Overview

The platform presents personalized statements and online portals that bring together pay, incentive programs, benefits, work/life offerings, and recognition programs. CandidateRewards extends that approach to recruiting, pairing cash and non-cash offer rewards with company culture content. This makes TotalRewards Software a fit for organizations that want consistent reward communications across the employee and candidate experience, rather than a standalone rewards marketplace.

The company says it was founded in 2007 and is based in Rocklin, California. The Free Edition is a cloud platform, and the product uses personalized online portals. Web is the listed platform.

Key features

Employee statements and campaigns

Teams can plan, build, design, and produce employee statements, with spreadsheet data upload in the Free Edition. Statements can gather several parts of an employee’s package in one view, which is useful when salary alone does not explain the value of a role. Paid promotion modules add automated, targeted emails to different groups, allowing HR to tailor reward communications rather than send one general message.

Analytics and executive reporting

Campaign analytics include email promotion tracking, custom surveys, feedback analysis, and aggregate engagement tracking over time. HR teams can also use graphs to examine compensation data, drill into reward programs, and share reports with executives. These tools make the paid offering more relevant to teams expected to show how communications perform and explain compensation decisions; the Free Edition is focused on producing statements, not this measurement and reporting work.

Candidate experience

CandidateRewards gives prospective hires a personalized portal covering cash and non-cash offer rewards alongside company culture content. Real-time engagement analytics and offer acceptance and rejection tracking can help talent acquisition teams monitor candidate response. This is a meaningful differentiator for employers managing offer communication, but it matters little to teams that only need employee-facing statements.

Integrations, security, and support

Technology options include SAML 2.0 single sign-on and HRIS or payroll data integration, which are relevant where access and compensation data need to connect with existing systems. The company’s privacy policy says access to personal information is limited to employees with a business need and describes safeguards that may include encryption and physical access security. The company says it provides customer support; Professional Edition adds a dedicated Customer Success Manager.

Pricing

TotalRewards Software uses a freemium model, offers a free plan, and has a free trial. The paid editions use custom pricing, so teams should request a quote before comparing the full cost with alternatives.

Plan	Price	What it includes	Best fit
Free Edition	Free	Plan, build, design, and produce employee statements; spreadsheet data upload.	Teams that need to create employee statements and can work with spreadsheet uploads.
Professional Edition	Custom pricing	Analytics and tracking, surveys and feedback, HR executive reporting, promotion modules, candidate statements, and a dedicated Customer Success Manager.	HR and recruiting teams that need campaign measurement, executive reporting, and candidate offer communications.
Ultimate Edition	Custom pricing	Outsourced custom solution, project manager, data validation, calculation, QA and upload, 14+ languages, and promotional video content.	Organizations that want a managed, customized implementation or need multilingual and video materials.

The Free Edition is a practical starting point for employee statements, but it does not include the listed paid analytics, promotion, reporting, or candidate features. Professional Edition adds those capabilities and a dedicated success contact. Ultimate Edition goes further by including project management and outsourced data preparation, a better match for teams that prefer delivery support over managing the workflow themselves. No seat or usage quotas are stated for these plans.

Platforms

TotalRewards Software is available on the web. The cloud-based Free Edition and personalized portals suit browser-based communication, while no other platform is identified.

Who it's for

The strongest fit is an HR team that needs to explain total rewards to employees and connect those communications with targeted campaigns, engagement measurement, and executive reporting. Talent acquisition teams can also benefit when they want candidates to see a fuller picture of an offer and need to track acceptance and rejection. It is less compelling for an organization looking only for peer recognition, or for compensation benchmarking without employee and candidate communications.

Pros and cons

Broad employee reward coverage: Statements can bring pay, incentives, benefits, work/life offerings, and recognition together instead of focusing on one element.
Connects employee and candidate communications: CandidateRewards presents both cash and non-cash rewards with company culture content, extending the product beyond internal HR.
Paid editions support measurement and reporting: Surveys, engagement tracking, and executive compensation reports can help teams evaluate campaigns and communicate findings.
Free Edition has a narrow stated scope: It covers statement production and spreadsheet upload, while analytics, promotion modules, reporting, and candidate statements are in Professional Edition.
Paid costs require a quote: Professional and Ultimate Edition pricing is custom, so buyers cannot compare those editions on a published price alone.
Web-only platform listing: Teams seeking a listed native mobile or desktop app should weigh that constraint.

Alternatives

Total Rewards Software is a category directory for comparing options. Consider Bonusly instead if peer recognition is the priority: its free plan is billed forever for up to 8 users and includes Slack and Teams integrations plus iOS and Android apps. Guusto may suit teams focused on sending rewards, with a free plan that has no minimum reward spend, a mobile app, and access to 100+ merchant options.

Pave Market Data is a more focused choice for compensation benchmarks: its free Market Data Lite plan covers U.S. benchmarks and one additional market for startups with 1–200 employees. Aon Activate is another paid option. Conduent Life@Work Total Rewards is also a paid option. Kudos is a paid alternative whose rewards are optional and pricing varies by client needs. Motivosity is a paid option with custom pricing for its Celebrating People plan. WTW Total Rewards Portal is another paid portal option.

Verdict

TotalRewards Software is best for HR and talent acquisition teams that need a shared approach to employee reward statements, candidate offers, and the communications around them. Its strongest reason to choose it is the combination of personalized employee and candidate portals with promotion analytics and executive reporting. Look elsewhere if the need is narrower—such as peer recognition or benchmarking—or if paid features must fit a known published budget.

	TotalRewards Software	Xoxoday Empuls
Free plan	Yes
Free trial	Yes
Paid from	Free
Platforms	Web	Android, api, iOS, Web
Free plan	Yes
Benefits management	Yes
Recognition and rewards	Yes
Employee self-service	Yes
Mobile access	Yes
Reward types		gift cards
Redemption catalog		Yes
Incentive campaigns		Yes
Global rewards		Yes
HRIS integrations		Yes

TotalRewards Software vs Xoxoday Empuls

TotalRewards Software

Xoxoday Empuls