Honest comparison
15Five Alternatives: The Assessment Layer 15Five Doesn't Have
15Five is an engagement-and-performance platform with published per-seat pricing. It doesn't run personality or psychometric assessments — that's the gap JobCannon fills for teams already using it.
In Brief
15Five is an engagement-and-performance platform with published per-seat pricing. It doesn't run personality or psychometric assessments — that's the gap JobCannon fills for teams already using it.
Last reviewed: September 2026
Four structural differences
Where the platforms diverge.
Assessment battery comparison
What ships in each platform's standard tier.
Pricing comparison
For a 30-person HR program per year
When JobCannon wins
Switch from 15Five or pair with it
Teams that keep 15Five for check-ins and manager coaching often add JobCannon for assessment breadth and career-development across the workforce at flat-rate cost.
1 assessment = 1 completed test, not 1 person — a candidate taking 3 tests uses 3.
Free
For micro-teams trying the platform
- ▸5 assessments/month (resets the 1st of each month)
- ▸All 201+ assessments
- ▸Premium result for every candidate you invite
- ▸Every candidate profile fully open — nothing blurred
- ▸Share link via email or Slack
- ▸Free trial of the coordinator dashboard
Starter
For solo coaches and small HR
- ▸30 assessments/mo included; extra assessments are $2 each
- ▸All 201+ assessments
- ▸Premium report (archetype + blind spots + work-style brief)
- ▸Coach notes per candidate
- ▸PDF export (client-ready)
- ▸Session prep recommendations
- ▸Candidate progress tracking
Team
For startups, teams and HR
- ▸80 assessments/mo included; extra assessments are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Starter
- ▸Team DNA dashboard
- ▸Compatibility matrix
- ▸Conflict-pattern detection
- ▸Compare 2-3 team members
- ▸Manager prep briefings
- ▸Shared admin access (2 seats)
Scale
For agencies, L&D and scale-ups
- ▸200 assessments/mo included; extra assessments are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Team
- ▸Integrity scale
- ▸White-label PDFs
- ▸Full assessment API (start, score, retrieve results)
- ▸Custom assessment builder (beta)
- ▸Admin seats not billed per seat
- ▸Priority email support
Growth
For high-volume screening without a contract
- ▸1,000 assessments/mo included; extra assessments are $2 each
- ▸Everything in Scale
- ▸Invoice / PO billing, not just card
- ▸Named support contact with a response-time target
- ▸Annual billing option
Enterprise
For 200+ person companies
- ▸Candidate volume set in your contract, all assessments
- ▸Everything in Scale
- ▸SLA (99.9% uptime)
- ▸Dedicated Customer Success
- ▸Custom integrations built against your tenant (Greenhouse and Ashby ship today)
- ▸Annual billing, invoice payments
Self-serve checkout via Stripe — major cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link. Cancel anytime; 14-day money-back on every paid plan. Enterprise via the contact form below.
Request a comparison plan
Tell us your team size, your current 15Five contract, and your HR goals. We respond with a switch or pairing plan within two business days.
15Five prices per user per month depending on bundle (Engage at the low end, Perform at the mid, Total Platform at the top). JobCannon Team tier is $79/mo flat ($790/year) for 80 assessments a month; Scale tier is $199/mo flat ($1,990/year) for 200 assessments a month. The structural difference is per-user vs flat-rate — 15Five prices linearly with headcount, JobCannon does not. 15Five is reasonable at very small teams (under 15 users) but per-user pricing across multiple modules becomes a real budget line for scaling startups.
Three areas where 15Five has a real lead. (1) Weekly check-in cadence — 15Five built its brand around the "15 minutes to write, 5 minutes to read" weekly check-in workflow, which is mature, well-instrumented, and culturally ingrained at thousands of companies; the check-in is the engagement-data primary surface. (2) Manager coaching surfaces — 15Five Transform layer ships manager-coaching content and surfaces it in-app contextually around check-in data and performance reviews; the manager-development workflow is a real product, not a templated bolt-on. (3) High-Five recognition mechanics — peer recognition built directly into the check-in workflow creates a lightweight engagement layer that lives where employees already write each week. For HR programs anchored on weekly check-ins as the primary engagement intervention, 15Five is hard to beat.
15Five is a continuous-performance platform built around weekly check-ins, OKRs, performance reviews, and manager-coaching content wired into the check-in surface. JobCannon is an assessment platform built around 140 validated psychometrics across personality, aptitude, EQ, interests, and skills, with a coaching-prep layer on top. If your HR motion centers on weekly check-ins and manager coaching as the primary intervention, 15Five is built for that workflow. If your motion centers on individual self-discovery, team-style understanding, and career-development through psychometric data, JobCannon is built for that workflow.
15Five ships engagement-survey items and performance-review templates, but does not ship a validated personality or aptitude assessment battery. JobCannon ships 140 validated assessments including Big Five (OCEAN — the most-validated personality model in academic research), DISC, MBTI, Enneagram, RIASEC, EQ (Goleman framework), Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner), Skills Audit, plus aptitude testing (IQ, critical thinking, numerical reasoning) and wellbeing check-ins. JobCannon ships broad psychometric breadth; 15Five ships continuous-performance workflow without psychometric depth.
Four scenarios. (1) HR programs that need validated psychometrics (Big Five, EQ, aptitude) more than weekly check-in workflow. (2) Career-development programs spanning 2,521 careers with skills-gap analysis — 15Five is performance-anchored, JobCannon is career-anchored. (3) Teams where the weekly check-in cadence is not the primary engagement intervention and per-user Total Platform pricing has become untenable. (4) Self-discovery and team-style understanding as the L&D motion rather than continuous-performance management. For these contexts JobCannon at $79-199/mo flat delivers assessment breadth without the per-user check-in premium.
Yes — many HR teams do exactly this. 15Five handles the weekly check-in cadence, manager coaching, and recognition mechanics; JobCannon handles the assessment layer (Big Five, EQ, Skills Audit, career-match) that informs growth plans and team development. The two are not architecturally hostile — JobCannon does not require 15Five to be removed for a pilot to run.
Request a comparison plan
Tell us your team size, your current 15Five contract, and your HR goals. We respond with a switch or pairing plan within two business days.