Rippling: My experience
- Claire Baker
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Let’s get this out of the way: No. Rippling doesn’t have any dirt on me.
I don’t have any financial interest in the company whatsoever*.
I just really, really love Rippling.
Because I’ve used it. And I’ve used its competitors.
And, in my opinion, Rippling is better. At (just about) everything.
🤩 Product
Have you ever tried something for the first time and heard angels sing?
That was the feeling the first time someone showed me their Rippling setup.
Every resentful “why isn’t this easier” moment I’d had with other providers was fixed.
Elegantly.
And it was better than I’d ever expected.
My first introduction wasn’t through a salesperson, just another user showing me the ropes so I could take over their payroll and benefits administration.
It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Problems still happened.
But it was like slipping on an Ironman suit.
Suddenly, everything I did was 100x more powerful.
💥 Hours of onboarding cut to minutes
💥 Reporting that gave me insight into everything
💥 Integrations that put the information right where I wanted it (except documents in the employee view. Why can I never find these?)
💥 Edit logs that showed me when and how things had changed, and by whom
I was ruined for any other provider forever.
👯 Support
Don’t get me wrong, there have been times when I’ve been disappointed with the support team. But I can count those experiences on one hand.
On the other hand, a particularly heroic support experience is why I’m so ride-or-die Rippling in the first place. (Read that story here.) Rippling's support team is technically savvy and better trained on the subject matter than most (but not all**) other support teams I work with.
** Honorable mention to UKG, Insperity, and the dedicated reps at Gusto
Perhaps equally important, they have flexibility to problem solve and reach out to subject matter experts in real time. Radical, right?
Plus, there's the bot. Most AI chatbots kind of suck. It’s usually easier to just use the Search bar in the Help Center. Rippling’s chatbot is the only one that consistently gives me information that I can actually use.
And the help center is clear, up-to-date, and has both videos and text. Text so it’s searchable, copy/pasteable, and I can scan to the part I actually need. Videos because I guess other people find it helpful to see it in action? (I don’t know why people like videos. I just know that they do.)
My only complaint is that you need to be logged in to see it. Ugh! I had plans for those 1.23 seconds it took to load!
🍰 UX
Rippling is not a “beginner’s” platform.
Since it touches everything, you can get into some blind alleys. Especially if you don’t have a strong intuitive sense of software architecture and how it abstracts over various compliance concepts.
I’m not your average user in this area. I work in this stuff all day e’ry day, so I’m can catch issues and get them back on track more quickly than some users. Not everyone has spent their career surrounded by software developers and thinking about obscure compliance edge cases.
Most HR pros were hired to be good with people, not complicated technology. If you're someone who's better with people than software, you might want to have someone tech-savvy on your team to jump in when things break. (Or, get in touch with me! I'd love to help.)
Sometimes you run into a problem whose root is in a totally unexpected corner of the platform. Occasionally, it happens with important stuff. That’s the downside of “the Rippling effect.”
You need to be able to pull threads and have an open mind about where they’ll lead you, or else you’ll wind up thinking that support is full of 💩 and have a very grumpy afternoon. Most of the complaints I’ve heard about Rippling seem to happen here.
🛡️Compliance
For the most part, my experience with US compliance has been positive. I had one tax thing once that was kind of annoying.
One.
It got fixed. The end.
And Rippling alerts on EVERYTHING, so it’ll let you know if there’s a problem where other’s won’t. One simple thing that I really appreciate is that you can set an alert to let you know if an employee moves to a different tax jurisdiction.
Do you know how valuable that is? IYKYK.
I’ve heard that Rippling’s global products aren’t as solid as their US products. The software was built on assumptions that are true in the US but may not necessarily translate overseas.
I’ve herd horror stories about international compliance misses that led to serious consequences. Then again, I also heard about another well-known EOR provider (not Rippling) that simply translated their German employment contracts into French without checking French employment laws, so maybe everyone is cutting corners in this area.
🤑 Cost
It’s not cheap. The per-employee-per-feature-per-month pricing structure really adds up. And it gets more expensive the more you use it.
It’s a little like a drug addiction. You start with just HRIS and payroll. Pretty soon you’re paying for HR Services and the full-on Okta integration and you’re pawning your mom’s TV set to buy the Carta integration.
But when you’re on it, it feels so, so good.
I’m not sure they’ve quite figured out the unit economics at enterprise headcounts. Most mid-market and enterprise providers shift to a model that deemphasizes the PEPM price at about 500 employees. Rippling’s fine-grained pricing model makes it a little harder to transition to an enterprise pricing structure.
Maybe they have enterprise pricing all ironed out and I'm just not aware of it.
It helps to work with the partner team, since they have more discounting authority (and the incentives create less pressure). My channel partner, Andi is fantastic. I’d love for you to meet her. Let me know if you want an intro. (I have no incentive if you sign up, except that maybe I’ll get to work with you, too. Which would be pretty rad.)
🧌 Complaints
To be balanced, I do have some complaints about Rippling.
1. Why is there no “view as employee?” This is such an obvious gimme, I don’t understand why it doesn’t exist.
2. Maybe it’s the Count of Monte Cristo origin story that’s baked into their culture, but you get the sense that they are NOT messing around. They are intense. And I mean intense. It’s not pressure. Just a feeling that you’re hanging on to a speeding train and it will flatten you if you let go. Except with the direct sales team. Then it is pressure.
3. The investment is worth it, but it’s brutal when a company falls on hard times. Each contract locks in a minimum headcount. If you fall below it, you’ll be paying for that minimum threshold until your next contract cycle. Which can feel like a kick in the crotch after a RIF.
4. Seriously. Where the f—- are the “documents” in the employee view? Why can I never find them?
5. Is it just me, or is the mustard yellow ugly? Just me? Okay then.
Disclosure
👋 I’m Claire. Rippling's not the only platform I recommend, and I don't recommend it for everyone.
And yes, I have a partnership with Rippling. But I don't participate in their revenue share program. I'd rather make money by helping you make your People Operations run smoothly than by selling you something. What I get out of the deal is:
A partner that I've worked with over and over to make sure the evaluation process runs smoothly and that my clients and friends aren't pressured.
Deeper discounting authority for my clients and referrals.
If I work with you, and you work in Rippling, then I get to work in Rippling. Which is my favorite place to work.
I also have similar relationships with other providers. I have formal partner relationships with
Rippling
Gusto
Justworks
Insperity
Where possible, I pass that incentive on to my clients as a discount. If a rebate structure isn't available, I have the commission or revenue share donated to charity instead.
I also have informal partnerships with people I really like working with at Workday, UKG, and Paycom. I also endorse Bennie, Oyster, Kept.io, and Callings.ai.
I've turned down conversations with ADP, Deel, and Trinet before finding out what they were offering.
Want an intro?
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