How much do culture assessments cost?
Unfortunately, that is one of those “how long is a piece of string” questions, because once you start digging into the culture assessments out there, you’ll find them almost impossible to compare.
For example, the Human Synergistics and Barrett Values culture assessments have been around a long time, but you generally only get access to them through their certified consultants, which makes pricing almost impossible to determine (since it’s wrapped into the consulting). These types of assessments tend to be one-off, and the reports are often PDFs, and the role of the consultant is to help you interpret the results and develop action plans. It is possible (at least with Human Synergistics) to get certified to deliver the assessments inside your own organization, but that typically costs a few thousand dollars and an in-person training. Then after that you’d pay per survey and report.
There are some companies that let you simply purchase a culture assessment and a report, including us. The CORE version of our WorkXO culture assessment starts at a flat fee of $4,500 (for up to 200 employees) and gives you a PDF report showing results on all 64 building blocks of culture, as well as the culture patterns in the 8 core elements. OCAI uses the competing values framework and can give you a high level report for only $600.
Your other option is an online culture assessment platform. Culture assessment platforms are usually sold as annual software subscriptions. You pay the annual fee, upload your employee roster into the platform, and then you can deploy the culture assessment whenever you want (and as often as you want, as long as you continue to pay the annual fee). Examples in this category are Culture Amp, Culture IQ, and our very own WorkXO culture assessment that is included in QuestionPro’s Workforce product.
The companies that sell these platforms frequently don’t list the pricing publicly (they want to get you on a demo, I get it), but according to Capterra, Culture Amp starts at $4,500 per year ($10,500 per year for organizations with 201-2000 employees) and Culture IQ starts at almost $20,000(!). QuestionPro’s Workforce platform starts at about $7500.
You’ll also find platforms that have an entirely different focus (like team performance) that throw in a culture assessment as part of it. For example, a company called Cloverleaf has an automated coaching product for individuals and teams, which includes the ability to run a good number of assessments, including their “culture pulse” assessment. That’s about $1,200 per year, but it’s only for one team.
Finally, when pricing a culture assessment you have to understand what you plan to DO with the data and reporting, which could cost you more money. Think of it in terms of these steps:
- Collect and display the data
- Analyze and slice and dice the data
- Interpret the results
- Change the culture
In our case, the $4,500 CORE WorkXO assessment covers the first bullet, and if you want to slice and dice your data by subgroups you’ll do the platform version (starts at $6,000). We then add on consulting fees to help you with interpretation, action planning, and culture change management which can run you another $40,000 or more, depending on what kind of help you need.
Bottom line
Plan on spending $5,000 to $10,000 on a good culture assessment, and I’d budget between $30,000 to $100,000 per year in consulting if you don’t feel you have enough staff with the bandwidth to do ongoing culture change management. Let us know if you want to discuss in more detail for your particular circumstances.