goals or reviews become overdue
• repeat reminders until the required action is completed

Notifications can be delivered by email, in-app, or both.

So HR can set the process up without manually sending every reminder as the cycle progresses.

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What does CentricMinds cost?

We publish our prices, and we’re the only vendor on this page with published flat monthly pricing rather than per user. Prices are in US dollars. Contact us for local pricing.

Core (up to 100 users): US$349/month, or US$3,490 a year. Includes goals and objectives, check-ins, reviews and sign-off, review cycle management, dashboards and reporting.

Extend (up to 250 users): US$899/month, or US$8,990 a year. Adds Single Sign On and integrations.

Elevate (up to 500 users): US$1,599/month, or US$15,990 a year. Adds advanced analytics and priority support.

Yearly billing gives you two months free. Over 500 users, talk to us.

Which platform should you choose?

What you should shortlist depends on what you need from performance management.

If you’re replacing your HR system anyway, or engagement surveys matter as much as reviews, one of the other platforms on this page will serve you better than we will.

If your systems are staying where they are and you want goals, check-ins, reviews, development plans and sign-off handled properly, including for staff without a company email address, that’s what we built.

How people get access

Most organisations connect CentricMinds to Microsoft Entra ID, so staff sign in with the account they already use and group membership stays in sync. You can also add people manually, which is how organisations bring in staff who aren’t in the directory.

If you keep manager, department or job title in Entra ID, those come across too, which is what drives who reviews whom. Plenty of organisations don’t keep them up to date, so it’s worth checking before you assume.

You can also hold whatever other employee information matters to you, such as site or region.

Employees aren’t restricted to a company email domain, which means employees without corporate email addresses can also participate.

If you need CentricMinds to connect to other systems, talk to us about what you have.

Questions to ask before choosing performance management software

Which performance management software publishes its pricing?
CentricMinds, Lattice, 15Five and PerformYard publish pricing, and Employment Hero publishes its HR plans in AUD. ELMO and Worknice quote after a demo. CentricMinds is the only vendor here with published flat monthly pricing rather than per user.

What’s the cheapest way to run performance reviews for 250 staff?
On published pricing, CentricMinds is US$899 a month for up to 250 users, flat.
Per-seat tools work out differently: at 250 staff, Lattice’s Performance product at US$10 per seat is US$2,500 a month, and 15Five’s Perform at US$11 per user is US$2,750.
Vendors that don’t publish pricing will quote you.

Do we need to replace our HR system to get better performance reviews?
No. Dedicated performance platforms, including CentricMinds, Lattice, 15Five and PerformYard, work alongside the HR system you already have.
You’d only replace your HR system if that’s what you actually want to do, in which case Employment Hero, Worknice or ELMO’s full suite are worth looking at instead.

Why use a separate performance management tool if we already have an HR system?
Your HR system’s main job is records, leave and payroll. Performance is often a basic add-on.
If reviews in your HR system work well, keep using them. If they’re too rigid, managers avoid them, or frontline staff can’t get to them, a dedicated tool fixes that part without replacing everything else.

We do reviews on paper or in spreadsheets. Is software worth it?
If you’re a small team and it works, maybe not. It starts costing you when HR spends weeks chasing overdue reviews, or when you need to find what was agreed months ago.
The Fair Work Ombudsman recommends regular performance discussions with signed, dated notes.
Software sends the reminders, keeps check-ins and sign-offs together with dates on them, and lets staff without a desk complete reviews on their phone.

Can employees without a company email address use CentricMinds?
Yes. CentricMinds doesn’t restrict access to a company email domain. Employees can use a personal email address. Microsoft Entra ID and SSO are also supported.

Can employees use performance management from mobile?
Yes. Employees can access goals, add check-ins, track progress and work through their performance plan on mobile. Managers can review their team’s plans and add check-ins from mobile too.

Does CentricMinds replace our HR system?
No. CentricMinds Performance Management is a dedicated performance platform that works alongside your existing systems.

How are employees added?
Users can be provisioned through Microsoft Entra ID or added manually. Entra ID group membership can also be synchronised.

Are check-ins and sign-offs recorded?
Yes. Check-ins are timestamped. Sign-offs are timestamped, and completed performance records are locked.

Does this help with Fair Work record-keeping?
We can’t advise on your obligations. Speak to a qualified adviser for that. What the platform keeps is timestamped check-ins, timestamped sign-offs and locked completed records: the kind of dated history those processes rely on.

Can reminders be automated?
Yes. HR can configure reminders around different stages of the performance cycle, including goal deadlines, submissions, manager reviews, annual reviews and overdue actions. Reminders can be sent by email, in-app, or both.

How long does implementation take?
Most teams are set up and running within a day or two. It largely depends on the state of your Entra ID or Google Cloud Identity, and configuring a review cycle takes less than an hour.

Where is our data hosted?
Australian and New Zealand hosting is available, and Performance Management can be deployed to your own cloud environment. CentricMinds is Australian owned.

Keep your HR system. Improve the performance process.

You probably don’t need a new HR system.

You might just need better performance reviews.

If your current HR system handles performance management well, keep using it.

If it doesn’t, you don’t necessarily need to replace the whole system.

CentricMinds gives you a dedicated place to run goals, ongoing check-ins, performance reviews, development plans and sign-off, while the systems you already rely on stay in place.